Hartford, Conn.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, women not only became artists in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, but some also thrived. They counted kings, queens, popes and nobles as patrons. Some gained fame; some were elected into exclusive academies; some supported their families. But they were ignored by art history. In recent decades, a few—especially Artemisia Gentileschi —have gained some recognition in monographic exhibitions, but many more early female artists remain obscure.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Waterville, Maine

You can't talk about Bob Thompson, a mid-20th-century Black figurative artist, without mentioning the blazing colors of his paintings. Bright reds, blues, greens and yellows are almost everywhere. When, in 1998, the Whitney Museum gave him a retrospective, curator Thelma Golden, now the director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, flaunted the pervasiveness of his intense hues by hanging his works on walls painted in brilliant yellow or red—an unprecedented, much-remarked, winning move at a time when no one else dared to challenge the ubiquity of the white-walled galleries that still prevail in modern art museums.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

From the moment "The Blue Boy" made its debut at London's Royal Academy in 1770, it has always been a sensation. Scholars and critics have called it "the world's most beautiful picture" and deemed it the career "apogee" of Thomas Gainsborough, one of England's greatest 18th-century painters. When the painting went on view in January 1922, after the Duke of Westminster sold it to art dealer Joseph Duveen, who resold it to the American Henry E. Huntington, "great crowds almost stormed" the National Gallery in London for a last look, according to contemporary accounts; some 90,000 people visited it during its three-week exhibition there.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Late last June, on a warm New York night, the Hispanic Society Museum and Library invited hundreds of guests to a party celebrating the opening of In the Heights: From University to the Silver Screen, which traces the development of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical about the nearby Dominican neighborhood, and Latinx Diaspora: Stories from Upper Manhattan, a mural show on the plaza.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Museums everywhere are unveiling their big fall exhibitions this month, but sadly, one major show that would have been a jewel of the season is not opening. In mid-August, just five weeks before A Superb Baroque: Art in Genoa, 1600–1750 was due to open on 26 September, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC cancelled it. The museum cited "multiple factors related to the worsening COVID-19 crisis," including "uncertainties" about shipping its many masterpieces from Europe, safety concerns for the art handlers who must work closely to take down these works abroad and others who would reinstall them here, and the fear that the National Gallery may again be subject to a closure, which might change the schedule and perhaps prevent return shipments to Rome, where the exhibition is expected to open in March.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles