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Between Pages—the Art of Bill Traylor

Bill Traylor:People’s Artist,  Cover

On the occasion of Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor, the first major retrospective ever organized for an artist born into slavery and the most comprehensive look at Bill Traylor’s work to date, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Sept. 28, 2018 – Mar. 17, 2019, we take a look at a special Traylor work in our library collections. 

Bill Traylor’s art is colorful—floating silhouettes of yellow, red and purple dogs, rabbits and snakes; brown, green and blue people walking, talking, working and drinking.  Set against simple backgrounds, Traylor’s inspired figures interpreted the world of his youth on Alabama plantation farms through the world of his old age, the downtown streets of Montgomery.

Inside an Artist’s file: Lessons from Robert Beverly Hale

This post was contributed by Jessica Downie, 2018 Smithsonian American Art Museum summer intern with the American Art and Portrait Gallery (AA/PG) Library, and a rising senior at Bucknell University.

During my internship this summer, I have been working to merge a recent donation of materials from the Arts Students League of New York (ASL) with the AA/PG Library’s Art & Artist Files. Through the process I have come across a variety of different catalogs, announcements as well as letters and personal notes written to the director, secretary, and archivists of the ASL.

One intern’s trip around the World’s Fairs

–This post was written by Jenna Fattah, a Summer 2017 intern at the American Art & Portrait Gallery Library. She is a junior at Indiana University Bloomington studying History. She hopes to continue on to get her Masters in Library Science. Interested in interning with Smithsonian Libraries? Check out our internship opportunities for Spring 2018.

AAPG World's Fair book spines
AAPG World’s Fair book spines

As an American Art & Portrait Gallery Library intern, I was lucky to spend my summer surrounded by books, art, and bibliophiles. My largest project took me about two months to complete, but it was well worth it. When you type “World’s Fair” into the Smithsonian Library’s catalog, SIRIS, almost 1,600 items come up. Of those, almost 1,200 are original artifacts published for or by the sponsors or committees of the different World’s Fairs.

Passing the Torch: George Grosz to Marshall Glasier to Robert Cenedella

Ephemera relating to Marshall Glasier, George Grosz, and Robert Cenedella from "Igniting Artistic Consciousness"
Ephemera relating to Marshall Glasier, George Grosz, and Robert Cenedella from “Igniting Artistic Consciousness”

In conjunction with the recently opened exhibition “Igniting Artistic Consciousness: Ephemera of Twentieth Century Instructors of the Art Students League of New York” produced by Michelle Ibarra at the American Art and Portrait Gallery (AA/PG) Library, the blog has been exploring themes and artists featured in the exhibit, which will be on display through December 2017. Interested in the Art Students League and participating in Wikipedia? Join us for the Art Students League Archive Edit-a-thon in our library on September 29th.