American sculptor Alexander Calder in a studio surrounded by his work, c. 1955

Alexander Calder, Sculptor

Calder was known for both his delicately balanced kinetic sculptures and the massive steel abstractions he designed for public squares around the world.
Charlotte Cushman, 1843

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.
Interior of the Musée des Monuments Français, between 1795 and 1816

Saving Art from the Revolution, for the Revolution

Alexandre Lenoir’s Musée des monuments français, founded to protect French artifacts from the revolutionary mobs, was one of the first popular museums of Europe.
Maud Lewis

Remembering Maud Lewis

A symbol of resilience and resourcefulness, Lewis remains one of Canada’s best-loved and most-celebrated folk artists.
Hand drawn illustration of african woman with pink hair

Going “Black to the Future”

How has Afrofuturism supported the imagining of other worlds in the face of the anthropogenic climate crisis?
Georgette Chen, Self Portrait, c. 1946

The Genius of Georgette Chen

Little known outside of Singapore and Malaysia, Georgette Chen was an iconic artist of the Nanyang Style.
An image from Costume book of Matthaus Schwarz from Augsburg, 1520 - 1560

The Art of Renaissance Clothes

While Spanish Catholicism and reformatory Protestantism favored black clothing, much of the Renaissance happened in an explosion of color.
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.