Mummy Visualization Project in Sweden

Mummies are being imaged with CT scanners and 3D scanning technology to capture the interior as well as the exterior surfaces, colors, and textures of the mummy as well as the cartonnage and sarcophagus. Eventually these images will result in an interactive exhibition. The Guardian describes the project as such:

The Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities (Medelhavsmuseet) in Stockholm, FARO and Autodesk have teamed up in a mummy visualisation project. The collection will be digitised using the latest 3D reality capture techniques and made available to museum visitors through an interactive exhibition experience.

Via The Guardian.

Rauschenberg Research Project

SFMOMA recently launched a new web module, the Rauschenberg Research Project, which presents more than 85 works by the artist along with related contextual and archival materials. SFMOMA holds the premier collection of Rauschenberg’s work, spanning his career from 1949–98, including combines, sculptures, paintings, photographs, prints, and works on paper.

Each artwork record includes robust cataloging data based on up-t0-date research by SFMOMA, multiple views of the object with conservation notes, contextual essays on the object’s creation and life, and ownership, exhibition, and publication histories. There are also links to related archival materials including interview videos, curatorial documents and museum files, and related artworks.

Users have the option to download content from the website, including images that are of suitable size and quality for PowerPoint presentations and PDFs of the work catalog records and the contextual essay, as well as the option to download all available materials in a zipped folder.

The project was developed by SFMOMA in conjunction with the Getty’s Online Scholarly Catalog Initiative and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

For more information and to explore the online collection, check out the Rauschenberg Research Project.

Via ArtDaily and Iris (The Getty).

New CLIR/Mellon Report on Museum Policies for Open Access to Images

In June 2013, the Council of Library and Information Resources in conjunction with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation published the report Images of Works of Art in Museum Collections: The Experience of Open Access. The report, written by Kristin Kelly, examined the policies, websites, and procedures of 11 large museums to get determine the state of open access to images.

The report has been added to our web page about Copyright Resources for Academic Publishing, which provides a list of general guides and resources as well as lists repositories that have copyright-free or copyright-lenient policies towards letting users download high quality image files of works of art. We try to keep this web page up-to-date, so if you’re aware of any collections that should be included, please don’t hesitate to let us know!

eMuseum Network Digital Collections Search

The eMuseum Network Digital Collections Search contains digital images from the catalogs of many museums, libraries, cultural institutions including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the International Center of Photography, the MFA Boston, MoMA, and more. Best of all the collection of institutions is constantly growing, and there is currently more than 1 million objects available through the search portal.

For more information, check out eMuseum.

AFRICOBRA in Chicago (and in LUNA)

Tomorrow, the Philosophy show of the three-part AFRICOBRA in Chicago exhibition opens at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts. AFRICOBRA in Chicago presents three current and upcoming shows in Chicago take a deserved look at the Black Arts Movement in Chicago and the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (AFRICOBRA), which was founded in 1968 by a group of Chicago artists. The three parts of the AFRICOBRA in Chicago exhibition are as follows:

  • Prologue, South Side Community Art Center, May 10–July 7, 2013 (curated by UChicago students)
  • Philosophy, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, June 28–August 7, 2013 (curated by Rebecca Zorach)
  • Art and Impact, DuSable Museum, July 26–September 29, 2013

Many works from the exhibitions are from the collection of the South Side Community Art Center. The VRC is proud to include over 350 images from the SSCAC publicly in our online LUNA database.

For more information about the exhibits, visit the AFRICOBRA in Chicago website.

Via UChicago News

Round-Up of Fashion and Textile Resources

The Museum at FIT has a comprehensive list of Costume and Textile Collections Online, with annotations about what you’ll expect to find in the database and other information about each particular collection. Their list includes collections from all over the world and highlights some of the best images of textiles and garments online.

