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Tag: Art

Charles Loring Elliott carte-de-visite – AA/PG Library

Doug Litts
June 11, 2012
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Charles Loring Elliott portrait photograph
Charles Loring Elliott carte-de-visite

Charles Loring Elliott (born Scipio, NY, 1812; died Albany, NY, 1868)

At the time of his death, Charles Loring Elliott was one of the most well-known American portrait painters of the mid-19th century. The artist vertical file at the Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery (AAPG) Library contains several contemporaneous multi-page eulogies and/or reminiscences on Elliott’s life and career. In 1867, Henry Tuckerman claimed that Elliott had painted almost 700 portraits – a truly prolific life’s work if indeed true.

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What is an artist’s book?

Anne Evenhaugen
June 1, 2012
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“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some are to be
chewed and digested.”

 ~Francis Bacon, Essays (1625) Bacon’s Essays By Francis Bacon, Richard Whately.

 

 

We have talked about artists’ books on the Smithsonian Libraries blog before. And we’ll talk about them more, as a part of a short series to highlight interesting works of book art owned by the Smithsonian’s American Art & Portrait Gallery Library.

But what, exactly, is an artist’s book? You may not be able to tell just from looking at the object itself!

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Artist’s Books on Display at the AAPG Library

Doug Litts
August 19, 2011
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This installation is part of a larger project to discover and highlight the artists’ books in the Smithsonian Institution’s art libraries. A team of Smithsonian Institution librarians and interns is analyzing the accessibility of the collection through the library catalog; investigating new ways to explore the collection through digitization and social media.

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