Category Archives: American Art

Fund for African American Art: New Acquisition

As many of you know, the Brooklyn Museum launched the Fund for African American Art a few years ago. This ambitious initiative, which was covered in the New York Times, is designed to help us acquire works created by African … Continue reading

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Replicating a 19th Century Statue with 21st Century Tech

My first exposure to the world of 3D printing took place in 2009 approximately 500 feet under the Earth’s surface in a former missile silo in the Washington state desert. There, three founders of a new Brooklyn-based 3D printer company … Continue reading

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Out of Africa, 1926: Malvina Hoffman and a Senegalese Soldier

In his newly opened installation Rumination, Raw/Cooked artist Duron Jackson has included Senegalese Soldier(28.385), a remarkable work by the early-twentieth-century sculptor Malvina Hoffman. Placed in close proximity with Jackson’s Blackboard Paintings—abstracted aerial views of American prisons—Hoffman’s larger than life-sized bust … Continue reading

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Ready-to-Wear: An Eye on 20s Fashion

First impressions of the exhibition Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties might suggest that the only important article of clothing during the Jazz Age was the bathing suit. Twenties artists were drawn to swimmers because the new, revealing swimsuits—made … Continue reading

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Proving a Point with Google Images

When most of us think about the roaring twenties, we envision scenes of flappers cutting loose on the dance floor, bustling cities filling with new cars and buildings scraping the sky, Prohibition and citizens fighting for their rights.  Right?  Well, … Continue reading

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Cover Guy: Paul Cadmus by Luigi Lucioni

This face may look familiar to you . . . ! As our signature image for Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties. Luigi Lucioni’s stellar portrait of his friend and colleague, Paul Cadmus, is reproduced on BIG posters … Continue reading

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On-the-Road Research, or What Curators Do On Their Summer Vacations

One of the projects I’ve been working on is Fine Lines: American Drawings from the Brooklyn Museum, an exhibition of about 100 of our pre-1945 American drawings and sketchbooks scheduled to open in March 2013. At this stage, I’m researching … Continue reading

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The British Are Coming!

This portrait by the British painter Thomas Hudson has just been added to American Identities, the installation of the Museum’s world-renowned collections of American art. While these galleries display works of vast diversity in terms of date, medium, style, and … Continue reading

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There’s a New Girl in Town

Today an American beauty goes on view in the Museum’s European Beaux-Art Court. The Virgin by the Italo-American Futurist Joseph Stella joins the Court’s Old and Modern Masters on the northern wall nestled in between Renaissance portraits of women painted … Continue reading

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Remembering Penn Station

New York history buffs will be interested to know that this month, September 2010, marks the 100th anniversary of the opening of Penn Station. No, not the subterranean labyrinth that we now know as Penn Station—that one opened in 1968—but … Continue reading

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Architectural Fragments from Coney Island’s Steeplechase Park

On June 19, Coney Island will celebrate the beginning of summer with the annual Mermaid Parade, a colorful and highly unique procession of costumed mermaids, Neptunes, and sea creatures, marching bands, floats, antique cars, and the like. Because for many … Continue reading

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Architectural Fragments in the Brooklyn Museum Collection

We understand that you may have questions about the recent article in The Atlantic Monthly about the Museum’s Architectural Fragment collection. To begin, The Brooklyn Museum regrets that the author’s comments do not reflect the substantive content of his hours … Continue reading

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The First Harvest in the Wilderness

Valerie Hegarty’s evocation of Asher B. Durand’s 1855 painting The First Harvest in the Wilderness in her benefit print for the 1stfans program adds another chapter to the painting’s already illustrious history.  Its story begins in 1855, when the Brooklyn … Continue reading

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Jonas Platt

Samuel Finley Breese Morse (American, 1791-1872). Jonas Platt, 1828. Oil on canvas, 35 15/16 x 29 7/16 in. (91.3 x 74.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, 85.23. By the mid-1820s, Samuel F. B. Morse finally had achieved in his portraits a more … Continue reading

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John Adams

Samuel Finley Breese Morse (American, 1791-1872). Portrait of John Adams, 1816. Oil on canvas, 29 3/4 x 24 15/16 in. (75.5 x 63.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, 32.144. Samuel F. B. Morse’s unrelentingly factual portrait of the former president John Adams … Continue reading

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