I Like Good Art and I Cannot Lie
I was reminded the other day of what a curated treasure trove of art 20x200 is. So I took a spin through their archive and pulled out some favorites. First up are these Always Choose Happy prints from Amos Kennedy (I also like his Book Lovers Never Go to Bed Alone prints):
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this solar eclipse photo from Carleton Watkins before. Wow:
Taken on July 29, 1878, Solar Eclipse by canonized landscape photographer Carleton Watkins powerfully, elegantly captures the exact moment the moon completely blocked the sun and cast a surreal shadow over the Earth. Watkins, known for his pioneering work depicting the American West, used this rare event as an opportunity to simultaneously experiment with photographic techniques and record a celestial occurrence. The piece’s resulting artistic and technical achievement is as sublime and awe-inspiring as the eclipse itself. It’s stunning that then, as now, eclipses humble us all by reminding us of our smallness in a vast and fascinatingly ordered universe.
Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii was a pioneer in color photography; he documented his native Russia in color from 1904 to 1915. Here’s his photograph of some flowers (lilacs? hydrangeas?):
We all might need some Rest right now:
I love the photographic work of Gordon Parks; this one is called Camp Fern Rock (archer):
If you’ve lived in NYC for any length of time, you can’t help but be a little bit curious and charmed by the now-abandoned City Hall subway station:
They also have a bunch of stuff from Jason Polan, this amazing eye test chart, prints of several works by Hilma af Klint, and the The Marvelous Mississippi River Meander Maps.
Comments 5
thread
latest
popular
Pretty sure those are lilacs. Fantastic post!
Yes, they are, and it is. :)
About those lilacs … the Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii photos — all public-domain and used legally by 20x200 — are most likely from the collection of SPG’s glass negatives at the Library of Congress. They were part of LOC’s pioneering digitization work in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, and the Prokudin-Gorskii digitization was a nearly impossible feat at the time. The hero was an LOC imaging specialist in the Prints & Photographs Division, someone I admire very much. I’m definitely not calling foul on 20x200 — I’ve adorned my walls with nearly a dozen works from them — but I wish there was an acknowledgment on their site of where the original source material resides. And I hope someone documents the brilliance of that imaging scientist someday. It would be sad to lose such a fascinating story.
They acknowledge the source of the photograph in the “Artist’s Statement” section.
Thanks very much, Jason. Without your note I’d have missed both the citation and the terrific essay by Lyle Rexer. From a UX POV I guess we could call it the Curse of the Collapsed Accordion.
Hello! In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions. Or try logging out and then back in. Still having trouble? Email me!
In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.
This is the name that'll be displayed next to comments you make on kottke.org; your email will not be displayed publicly. I'd encourage you to use your real name (or at least your first name and last initial) but you can also pick something that you go by when you participate in communities online. Choose something durable and reasonably unique (not "Me" or "anon"). Please don't change this often. No impersonation.
Note: I'm letting folks change their display names because the membership service that kottke.org uses collects full names and I thought some people might not want their names displayed publicly here. If it gets abused, I might disable this feature.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions. Or try logging out and then back in. Still having trouble? Email me!