Tag Archives: photography

Libraries Artists Shine

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Congratulations to Jody Mussoff, Doug Dunlop, and Huston Dove, Libraries catalogers whose artwork was selected for inclusion in Artists at Work 2011, a juried exhibition organized by the Smithsonian Community Committee.

Jody's piece is an earthenware plate titled Woman With Bird. The bird looks as if it's taking off into flight from inside a book's pages; this is yet another example of her charming book-themed art.

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Doug has a highly imaginative oil painting whose title, Alchemical Consciousness, encapsulates key motifs in the work.

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Huston Dove, contract cataloger with LSSI, contributed a reflective photograph of water cascading out of a reservoir dam.

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The Artists at Work 2011 exhibition is now in its fourth year, and we look forward to more staff contributions in coming years!

Images, from top:  Jody Mussoff: Woman With Bird. (Earthenware) Doug Dunlop: Alchemical Consciousness. (Oil on canvas) Huston Dove: Untitled. (Photograph).

Congratulations … Again!

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In a happy coincidence, for the second consecutive year the annual Award for Photography by the Northern Virginia Review, a publication of literature and the arts, has been given to a Library Systems & Services employee, Todd Morgan, who works onsite in the Libraries' Cataloging Department. Todd was honored for his photograph "Broken Pier," taken on a lake in Michigan, and follows cataloger Huston Dove's 2010 win for his breathtaking photograph "Bridge Series #8." Todd, who spent six years as a teacher in Sendai, Japan before coming to the Smithsonian as a volunteer, has been working for LSSI since 2006.

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"Broken Pier" by Todd Morgan

Additionally, my photograph "Autumn" was selected for inclusion into this, the Northern Virginia's Review's Silver Anniversary edition. I've been onsite in Cataloging as LSSI's project manager since 2000, and divide my time between my home in Georgetown and a 120 acre farm outside of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. My photograph was taken last fall on a pond in Lost River, West Virginia.

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"Autumn" by Brian Judge

The unveiling of the 2011 edition of the Northern Virgina Review took place in Annandale on March 22th, following a gala reception, with Claudia Emerson, the 2006 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Poetry, as the guest speaker.

Both Todd and I were honored to have been chosen from the hundreds of photographs submitted, and happier yet that this is the second year in a row that an LSSI employee working at the Libraries has won the top prize.

—Brian Judge

Pictures In A Minute

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Today in 1947 the Polaroid Land camera made its debut.

Polaroid Land Camera Catalog

The Libraries featured Polaroid items from its trade literature collection last year, as well as museum objects from the National Museum of American History.

—Elizabeth Periale

Say Cheese

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Polaroid catalog

From the first camera obscura to the modern digital camera it's time to celebrate Camera Day. Well, actually, June 29 was Camera Day, but it's always great to celebrate!

You can find many catalogs from camera manufacturers in the Trade Literature Collection at the National American History Museum Library.

This image and more on the Libraries' Flickr site are all from Polaroid catalogs.

—Ninette Dean

The Pageant of America

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The Smithsonian American Art/National Portrait Gallery Library has in its collection the photograph archive, The Pageant of America. This collection has also recently been digitized by The New York Public Library:

Mrs. Wood as Lady Gay Spanker ... Digital ID: 99409. New York Public Library

In 1926, the United States celebrated its sesquicentennial, and a number of special projects were organized to document the country's people, history, culture, and folkways. One such project was The Pageant of America: A Pictorial History of the United States, published by Yale University Press from 1925 to 1929. Professor Ralph Henry Gabriel edited the work, and all told, it contained 15 volumes that addressed themes like exploration, arts and leisure, industry, commerce, and politics. This digital collection from the New York Public Library contains over 7000 of the published and unpublished photographs and prints used in these extravagant volumes. It's great just to look through the "Source Title" headings found by clicking on "Collection Contents" near the top of the page. Here visitors can meander through sections like "In defense of liberty", "American idealism", and "The American spirit in architecture". One can imagine that this collection could be used in American studies classroom, or in a setting that addresses the history of photography.

The Libraries describes the multiple volumes in its catalog:

v. 1. Adventures in the wilderness, by Clark Wissler, C.L. Skinner and William Wood.

v. 2. The lure of the frontier, a story of race conflict, by R.H. Gabriel.

v. 3. Toilers of land and sea, by R.H. Gabriel.

v. 4. The march of commerce, by Malcolm Keir.

v. 5. The epic of industry, by Malcolm Keir.

v. 6. The winning of freedom, by William Wood and R.H. Gabriel.

v. 7. In defense of liberty, by William Wood and R.H. Gabriel.

v. 8. Builders of the Republic, by F.A. Ogg.

v. 9. Makers of a new nation, by J.S. Bassett.

v. 10. American idealism, by L.A. Weigle.

v. 11. The American spirit in letters, by S.T. Williams.

v. 12. The American spirit in art, by F.J. Mather, Jr., C.R. Morey and W.J. Henderson.

v. 13. The American spirit in architecture, by T.F. Hamlin.

v. 14. The American stage, by O.S. Coad and Ewin Mims, Jr.

v. 15. Annals of American sport, by J.A. Krout.

The National Museum of American History Library and the Smithsonian American Art/National Portrait Gallery Library have some additional similar titles that may prove of interest . . .

—Elizabeth Periale, with the very able assistance of Chris Cottrill