With the general assistance of a host of corporations, the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution have created a probing exhibit that explores the artistic heritage of Yemen through items found in the ancient kingdoms of Qataban, Saba, and Himyar in the southern Arabian peninsula. The objects included in the exhibit include stone funerary sculpture,...

Take a tour of African American music through the ages. As part of Carnegie Hall’s Honor! A Celebration of the African American Cultural Legacy exhibit, Portia K. Maultsby’s timeline of African American music illustrates the dynamic flow of genres from the sacred and secular traditions of the 17th century to the hip-hop, techno, and new jazz swing movements of today. Click on any of the genres to...

In the late 1920s, architectural photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston began a privately funded project to document the historic Chatham estate and Old Falmouth, Virginia. After the initial success of this project, she received funding from the Carnegie Corporation to document notable buildings and landscapes throughout the American South. The Corporation required that the negatives be deposited...

"Come to the carnival" is a common refrain in New Orleans during the month of February, and this intoxicating collection from Tulane University pays homage to this wonderful cultural tradition. The collection includes over 1,500 float designs from the "Golden Age" of carnival by notable designers such as Jennie Wilde, B.A. Wikstrom, and Charles Briton. Support for the project comes from the late...

Early in the 20th century, social activist Caroline Bartlett Crane had an intriguing idea: Why not build an efficient home plan for the common man and woman? She acted on this idea, and her design was the national winner of Herbert Hoover's Better Homes of America campaign in 1924. The house was built in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it remains a private home today. This digital collection from the...

For decades, James Arthur Wood Jr. collected original cartoon art, and he also was an editorial cartoonist as well during his long career. After amassing a large collection of original drawings by various cartoon artists, he kindly donated his collection to the Library of Congress. Recently, staff members at the Library created this very nice online collection that contains a selection of these...

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) has digitized hundreds of photographs from the studio of Agustin Victor Casasola, and it is truly a wonderful pastiche of images from the city's past. Casasola started his career taking photographs of the Mexican Revolution and he set up a photography studio in El Paso in 1921. For the next two decades Casasola took thousands of photos of people in their...

Time-travel as far back as the second-century and enjoy "the textile-making traditions of Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Byzantine heartlands," with the Catalogue of the Textiles in the Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Collection. Launched in 2019, this digital publication was edited by Gudrun Buhll and Elizabeth Dospel Williams and represents a long collaboration to make this...

The inaugural exhibition at the newly renovated Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art presents the work of designer Charles James (1906–1978), known for creating architectural ball gowns for the ultra rich. The website image gallery features period photographs of some of James' most famous gowns as worn by their owners or by models, such as Austine Hearst in Charles James "Four Leaf...

Who doesn't enjoy a good satirical print now and then? The Charles Peirce Collection of Social and Political Caricatures and Ballads brings together a range of fabulous prints published in London during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This was a golden age of caricature as these risible items were often displayed in a variety of settings, becoming increasingly popular with Londoners....