Ingres vs Delacroix, a slideshow from ARTstor

Are you a fan of Ingres' precise drawings? Or a romantic like Delacroix? Did you know they lived at the same time? It is easy to forget, because their painting styles are so very different.

The database ARTstor has posted in interesting article and slideshow comparing these two iconic artists of the 19th Century, including an account of a testy interchange they had at a party. Take a look, and don't miss the slideshow: Ingres vs Delacroix: An artistic rivalry spills over at a party.

This is very likely my last post as TMA Librarian, as I leave at the end of the month. I've loved working with you all, and being your librarian. --Lisa Bunker

Last rites

What was the last work of Basquiat? Stuart Davis? Edward Hopper? What was their parting shot? I just discovered a blog that is collecting the last works of artists. If you're on Tumblr you can follow it: http://endpiece.tumblr.com/.

Romance. Longing. Art. Georgia. Alfred.

"Mabel's place beats anything you can imagine about it — it is simply astonishing," O'Keeffe writes. "... The drive up here — seventy-five miles — was wonderful — It is bedtime and I am not a bit sleepy — not even tired — I lay in the sun a long time this afternoon — the air is cold and the wind — but the sun is hot — "

Alfred Stieglitz attached this photograph to a letter for Georgia O'Keeffe, dated July 10, 1929. Below the photograph he wrote, "I have destroyed 300 prints to-day. And much more literature. I haven't the heart to destroy this..."

What was the relationship like between Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz? A new book published by Yale University Press gives you a glimpse. It is entitled My Faraway One: selected letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, and it is available at the public library [Library catalog].

Read more about the book at NPR.org.

Happy Birthday Georgia!

Black Mesa Landscape, NM. 1930. SFMOMA

Georgia O’Keeffe was born on this day in 1887, in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. You can view hundreds of stunning images from the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum over at ArtStor: http://library.artstor.org/library/collection/okeeffe

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Or, visit the museum's website here: http://www.okeeffemuseum.org/okeeffe.html

Warhol's 1958 Illustrations for a Children's Book

Did you know Andy Warhol worked in the late 1950s as a freelance artist for the Doubleday publishing house? Here is a link to the images from a 1958 edition of The Little Red Hen: The Atlantic, October 19, 2011.

The WebMuseum, a Rich Source for Images

One of my favorite sources for painting and drawing images has long been the WebMuseum. It is particularly strong on European art of the 20th-Century, but also goes back as early as the 1200s, and contains an extensive area of Japanese art.

The images are often of very high quality, suitable for presentations or use as screen savers. I used the image on the left, Albrecht Dürer's "The Large Turf," for my screen saver for years.

The WebMuseum is one of the oldest websites still around! It was first created in 1994, a mere 3 years after the World Wide Web was developed. Its creator Nicholas Pioch believes firmly that art belongs to everyone and created the site so that people all over the world could have access to part of our cultural history.

Award-winning 20th C Art History short film

"Mona Lisa Descending the Staircase" won an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 1992, and is now viewable on YouTube. One painting morphs into another, and the morphs are so well chosen the meaning of the paintings -- and connections between artists -- are illuminated. Please watch! It is only 7 minutes long.