How Renaissance Art Found Its Way to American Museums
We take for granted the Titians and Botticellis that hang in galleries across the United States, little aware of the appetites and inclinations of those who acquired them.
The Long Shadow of the Jolly Bachelors
More than a century ago, Charlotte Cushman presided over a group of queer female artists who supported one another’s creativity and left a pioneering, if overlooked, legacy.
How an Unrealized Art Show Created an Archive of Black Women’s Art
Records from a cancelled exhibition reveal the challenges faced by Black feminist artists and curators in the 1970s.
How the Artists Union Shook Up the New Deal
When artists showed solidarity with one another and the larger labor movement, they won federal patronage.
How Masks of Mutilated WWI Soldiers Haunted Postwar Culture
In the age before plastic surgery, masks were the best option for veterans with faces scarred by war. The end results, however, were somewhat uncanny.
Francis Picabia’s Chameleonic Style
The Francis Picabia retrospective at MoMA is wowing museumgoers again with his ever-shifting, always challenging art.