Landscape with Rainbow (1859). Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
As part of his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States today, Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden received a bounty of gifts from lawmakers, including a large painting by Robert S. Duncanson loaned to the couple by the Smithsonian Museum, and presented by Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri.
The 1859 work, titled
Landscape With Rainbow, was painted by Duncanson, a Black artist, two years before the onset of the Civil War, and depicts a pastoral scene sparsely populated with cows and people, with a rainbow above that symbolizes renewal and hope.
Dale Chihuly has a reputation for creating stunning art by manipulating the mesmeric beauty and aesthetic of glass.
On Monday, The Society of the Four Arts unveiled installations of two of his works Black and Yellow Herons and Red Bulbous Reeds from his Fiori (Italian for flowers) series, which will be on view at the Philip Hulitar Sculpture Garden through May 2.
Although many of Chihuly s fans know him as a glass artist, his artistic career started with weaving as a primary medium.
He told the Daily News it was the beauty and power of stained-glass windows he encountered during his travels during the 1960s that moved him to start incorporating glass shards into woven tapestries while in college at the University of Washington in 1963.
Photo: Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. The actual date of the painting isn’t given in the archives but Alfred Thompson Bricher, the artist who painted the sailboat on Shinnecock Bay at sunset, lived from 1837 to 1908. The print in the Library of Congress says the work was published in 1887 by L. Prang & Company so we can reasonably assume the painting was produced sometimes before that. The Smithsonian American Art Museum says that Bricher painted seascapes up and down the Atlantic coast in his career. He is often associated with the Hudson River School.
Feb 4, 2021
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The concept of a collective Latino identity began to emerge in the mid-20th century. Explore how Latino artists shaped the artistic movements of their day, often using their work to communicate with a larger public about social justice and themes of diversity, identity, and community. Price: Registration is required for this event.
Member Fee: $15 Non-Member Fee: $25
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Wallpaper printed in support of the Constitutional Union Party’s presidential candidate, John Bell, in 1860. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, gift of Mrs. Frederick F. Thompson.
In July 1848, frustrated by Congress’ inability to agree on what to do about slavery in the territories, Delaware senator John Clayton proposed a compromise. Congress, he thought, should stay out of the issue entirely and allow the status of slavery in the territories “to be settled by the silent operation of the Constitution itself.” If an issue over slavery arose within the territories, Clayton proposed, let the Supreme Court decide what the Constitution decreed. John Hale, the intrepid antislavery senator from New Hampshire, thought Clayton’s idea was ridiculous. The Constitution did not speak with one voice on slavery, Hale noted. It “was interpreted as variously as the Bible.” John C. Calhoun, the proslavery senator from South Carolina, “was for leav