You have the opportunity to own an awesome piece of imagery from Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction 1780-1910 and support Smithsonian Libraries exhibition programming! Now until December 7th, you can order this limited edition graphic tee through TFund. It features signature imagery from the exhibition: a so-called “man bat” from Leopold Galluzzo’s Altre scoverte fatte nella luna dal Sigr. Herschel , 1836. Click here now to buy!
The Sailing Club of the Chesapeake, to commemorate the American Bicentennial, invited members of England’s Royal Yachting Association to journey to the Eastern Seaboard for the “No Hard Feelings Cruise.” Sixty-two British sailors took up the offer, and with more than 300 others, embarked on eighty-nine yachts to race and explore the waters of the Chesapeake Bay in 1976.
As a preeminent American literary figure, Edgar Allan Poe is widely known for his tales of horror and the macabre. Less well known about Poe is his place in literary history as inventor of detective fiction, his contributions to the emergence of science fiction, and as editor of a textbook on conchology (The conchologist’s first book). It is through his work as science fiction writer that Poe found his way into Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction 1780-1910, a Smithsonian Libraries’ exhibition, now on display at the National Museum of American History in the Smithsonian Libraries gallery space located in One West.
To commemorate the opening of our newest exhibit, Artists’ Books and Africa, six artists will discuss how they develop and produce artist books. Panelists will address the inspiration for and recurring themes within their creations. The history of artist books in Africa will also be discussed. Curator Janet Stanley will lead a tour of the exhibit immediately following the discussion.
The National Portrait Gallery is currently exhibiting the work of Elaine de Kooning in the show Elaine de Kooning: Portraits, organized by Brandon Brame Fortune, the Portrait Gallery’s chief curator and senior curator of painting and sculpture. Elaine was an active member of the Abstract Expressionists in New York, a group known for a style defined by vivid colors, spontaneity and emotive strokes of thick, layered paint on monumental canvases. She married fellow Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning in 1943. However, Elaine’s work was not solely abstract, in fact, the majority of her work is representational in nature—a style that could be categorized as Figurative Expressionism.
Join us for a Tweet Up with the National Museum of American History and Smithsonian Libraries!
Friday, August 7, 9:00-10:30 A.M. (EDT).
To celebrate the opening of the Innovation Wing in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, 10 lucky Twitter followers will have the opportunity to experience a special tour of two of the wing’s exhibits led by Smithsonian experts and a behind-the-scenes tour of the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology.
