This documents the distinguished collection of European art—from the late eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries—that forms a significant part of the collections belonging to the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. This book includes stunning canvases by Gericault, Delacroix, Degas, Manet, Monet, Cezanne, Renoir, Picasso, and Matisse. What makes the collection so noteworthy are the extraordinary works by unknown artists and the unknown works by known artists.
RISD announced the publication of Infinite Radius: Founding Rhode Island School of Design, the first anthology about the establishment of America's best-known college of art and design in 1877. "Infinite Radius" presents a handsome compendium of rare archival photographs, scholarly essays, previously unpublished manuscripts and reproductions of early acquisitions in its impressive collection of art and design. Together, this written and visual material provides invaluable insight into the social and cultural context in which both the academic programs of the School and the broader educational mission of the RISD Museum of Art took root. Infinite Radius takes its title from a RISD founder, the 19th-century educator and activist Sarah Elizabeth Doyle, who was known to remark that the "sphere" of so-called women's work was one with an "infinite radius." From the beginning, co-editors Dawn Barrett, RISD's dean of Architecture and Design, and Andrew Martinez, RISD's archivist, conceived of the book in a similar, all-encompassing way. The book is intended to inspire further research into the many areas it broaches, from the initial seed funding for the school from the Rhode Island Women's Centennial Commission, to its early successes thanks to the direction, governance and support of the Metcalf family, to its growing strength in the early 20th century.
Describes the world's leading approach to art and design taught at Rhode Island School of Design At Rhode Island School of Design students are immersed in a culture where making questions, ideas, and objects, using and inventing materials, and activating experience all serve to define a form of critical thinking—albeit with one's hands—i.e. "critical making." The Art of Critical Making, by RISD faculty and staff, describes fundamental aspects of RISD's approach to "critical making" and how this can lead to innovation. The process of making taught at RISD is deeply introspective, passionate, and often provocative. This book illuminates how RISD nurtures the creative process, from brief or prompt to outcome, along with guidance on the critical questions and research that enable making great works of art and design. Explores the conceptual process, idea research, critical questions, and iteration that RISD faculty employ to educate students to generate thoughtful work Authors are from the faculty and staff of the Rhode Island School of Design, which consistently ranks as the number one fine arts and design college in the United States The Art of Critical Making shows you how context, materials, thought processes, and self-evaluation are applied in this educational environment to prepare creative individuals to produce dynamic, memorable, and meaningful works.
The Handbook of Art and Design Librarianship integrates theory and practice to offer guidelines for information professionals working in art and design environments who need to support and anticipate the information needs of artists, designers, architects and the historians who study those disciplines. Since the first edition of this title, the world of art and design libraries has been transformed by rapid advances in technology, an explosion in social media and the release of new standards and guidelines. This new edition, offering mostly entirely new chapters, provides an accessible, fully updated, guide to the world of academic art and design libraries from a range of international experts who reflect current practice at a global level. Coverage includes: case studies and library profiles, providing benchmarks for developing facilitiesteaching and learning, including the ACRL Framework, teaching with specialcollections, meta-literacies, instructional design and cultural differencesdevelopments in institutional repositories, digital humanities and makerspacescontemporary library design, spaces for collaboration and sustainability. This book will be useful reading for students taking library and information science courses in art librarianship, special collections, and archives, as well as practising library and information professionals in art and design school libraries, art museum libraries and public libraries.
Alexander Dorner's radical ideas about the purpose of museums and art, examined through his tenure as Director of the RISD Museum. Alexander Dorner (1893–1957) became Director of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum in 1938, and immediately began a radical makeover of the galleries, drawing on theories he had developed in collaboration with modernist artists during his directorship of the Provinzialmuseum in Hanover, Germany. Dorner's saturated environments sought to inspire wonderment and awe, immersing the museum visitor in the look and feel of a given period. Music, literature, and gallery talks (offered through a pioneering audio system) attempted to recreate the complex worlds in which the objects once operated. Why Art Museums? considers Dorner's legacy and influence in art history, education, and museum practice. It includes the first publication of a 1938 speech made by Dorner at Harvard as well as galleys of Dorner's unpublished manuscript, “Why Have Art Museums?,” both of which explore the meaning and purpose of museums and art in society. In Germany, Dorner formed close relationships with the Bauhaus artists and made some of the first acquisitions of works by Lázló Moholy-Nagy, Kazimir Malevich, El Lissitzky, and others. The Nazi regime actively opposed Dorner's work, and he fled Germany for the United States. At the RISD Museum, Dorner clashed with RISD officials and Providence society and contended with wartime anti-German bias. His tenure at RISD was brief but highly influential. The essays and unpublished material in Why Art Museums? make clear the relevance of Dorner's ideas about progressive education, public access to art and design, and the shaping of environments for experience and learning. Copublished with the RISD Museum
A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, this memoir of one woman's later in life career change is “a smart, funny and compelling case for going after your heart's desires, no matter your age” (Essence). Following her retirement from Princeton University, celebrated historian Dr. Nell Irvin Painter surprised everyone in her life by returning to school––in her sixties––to earn a BFA and MFA in painting. In Old in Art School, she travels from her beloved Newark to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design; finds meaning in the artists she loves, even as she comes to understand how they may be undervalued; and struggles with the unstable balance between the pursuit of art and the inevitable, sometimes painful demands of a life fully lived. How are women and artists seen and judged by their age, looks, and race? What does it mean when someone says, “You will never be an artist”? Who defines what an artist is and all that goes with such an identity, and how are these ideas tied to our shared conceptions of beauty, value, and difference? Bringing to bear incisive insights from two careers, Painter weaves a frank, funny, and often surprising tale of her move from academia to art in this "glorious achievement––bighearted and critical, insightful and entertaining. This book is a cup of courage for everyone who wants to change their lives" (Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage).
