Eileen Gray, 1914

Eileen Gray: Architect In Her Own Right

Without formal training as an architect, Gray created magnificent designs that sensitively blended traditional craft with a modern aesthetic.
Paul R. Williams

Paul Revere Williams: An Architect of Firsts

The first African American architect licensed in the state of California, Williams blazed a trail to the (Hollywood) stars.
Four versions of Hokusai's Great Wave, from the Art Institute of Chicago, LACMA, Tokyo National Museum, and British Museum

Under Hokusai’s Great Wave

Hokusai’s watery woodblock print is such a common sight that most people tend to look past the peril at its center.
Paul Borduas

The “Refus Global”

Published in 1948 by the artist group Les Automatistes, the Refus Global manifesto challenged Québécois political, religious, and social traditions.
Nature Sets Her Hound Youth after the Stag (from The Hunt of the Frail Stag), circa 1495–1510

Reading “The Book of Nature”

Beginning in the Middle Ages, the natural world was viewed as a Christian parable, helping humans to give divine meaning to plants, animals, and the heavens.
Barbican Towers in London

Why We Love/Hate Brutalist Architecture

Developed in response to the post-World War II housing crisis, the once celebrated Brutalism quickly became an aesthetic only an architect could love.
Christina of Denmark

Picturing Christina of Denmark

Christina of Milan, Duchess of Milan, used an unusual tool to avoid becoming one of Henry VIII's unfortunate wives—the royal portrait.
Shrunken heads in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum

Human Remains and Museums: A Reading List

Questions over their value for research conflict with the ethics of possessing the dead, especially when presenting human remains in the setting of a museum.
Denise Scott Brown 1978 © Lynn Gilbert

The Lasting Influence of Denise Scott Brown

Recognizing Scott Brown’s work is necessary for understanding American architecture in the second half of the twentieth century.
The Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1490

Lady with an Ermine Meets Nazi Art Thief Hans Frank

Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting bore witness to the administrative acts that enabled the crimes committed against Polish Jews during World War II.