Categories
Images on the Web Innovative Technology Museums News

The Story of the Beautiful: Virtual Tours of Whistler’s “Peacock Room”

A collaborative website—The Story of the Beautiful: Freer, Whistler, and Their Points of Contact—between the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Wayne State University presents a virtual tour of James McNeil Whistler (1834–1903)’s Peacock Room. Users are given the option to visit the room as it existed in London in 1876 or as it appeared after Charles Lang Freer moved the room to Detroit and reassembled it there in 1908. In addition to panning through the 3D interior space of the room, users can click on individual objects for more information as well as supplementary content including maps, timelines, and archival material from the Charles Lang Freer Papers. The team behind the website describes their project:

The site thus functions both as a digital archive and as an immersive virtual environment in which users can explore the room, learn about the objects it has contained, and see how the places and faces associated with the room contributed to its history. Anchored by the two virtual tours, the site offers users a deeply contextualized way to navigate the collections: some 400 digital objects, among them the room itself, the objects it has contained, as well as archival materials such as photographs, bills of sale, and correspondence.

In addition to exploring the Peacock Room virtually, users can browse the obects in the collection and digitized content from the archives separately. For more information, visit the website.

Via ArtDaily.

Categories
Innovative Technology Museums

The Art Institute of Chicago’s Indoor GPS App

Ever find yourself lost and aimlessly wandering around the Art Institute of Chicago?

Now there’s an app for that.

The Art Institute announced Wednesday that it’s the first museum in the world to create a free “indoor GPS app” to make art more accessible to locals, out-of-towners and those who simply can’t find their way around a Degas painting or a Rodin sculpture.

The app provides customized tours that take guests on journeys through the museum. Tours are organized by occasions (such as a first date, family outing), theme (Chicago artists, fashion in art, etc.) and collections (American folk art, contemporary art, African art). Tours are also organized by time, whether guests plan on spending an entire day or just a few hours.

Via DNAInfo.com.

Categories
Exhibitions Images on the Web Innovative Technology Museums

Royal Academy of Arts Winter Exhibition Catalogues (1870–1939) Now Online

The Royal Academy of Arts has digitized and made freely available their Winter loan exhibition catalogs from the program’s beginning in 1879 to 1939. 

The exhibition catalogs have been made available on the Royal Academy of Art’s collections search page where they can be browsed or searched for terms including artists, titles, and lenders. The catalogs included in this project present essays by several prominent art historians of the early 19th century as well as reproductions of the 3,000 artworks included in the exhibitions. Thumbnail images of artworks have been included with links to the related pages from the institutional repositories where the objects are held, many of which are now held in collections such as the Tate, the National Gallery or Ireland, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Wallace Collection. The Royal Academy has also digitized related installation photographs to provide historical context for the exhibitions.

For more information, visit the Royal Academy of Arts Collections page here or browse the collection here.

Categories
Exhibitions Modern - Contemporary Museums

100th Anniversary of the Armory Show and New Web Resources

In 1913, a landmark exhibition—the International Exhibition of Modern Art—also known as the Armory Show toured the country, first in New York at the 69th Regiment Armory (February 17–March 15), in Chicago at the Art Institute of Chicago (March 24–April 16), and Boston, at the Copley Society (April 23–May 14). For the first time ever, European modern and avant-garde artists such Brancusi, Duchamp, Matisse, and Picass were exhibited to the US public. And while New York and Boston each had presentations of the exhibition, Chicago was the only venue to exhibit the works in a fine art museum. And in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Armory Show, there are new web resources that explore the development, installation, and reception of the

The Art Institute of Chicago has a web module about their presentation of the Armory Show, including background information about the individuals responsible for bring the Armory Show to the US, in situ gallery installation photographs mapped onto present day gallery spaces at the museum, PDFs of the original exhibition catalog, and other contextual information.

The Archives of American Art at he Smithsonian Institute has a timeline of the Armory Show, “The Story in Primary Sources,” that presents digitized documents pertaining to the watershed exhibition in chronological order. The project description describes how the various primary source materials provide context for the exhibition:

Together the letters, sales records, printed ephemera, and personal diaries paint a picture of the Armory Show that is as dynamic as the stunning diversity of works on display.

Both websites also include detailed bibliographic information for further research. For more information, explore the Art Institute’s website or the Archives of American Art’s website.

Categories
Architecture Images on the Web Modern - Contemporary

Archigram Archival Project

The Archigram Group emerged in UK during the early 1960s, and while many of their projects from 1961–74 went unbuilt, they extended a significant international infuence. The Archigram Archival Project is a digital collection of the work by Archigram that is freely available online for viewing and study. Hosted by the University of Westminster, the database contains images and contextual information, linking together alternate versions created for the same project. The website describes the scope of the project:

Almost 10,000 items are included in this archive, including digital versions of drawings, collages, paintings, photographs, magazines, articles, slides and multi-media material, accompanied by original texts by Archigram wherever these are available. Around half of these items belong to the 202 projects currently listed and given project numbers by Dennis Crompton in the Archigram Archives. The rest are supporting and contextual material such as letters, photos, texts and additional projects provided by the depositors.

The AAP focuses on the main Archigram period of 1961-1974, but includes all the projects, both before and after these dates, which have been included in the project list of the Archigram Archives at the time of doing the project. The main omissions from the Archigram Archival Project website are the films, television programmes and audio-visual material which for technical or copyright reasons cannot be included at this stage. Some projects and project material have been lost over the years; both we and Archigram members would welcome approaches from anyone holding material or copies of material which is not included here.

