By Laura Rybicki, Curatorial Intern in American Painting and Sculpture Marguerite Zorach (American, 1887–1968), in reference to her thoughtfully handmade embroideries, reflected, “These works are built out of my life and the things that have touched my life. . . . In each case, there was no restriction. . . . I was absolutely free to do whatever I wished to do.”[1] The Family (In Memory of a Summer in the White Mountains), created in 1917 and newly on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art, displays Zorach’s characteristically free and expressive artistic practice (f ..read more

By Helina Gebremedhen, Leigh and Mary Carter Director’s Research Fellow Love modern and contemporary African arts, heritage, and literature? Come to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Ingalls Library to browse through issues of Nigeria Magazine and read about the country’s thriving arts and culture scene between the 1960s and 1980s (fig. 1). These issues cover the best of contemporary and historical art, theater, poetry, and cultural debates, featuring some of the biggest names in African art and literature. Figure 1. Assorted covers of Nigeria Magazine In an issue from 1974, Demas Nwoko ..read more

By Madalyn Rehrman, Ingalls Library Summer on the Cuyahoga Intern As a digitization intern at the Ingalls Library and Museum Archives this summer, I’ve had the great fortune to work with several different objects, ranging from rare folios that have just recently entered the public domain to archival materials from the Frances Prindle Taft Collection. Frances Prindle Taft (1921–2017) was an art historian with deep ties to the Cleveland area and the CMA. She graduated from Vassar College in 1942, where she majored in zoology and minored in art history. Later that year she joined the US Navy ..read more

By Jillian Kruse, Curatorial Intern in Prints and Drawings and PhD Candidate at Case Western Reserve University For many, the word Impressionism conjures images of light-filled landscapes, ballerinas, or fashionably dressed women at the opera, in a garden or park, or at the seaside. Yet, as the Cleveland Museum of Art’s exhibition Degas and the Laundress reveals, women’s labor was an equally important subject in Impressionism (fig. 1). Despite the ubiquity of laundresses in 19th-century French art and culture, these women and depictions of women’s labor more broadly have often been relegated t ..read more

By Justin Willson, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Art History Leadership, The Cleveland Museum of Art / Case Western Reserve University Seating arrangements shape many of our activities, from business meetings, concerts, and meals to car rides, graduation ceremonies, and weddings. One might go so far as to say that where we sit is a fundamental human concern. However, for many cultures, seating arrangements are also a theological belief, shaping views about how their gods interact with one another. Many works of art at the Cleveland Museum of Art speak to the theme of heavenly seating arra ..read more

By Sonya Rhie Mace, George P. Bickford Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art Articulated in seductive colors with intriguing details, hunting scenes in paintings from India celebrate more than the coup de grâce. In the startlingly expansive scenes created during the 1700s and 1800s at the court of Udaipur in southern Rajasthan, the tense and thrilling moments — often laced with extreme danger — leading up to the kill are shown minute by minute. Several of these magnificent hunt scenes form a crucial part of the special exhibition A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur, along wi ..read more

By Seth Pevnick, Curator of Greek and Roman Art Each of the many ancient Greek vases on view in the Dr. John and Helen Collis Family Gallery (102B–C) has multiple stories to tell (fig. 1). Their painted figures, whether black or red, human or animal, may show characters from ancient mythology or actions of or events from daily life. Their shapes and decoration can provide clues to practical functions, and the potters and painters who made them may be known — occasionally by name from signatures, but more often named by scholars based on careful study and links to similar vases in other co ..read more

By Rachel Arzuaga, Interpretive Planner, and Stephanie Foster, Lead Interpretive Planner A museum is nothing without its visitors. The stories of the artworks and the people who interact with them make museums come alive. At the Cleveland Museum of Art, we are committed to building an audience-centered culture. This idea is key to the work of the interpretation department. Interpretation sits within the Division of Public and Academic Engagement, known as Education in many museums. Our guiding principle is that there is more than one way to engage with art. Through encounters with art in a mus ..read more

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