Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror by Parmigianino

The New York School Poets

From Bernadette Mayer to Joan Mitchell. Tracing the path from the New York School poets to their painter friends.
Detail from a poster for "Sapphire Show" designed by Eileen Nelson

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.
Marie Antoinette by Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun

The Drama of Point d’Alençon Needle Lace

In its heyday, lace was beautiful, expensive, and handmade. Naturally, lace smuggling became the stuff of legend.
Collage of buttons

Message in a Button

A dive into the the University of Connecticut Pins and Button Collection gives a wearable history of progressive causes.
Painting of a woman's hand holding a pomegranate

The Paradoxical Pomegranate

Aphrodisiac and contraceptive, enflaming and cooling, the pomegranate was a balancing act, mediating between opposing states.
Mario Montez

How Latin Camp Rocked the New York Underground

Puerto Rican queers produced theater and film that made them mainstays of the New York underground arts movement of the 1950s and ’60s.
A reliquary shrine attributed to Jean de Touyl, ca. 1325-50

What’s in the Box? The Art of Reliquaries

The cult of relics dates back to the second and third centuries, when Christian martyrs were often killed in ways that fragmented the body.
Illustration of a pink unicorn and an amazed young man

The Unicorns of JSTOR

These rare creatures have by turn—and somewhat paradoxically—been associated with purity, fertility, seduction, healing, sacrifice, immortality, and divinity.

Fall in Love with Fabric Samples

Donald Brothers was a storied Scottish firm that produced amazing fabric designs. Feast your eyes on a selection today.
Intricate Paper cutting of a hunting scene by Dutch artist Joanna Koerten

Joanna Koerten’s Scissor-Cut Works Were Compared to Michelangelo

And then, snip by snip, she was cut out of the frame of Renaissance art history.