Posts from the Art & Architecture Collection

In this episode, NYPL’s Elizabeth Cronin and art historian Katherine Manthorne discuss Manthorne's new book, 'Restless Enterprise: The Art and Life of Eliza Pratt Greatorex', which tells the story of the most famous woman American artist you’ve probably never heard of.

In this episode, NYPL's Joshua Chuang and renowned art historian Svetlana Alpers, author of the recently published Walker Evans: Starting from Scratch, will discuss how the great American artist came to develop his eye, as well as the influential encounters Evans had as a young artist at the NYPL.

Readers joined us for this discussion on Zoom from Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx; upstate in New Paltz; a patio in Santa Fe; a campground in California; a living room in Hawaii; and from more distant time zones of Sicily and Mumbai.

The enduring appeal of Art Deco is quite remarkable. It is also a paradox—both nostalgic, yet vanguard. And we never know when the style will pop up again.

How did chocolate and Valentine's Day get linked anyway?

From painstaking hand-drawn illustrations to actually adding dried plant specimens to works, bringing botanical studies to life had been challenging for centuries. Discover the different processes, and how they led to Anna Atkins's groundbreaking work, "Photographs of British Algae."

See what it's like to "dar un paseo" (take a leisurely stroll) down one of the most famous avenues in Havana.

On May 8, Barbara Moore will be conversing with Max Schumann at NYPL. Meanwhile, you can view a selection of items from the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division’s Art & Architecture Collection in a vitrine in the Rose Main Reading Room.

Are you looking for art resources from home and don’t know where to begin? Try using one of these six recommended resources accessible outside the Library with your NYPL card.

It is almost time for the Library’s fabulous Anti-Prom. On Friday, June 17, New York teens will assemble on the steps of the Schwarzman Building and reveal to each other and the staff volunteers their prom wear.

Dr. Bailey Van Hook recently published the first full-length biography of artist Violet Oakley. In this interview, she discusses her work and what made Oakley an interesting subject, as well as her research in our archival collections.

Jane Austen penned six perfect novels, and today Emma turns 200. In honor of the heroine’s enduring popularity, here are the Top 5 observations made by our dear Ms. Woodhouse and her friends.

Was the “buy American” movement a reality in the New York art gallery world during World War II?

What started as a simple comparison of beautifully illustrated books on fashionable dress, trades’ dress, and ethnic costume held in both the Art and Architecture Collection and the Rare Book Division turned into an open-ended bibliographic exercise with many rabbit holes to get lost in.

The Art & Architecture Collection has a large collection of women’s (and some men’s) 19th century fashion-plate periodicals. While French fashion dominated the 19th century this post features a selection of magazines from England, America and Sweden.

Rapidly evolving developments in printing technology and paper manufacture during the 19th century were a democratizing process which lowered costs and made books of all kinds accessible to a wider audience. In that context it is interesting that, even early on, one of the most popular genres of these inexpensive books was self-improvement. The selection that follows is the barest tip of the iceberg of what is available in the Art & Architecture 

Every year, my interns and I have the pleasure of working with the students at the High School for Fashion Industries in conjunction with the Library’s wonderful Anti-Prom projects, managed by our colleagues in Teen services. Past themes have included Goth, Monsters, Super Heroes, and Glam. This year was Punk.

As curator for small press materials I was excited to attend "Remediating the Avant Garde: Magazines and Digital Archives," a symposium at Princeton University, home of the Blue Mountain Project.

Fotis Flevotomos, still frame from the video "Looking for a Face"I first met Fotis Flevotomos in June 2011. He had come to New York from Greece to speak on his creative process at The New York Public Library's Low Vision and Blindness Resource Fair. An experienced artist, he was able to do so many things with ease—produce art; pack, transport, and display art; speak articulately about his work as a panelist; and even find a reasonably-priced place to stay in midtown