For more information, visit the Archigram Archival Project or the Archigram website.

Via Deep Focus

Categories
Modern - Contemporary

French Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago

The VRC recently added the French Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago to the growing app library of art image resources we have available on the VRC’s iPad 2. The app is based on the book The Age of French Impressionism (2010) by curators Douglas Druick and Gloria Groom, and contains high-resolution images of more than 100 iconic works from the Art Institute’s collections as well as text entries about each artwork as well as biographies of the 22 artists represented in the app, including Seurat, Van Gogh, Monet, Caillebotte, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec. The app also includes videos and virtual tours of select Art Institute galleries.

Stop by the VRC to check out this app and many others! Click here for a list of other great image iPad apps that have been reviewed by the VRC.

 

 

Categories
Modern - Contemporary Museums News

The MoMA PS1 Archives

The Museum of Modern Art has opened the MoMA PS1 Archives to the public. The collection contains more than 300 linear feet, representing the entire history of the art space, from its opening in 1971 to the present (PS1 merged with MoMA in 1999). The majority of the material pertains to exhibition and press records, but the project description notes:

The records provide extensive documentary evidence of an institution that was in the vanguard of nonprofit spaces and at the heart of the 1970s and 1980s New York art world—and that continues to be a vital center for the exploration and exhibition of contemporary art today. Documentation of particular historical significance in the Archives includes records of the institution’s founding and growth in the early 1970s; exhibition and curatorial records for nearly 900 exhibitions and events over 35 years; materials documenting the National and International Studio Program and the publications program; and records of founder and former director Alanna Heiss.

In addition to the finding aids for the nine series of records, there are several web resources including a chronology, a publication history, an artists index, and a complete exhibition history. Several of these resources are cross-referenced for greater utility to researchers.

The MoMA PS1 Archives can be consulted by appointment at the MoMA Archives reading room at MoMA QNS, open Mondays, 11 am–5 pm.

For more information, visit the project website and the finding aids.

Image: “Exterior View of P.S. 1,” photograph by Jonathan Dent, 1976. MoMA PS1 Archives, VIII.I.8. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York.

 

Categories
East Asian VRC

The Buddhas of Mes Aynak Screening on Thursday 2/7

The Buddhas of Mes Aynak, a new film by Brent Huffman, Assistant Professor, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, will be screened at the University of Chicago on Thursday, February 7 at 4:30 pm in Swift Hall, Room 106.

The Buddhas of Mes Aynak directed by Brent E. Huffman  tells the story of the archaeological site, as well as the dangerous environment the mine has created for archaeologists, Chinese workers, and local Afghans. The film follows several main characters, including Philippe Marquis, a French archaeologist leading emergency conservation efforts; Abdul Qadeer Temore, an Afghan archaeologist at the Afghan National Institute of Archaeology; Liu Wenming, a manager for the China Metallurgical Group Corporation; and Laura Tedesco, an American archaeologist working for the U.S. State Department.

For more information view the film’s Facebook page.

Via UChicagoArts

Categories
Software Tech Support

Changing Text Box Background Color in Photoshop

Are you trying to add labels to maps, charts, drawings, or other images in Photoshop? Are you finding it impossible to change the background color of your text box?

If so, that’s because it is impossible! Photoshop does not have this functionality. There is a workaround, however, if you’d like to continue working with your image in Photoshop:

First, create your text box by selecting the “T” tool from your Photoshop Toolbox.

You can change the size, style, and color of your font from the top menu.

Next, find your Rectangle Tool. It may be hidden behind a tool that looks like a forward slash (/). To switch tools, mouse over the / icon and hit control, then select the Rectangle Tool.

Using the Rectangle Tool, draw a box around your text. You can adjust the color and opacity from the top menu. If you don’t see an option for opacity at top, you can change the opacity from the layer adjustment tools at right.

You can then send the box you made behind the text by going to Layer > Arrange > Send Backward.

By default, each time you create a new object or text box you will create a new layer. You may want to flatten the image periodically, if you know that you won’t be making further adjustments to some boxes/text. You can also learn more about managing your layers in CS6 by viewing this tutorial.

 

Categories
Innovative Technology Modern - Contemporary Museums News VRC

Art Resources from the Mid-20th Century

The Guggenheim and Whitney Libraries have collaborated to digitize selections from the personal libraries of Hilla Rebay and Juliana, the inaugural directors of the museums, respectively. The digital library—Art Resources from the Mid-20th Century: Digitized Highlights from the Libraries of Hilla Rebay and Juliana Force—is available publicly via the Internet Archive. They describe how the collections were developed by Rebay and Force, female museum directors whose institutions were both founded in the 1930s:

Each woman acquired a considerable library during her tenure, collecting materials ranging from the uncommon (gallery announcements from New York and beyond, as well as rare and unusual periodicals and books) to the required reading of the day (exhibition catalogs and major monographs on contemporary artists). These important resources influenced the two women, who in turn influenced the vision and development of their respective institutions, which remain integral to the city’s cultural life today.

The museum libraries digitized selected volumes from each collection to display the materials together online, which helps highlight the similarities and differences between each collection. The Internet Archive, which hosts the collection, offers robust functionality including cataloging data, and the ability to view the fully digitized materials online in a book reader software or to download as a PDF of e-book reader file, including EPUB and Kindle.

To visit the project collection page for Art Resources from the Mid-20th Century: Digitized Highlights from the Libraries of Hilla Rebay and Juliana Force, click here. For more information, please also explore project summaries from the Guggenheim and the Whitney.