In addition to these websites, there are several other collections and databases that could be useful for researching fashion, textile, and costume:

In LUNA:

In ARTstor:

At the University of Chicago Library

Image credit: Elsa Schiaparelli. Doll, Fashion (Evening Ensemble), 1949. Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Syndicat de la Couture de Paris; Photographed by Lolly Koon. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

ICFA’s 16mm Film Collection Online

The Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C. recently digitized fourteen 16mm films from its collection. The 14 films include footage of the Dumbarton Oaks grounds from the mid-1920s to the 1940s, as well as films made by the Byzantine Institute during the 1930s and 1940s that document conservation efforts on site at the Red Sea Monastery of Saint Anthony (Egypt), Hagia Sophia (Istanbul), and Kariye Camii (Istanbul). Several of the films are in color, giving viewers a chance to see “the process of cleaning, restoration, and preservation in great detail, as well as the quality and visual impression of the mosaics in their most shining state.”

The digitized films have been made available through the video streaming service Vimeo, and can be embedded into websites.

For more information, explore the Moving Image Collection at Dumbarton Oaks and the collection accompanying archival materials in The Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers.

Via ICFA Blog

Balboa Park Online Commons

 The Balboa Park Online Commons features more than 20,000 images of unique materials from 7 San Diego museums: the Mingei International Museum, the Museum of Photographic Arts, the San Diego Air and Space Museum, the San Diego Museum of Art, the San Diego Museum of Man, the San Diego Natural History Museum, and the Timken Museum of Art.

This unified digital collection allows users to keyword search to retrieve results across institutions or to browse by museum, “featured sets” (thematic groupings of objects), or by user sets. Users can create their own set or collection of objects by creating an account on the website, and there is also a feature to download a PDF of the object record.

For more information, check out the Balboa Park Online Commons.

Via PetaPixel

 

Tate Guide to Modern Art Terms

In 2009, the Tate published The Tate Guide to Modern Art Terms and followed it with an iPad and iPhone app released in March 2012. The app defines more than 300 terms pertaining to modern art themes, movements, media, and art practices, and many definitions are illustrated with artwork examples.

The app interface allows users to search for terms or browse by image gallery or category. Users can also create a list of “favorite” art terms.

To learn more about the Tate Guide to Modern Art Terms, check out the iTunes App Store, the Tate, or visit the VRC to try it on our iPad. You can also browse the physical copy in the Regenstein reference section.

A Van Gogh Research Round-Up

With the conclusion of an eight-year long research project, Vincent van Gogh has been in the news quite a bit recently. In 2005, the van Gogh museum teamed up with Shell and the Netherland’s Cultural Heritage Agency to research the materials, tools, techniques, and working processes of the artist. The website for the research project, Van Gogh’s Studio Practice, describes contains blog posts about how the researchers approached their work and describes the aims of their research. The results of the project were not earth-shattering, but the small surprises they discovered do deepen our understanding of van Gogh’s works and his psyche. The most talked about new discovery is the fact that The Bedroom was originally painted with violet walls, but since the red pigment of the paint faded, we know the work as having blue walls.

The new exhibition at the van Gogh Museum benefits from results of this lengthy research project, and is called Van Gogh at Work (May 1, 2013–January 12, 2014). The show will contain 200 works by van Gogh as well as some contemporary artists, as well as archival materials such as letters, sketchbooks, and the artist’s palette and paint tubes. The show will also include a digital re-creation of The Bedroom to show how it would have looked with the original violet walls.

The Van Gogh Museum also has a web portal for van Gogh’s letters (written and received) that contains facsimiles, transcriptions, and detailed object information of some 900 letters and 25 miscellaneous loose sheets or drafts. You can browse the collection by period, correspondent, place, or limit your results to letters that contain sketches. Simple and advanced search features are also available. The website also contains a wealth of contextual essays, biographical information, and research tools including the publication history of van Gogh’s letters, a chronology, and detailed bibliographies of the individual letters. A few years ago, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam released an app called Yours, Vincent: The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, which contains digitized versions of van Gogh’s letters, sketches, and paintings as well as audio and video contextual clips.

Via ArtNews and the New York Times. For more information about van Gogh’s archival presence, visit Vincent van Gogh, The Letters or the Yours, Vincent app. You can always stop by the VRC to check it out, too!

Image: Vincent van Gogh. Self-portrait with a Straw Hat (verso: The Potato Peeler), probably 1887. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 67.187.70a. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.