Portraits of Artists from the Smithsonian on Flickr
The Smithsonian Institution joined Flickr’s Commons last week, and of immediate note to me was their 91 image collection of images of artists. Most of these artists I’m not familiar with, such as William Morris Hunt, seen above. Some, like Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent or George Inness are familiar. There’s a real range of photography styles and formats on view in the collection, which is interesting in all by itself.
As I’m currently curating a project dedicated to documenting artists in portrait (see all images from that project here), I’m further invigorated as to the long-term importance of that project and others like it when I look at these images.
Also worth noting is the Smithsonian’s set of 141 images of portraits of scientists and inventors.
Technorati Tags: portraits, artists, artists’ portraits, William Morris Hunt, scientists, portraits of scientists, portraits of inventors, inventors, Smithsonian Institution, Flickr Commons, Flickr
June 20th, 2008 at
I worked with our Flickr team at the Smithsonian to get these online and am so gratified you have identified them as important to your work. The Archives of American Art (www.aaa.si.edu) has many more photographs of artists and will be steadily contributing those without copyright concerns to Flickr over the coming year.
June 20th, 2008 at
Keep ‘em coming Karen. These commons resources are some of the most amazing things on the Internet.