Carleton Watkins and Photography’s Romance wi...

As a child, Alan Michelson often rode the T past sculptor Cyrus Edward Dallin’s “Appeal to the Great Spirit” (1908) outside the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). He was riveted by the statue’s grand horse and the powerful yet melancholy figure wearing a striking Plains Indian wa ...  Show more

When World War II broke out, museums across France took their most precious artworks off the walls and hid them away for safekeeping from bombing. But no one suspected the greatest threat to these treasures: the Nazis’ massive art looting scheme, wherein they sought to plunder mu ...  Show more

Art historian T.J. Clark began his academic career with two groundbreaking works on the art of mid-nineteenth century France, expounding materialist theory of art that has remained his watchword for five decades, with books on Poussin, Cézanne, Picasso and modernism. Those Passio ...  Show more

Documenting a culture can be a daunting process, especially when it involves a history of conquest and colonialism. Synthesizing such a complex and traumatic past in a contemporary narrative is a formidable task, requiring extensive researchh and dedicated planning. This is the b ...  Show more

Photography matters, writes Jerry Thompson, because of how it works--not only as an artistic medium but also as a way of knowing. With this provocative observation, Thompson begins a wide-ranging and lucid meditation on why photography is unique among the picture-making arts. In ...  Show more

Grant Wood (1891-1942) is probably best known for his double portrait depicting a man and woman on a farmstead - that icon of American painting, American Gothic. But his career encompassed so much more, and was marked by an uncanny ability to weave and deconstruct "American value ...  Show more