#historical-imagery

#historical-imagery

Frida Kahlo, during her 1933 trip to New York, created a colorful haven in her hotel room by covering the walls with prints by José Guadalupe Posada, which depicted sensational news and political imagery.

I wanted to write a book about how the smartphone changed the world, but the more I researched, the clearer it became that phones were actually the latest step in this evolution of storytelling technology that stretches all the way back to prehistoric times.

Eugène Atget's images of the city reminded me of when I first came across the turn-of-the-century French photographer's work in a book called 'A Vision of Paris' (1963), which paired more than a hundred of Atget's photographs with passages from Marcel Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time,' and I couldn't quite see them for what they were. There was something about the preciousness of juxtaposing Atget's gorgeous golden prints with Proust's gorgeous language that made me feel as if I were suffocating under all those foulards, drapes, and aesthetics.

One tenet of classical idealism is the idea that Roman and Greek statuary embodied an ideal of pure whiteness-a misconception modern sculptors perpetuated for hundreds of years by making busts and statues in polished white marble. But the truth is that both Greek statues and their Roman counterparts were originally brightly painted in riotous color.

"This first pleasant experience with a modern painting started me on a road of adventure that has been both exhilarating and satisfying," Pearlman once said of another painting by Soutine, called Village Square. "I haven't spent a boring evening since that first purchase."

Bregman claims, 'Today the whole of Europe risks turning into one big Venice, a beautiful open-air museum. A great destination for Chinese and American tourists. A place to admire what was once the centre of the world.' This statement encapsulates the concern that Europe is losing its cultural significance.

CultureClic is one of the most comprehensive French art apps available. Designed as a mobile-first discovery tool, it maps out more than 1,350 museums across France and highlights hundreds of geolocated artworks, photographs, and historical engravings. The app is particularly strong in Paris but also features content in cities like Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, and Avignon. What sets CultureClic apart is its use of augmented reality, allowing users to visualize artworks and historical documents in context.

I recently gained a new obsession, and I'm ready to share it with the world: finding and analyzing rare vintage images. A picture speaks a thousand words, and these photographs tell us more about history than a textbook chapter ever could. So even if you think history is boring, I'm well-equipped to change your mind, and give you some delicious food for your brain to chew on today.

1. The very first iteration of Ronald McDonald was created by Willard Scott in 1963: 2. The two people depicted in Grant Wood's "American Gothic" actually exist. This is what they looked like: 3. This is Margaret Gorman, the woman who won the very first Miss America competition in 1921: 6. This is Conrad Veidt, the man whose performance in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs inspired the look of the iconic villain the Joker:

His humor, his clarity, and his vision shaped many discussions across the agency and within the wider photographic world. This exhibition pays homage to the unique vision of Martin Parr, whose sharp eye for contemporary society and prominent role within Magnum Photos have left an enduring mark on photography.

I remember the moment this photo was taken: five years ago, on my partner Claire's birthday, in a National Trust for Scotland garden six miles east of Edinburgh. We were standing on a wooden deck, an ideal spot for pond-dipping with the kids and a lesser-known viewing platform for trainspotters. This is where my autistic son, then six, loved (and still loves) to jump in tandem with the ScotRail trains toggling back and forth in the middle distance.

Just shy of 300-feet and improbably painted using an iPad, Hockney's frieze winds its way around the outer perimeter of "A Year in Normandie and Some Other Thoughts about Painting," on view at Serpentine North through August 23. These nonchalantly referenced "other thoughts," however, are far from just afterthoughts. They comprise 10 new portraits and explorations of abstraction from 2025, a year that evidently saw Hockney busy hatching new experiments on the pictorial plane.

The brutal crackdown in Iran, ICE in Minneapolis, Russian aistrikes in Kyiv and heavy rain in Gaza the past seven days as captured by the world's leading photojournalists

"The object of the Museum is to acquire power," announces a crusty old archaeologist in Penelope Fitzgerald's 1977 satire, The Golden Child. It isn't a goal he respects. He wants the museum where he's settled into semiretirement to genuinely devote itself to educating its visitors. Instead, he correctly charges, its curators act like a pack of Gollums, hoarding "the art and treasures of the earth" for their own self-aggrandizement and pleasure.

Recently, AI decided that a painting long thought to be a copy of Caravaggio's The Lute Player is actually by the master, while another version of the same subject, previously thought to be authentic, is not. Both conclusions were disputed by the former Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Keith Christiansen. A similar debate erupted in March 2025 when AI declared that portions of The Bath of Diana, also long believed to be a copy, could have been painted by Peter Paul Rubens.

In 1835, a tortoiseshell cat measuring more than three feet long was enough to warrant a small advertisement in a British newspaper that as "the greatest curiosity ever shown to the public," it could be viewed at the Ship Tavern in London. Surely a pint of ale was the informal fee to view this extraordinary animal. It was during the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe that cats became increasingly recognized as worthy pets, beyond their role as mousers.