The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects
Forever for the Culture
THE CURATORS OF CULTURE: Celebrate Black digital art in this essay collection revealing how Black artists have shaped everything from TikTok dances to viral memes Steven Underwood digs into the current Black digital arts movement that has shaped popular culture for the last decade. He connects this current space to historical influences, speaking to a "legacy of audacity and daring that presented us with the opportunity to redirect the conversations on Blackness back on its center. Back to Black people." Written as a collection of thought-provoking essays pulling in social commentary, interviews, popular culture, and deep research, Underwood taps into a topic that is incredibly relevant but often unknown. The nature of the internet is so ephemeral that sometimes we forget when we do something worth celebrating. For Black people particularly, that's unforgiveable. Digital Black art has become increasingly more outspoken, introspective, and genre-defining. But it's also vulnerable. Original phrases, tweets, dances, songs, and other content are often taken from a Black artist and attributed to a white influencer. And Black creators are paid less for their work, though their engagement is often higher than that of their white peers. There is also the added risk of backlash and hate that comes with publicly existing online. As an award-winning writer with a popular online presence, Underwood is no stranger to the experiences of Black digital artists. Using his own personal stories, he highlights the beauty, vulnerability, and innovation of the Black digital arts movement. Shining a light on the curators of our culture, Forever for the Culture narratively follows the construction of a new Black art movement and how creators have defined a community when that community does not have a physical space.
In the Shadow of Empire
A pioneering look at an immensely creative period in Japanese art that developed amid the Cold War. Alicia Volk brings to light a significant body of postwar Japanese art, exploring how it accommodated and resisted the workings of the American empire during the early Cold War. Volk's groundbreaking account presents the points of view of Japanese artists and their audiences under American occupation and amid the ruins of war. Each chapter reveals how artists embraced new roles for art in the public sphere--at times by enacting radical critiques of established institutions, values, and practices--and situates a range of compelling art objects in their intersecting artistic and political worlds. Centering on the diverse and divisive terrain of Japanese art between 1945 and 1952, In the Shadow of Empire creates a fluid map of relationality that brings multiple Cold War spheres into dialogue, stretching beyond US-occupied Japan to art from China, Europe, the Soviet Union, and the United States, and demonstrates the rich potential of this transnational site of artmaking for rethinking the history of Japanese and global postwar art.
Sussex Modernism
A look at how artists and writers harnessed the landscapes, cultures, and histories of their locations to reimagine how art should be made and life lived Hope Wolf explores a breadth of work by over 70 artists associated with different modernist movements who either visited or resided in Sussex. Well-known figures, including Virginia Woolf, Jacob Epstein, David Jones, Gluck, Edward Burra, and Lee Miller, are joined by countercultural artists of the 1960s-1980s, women artists whose power was regional rather than national, as well as the voices of modernism's opponents. Offering a new history of modernism, this book intertwines literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, film, photography, textiles, music, and domestic decoration across a period of over 100 years. Revealing how artists drew on their environments to promote psychic and social change, Sussex Modernism is a book of jostling perspectives on art, place and politics.
The Empire’s New Cloth
A groundbreaking study of textiles as transcultural objects in the Qing court that provides a new understanding of the interconnectedness of the early modern world In the early modern period luxury textiles circulated globally as trade goods and diplomatic gifts, fostering cultural exchange between distant regions. By the eighteenth century, both China and Europe had developed a splendid tradition of silk and tapestry weaving. While the role of Chinese silk imports in Europe has been well studied, this book reconstructs the forgotten history of the eastward movement of European textiles to China and their integration into the arts and culture of the Qing Empire. The Empire's New Cloth explores how Qing court workshops adapted European textile designs and techniques and uncovers the specific uses and meanings of these textiles in imperial military ceremonies, religious spaces, and palace interiors. Through careful study of a wide range of previously unpublished objects, Mei Mei Rado illuminates how these cross-cultural textiles provided the visual and material means for the Qing ruler to convey political messages. By revealing how Qing imperial patrons and artisans responded and assigned meanings to European influences, this beautifully illustrated volume highlights the reciprocity in eighteenth-century Sino-European exchanges and centers textiles within the dynamic global flow of objects and ideas.
The Pocket Impressionism
An introduction to Impressionism, the rebellious 19th century art movement.Characterized by its spontaneous, short brush stokes, natural subject focus and emphasis on light, Impressionism remains one of the most famous artistic movements of all time. Given how celebrated the style is today, it is perhaps difficult to believe that the Impressionists were frequently shunned by their contemporaries and excluded from established art exhibitions. In this introductory guide to the defiant world of Impressionism, you will be introduced to ten of the movement's pioneers - Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro - as well as lesser-known figures such as Marie Braquemondand Berthe Morisot. You will learn about their personal lives, their artistic ambitions and how their legacies continue to influence the creation of art today. Gemini Pockets From little guides to soothe your soul to all-access passes to the lives of pop icons, and from quizzes and puzzles for literature lovers to books on food, nature, fashion, and more, Gemini Pockets are the perfect fit for your life and interests.
Karamu Artists Inc.
An exploration of the rich history of printmaking at Cleveland's Karamu House, a center of Black arts, culture, and community since 1915 Karamu House, founded as a settlement house in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1915, is one of the preeminent homes of Black arts, culture, and community in America. Noted for its theater program, Karamu House also hosts a rich legacy in the graphic arts. Printmaking workshops open to artists and community alike launched in the 1930s, allowing a young Langston Hughes--as one notable example--to experiment with print. Linked with printmaking's ethos of accessibility and democracy, a group including Elmer W. Brown, Hughie Lee-Smith, Charles L. Sallée Jr., and William E. Smith--some of the most prominent Black printmakers of the WPA era--founded Karamu Artists, Inc. Reproductions of works by such artists are accompanied by essays situating the prints, the artists, and this locus of Black arts and culture in the histories it shaped. These writings are complemented by an interview with printmaker and Karamu alumnus Curlee Raven Holton. Distributed for the Cleveland Museum of Art Exhibition Schedule: Cleveland Museum of Art (March 23-August 17, 2025)