Description: The Smithsonian Institution Archives will be celebrating African American History Month throughout February with a series of related posts on THE BIGGER PICTURE.
Description: [caption id="attachment_1954" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Squirrel Kisses, by Flickr user (Alex)."][/caption] It’s summer, so time for a break from serious thoughts about photographs, their meaning and impact. Instead, let’s relax and have a laugh about the pictures that make us laugh. A recent article in the business section of Time magazine describes how Ben
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="368" caption="Cybill Shepherd at the "Castle" during the filming of "Chances Are," where she plays an SI curator, 1988, by Jeff Tinsley, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 371, Box 5, Negative Number: 88-10752-31. "][/caption] The frequency with which the words “curator” and “curating” pop up continues to
Description: Savage Beauty, the posthumous and retrospective exhibition of women’s fashions designed by Alexander McQueen (1969–2010) at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art closed early in August. The record breaking event—an official attendance count of 661,509 visitors made it the eighth biggest show in the museum’s history—featured approximately one hundred ensembles drawn, primarily,
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Posing with a yearbook picture of myself, by Billy Mabray, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] I’m a fan of yearbooks. I was an editor of mine in college, a somewhat unusual, multi-volume, and boxed object that included two books, a booklet, a brochure, and (it being the late sixties) a balloon. Back then, we
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Newspapers, by Quinn Cowper, Creative Commons: BY-NC-ND 2.0."][/caption] On May 20th, a flurry of reports took note of Google’s decisions to halt its ambitious efforts to digitize the contents of newspaper archives and make them online and at no cost.