Art Nouveau: Art of Darkness
First named such in Belgium, Art Nouveau was intimately tied up with that country’s brutal rule of the Congo.
Dressmaking Liberated American Women—Then Came the Men
The creation of bespoke clothing offered women a way to escape traditional middle-class expectations and gain unprecedented power, until men took over.
The Renaissance Lets Its Hair Down
The notion that everybody was going to be hairless in Heaven may not have sat well with Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli.
Julia Morgan, American Architect
Morgan, the first licensed woman architect in California, helped bring parity to the built environment, the community, and the profession.
Edmund Dulac’s Fairy Tales Go to War
One of the best-known illustrators of the “golden age of children’s gift books,” Dulac was also a subtle purveyor of Allied propaganda during the Great War.
Tearing Down Nakagin Capsule Tower
Japanese Metabolists argued that architecture should be adaptable, changing as a city changed. Why, then, is this icon of Metabolism being dismantled?
Who Belonged to the Beaver Hall Group?
An association of Montreal-based artists, the Beaver Hall Group embraced the free-spirited Jazz Age in their work, their habits, and their lifestyles.
Latin America Revisits Its Modern Architecture
As preservationists grapple with crumbling monuments in Brazil and Peru, they’re also confronting the progressive agendas that originally shaped the buildings.
Framing Degas
The French painter Edgar Degas was Impressionism’s most energetic and inventive frame designer.
The Confounding Career of William Klein
The American artist brought the physical world into fashion photography in ways that were often unappreciated or unpredictable.