2023 American Art History Deep Dive Project, Part Three

2023 American Art History Deep Dive Project, Part Three

The intent of the 2023 American Art History Deep Dive Project, Part Three is to make freely available to the public, via our TFAO website, additive citations of in-depth materials, with content focusing on representational art, published online by third parties.

This project's work product is subjective. Interested parties will primarily desire to educate the public about the work product of this study. Remuneration for the work involved will be a secondary motive.

Freelancers must be familiar with URL terminology, including: domain, folder, pathway, subdirectory, directory, slug, premalink, file name, page path. People not familiar with URL structure should not apply for this contract.

Exhibition content and citations regarding those exhibitions

We only seek citations from nonprofit art museum-based and cultural center-based exhibitions that focus on:

1.20th-21st Century American Glass, Ceramic and Porcelain sculpture from sources other than our own website,

and

2. 20-21st Century American Decorative arts and crafts from sources other than our own website,

but

3. excluding our own website's articles and essays on exhibitions.

Citation content will include links to, and quotes sourced from, non profit art museum and cultural center online-published posts devoted to past exhibitions (see footnote 1) -- permanently archived for free viewing. Here are examples of our citations:

Art in Raven and the Box of Daylight is a 2023 exhibit at the Chrysler Museum of Art which says: "Preston Singletary's work fuses time-honored glassblowing traditions with Pacific Northwest Indigenous art to honor his ancestral Tlingit heritage, a tribe in southern Alaska. Tlingit culture and oral tradition has a rich history of pairing objects with foundational stories and histories of tribal families. By drawing upon this method of visual storytelling, Singletary's art creates a unique theatrical atmosphere in which each object follows and enhances an unfolding narrative." Accessed 4/23

Agony and Ecstasy: Contemporary Stained Glass by Judith Schaechter is a 2019 exhibit at the Chrysler Museum of Art which says: "Human figures are arranged against a lushly-patterned color field in poses of transcendence or anguish, creating imagery that is powerful, provocative, beautiful, and disturbing." Also see artist's website. Accessed 5/20

The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s is a 2017 exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art which says: "The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s is the first major museum exhibition to focus on American taste in art and design during the 1920s and early 1930s. Through a rich array of over 300 extraordinary works in jewelry, fashion, automobiles, paintings and decorative arts, featuring the events and people that punctuated the era, the exhibition explores the impact of European influences, American lifestyle, artistic movements and innovation during this exciting period." Accessed 11/17

Michelle Erickson: Wild Porcelain is a 2021 exhibit at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco which says: "Specifically for Bay Area audiences, she has produced pieces that incorporate San Francisco landmarks and address local social and environmental issues. The design of these works was directly inspired by pieces in the Bowles Collection of 18th-century English porcelain, which forms the core of the Fine Arts Museums' European porcelain collections." Also see the website of the artist. Accessed 3/23

Esentially duplicative citations within Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Wikipedia, and other online encyclopedia compilations are to be excluded. Also excluded are citations from commercial gallery exhibitions and commercial publishers. A hint on how to find duplicate citations on our site is to create a Google search entry starting with site:tfaoi.org followed by the title of an exhibition. For example, if you search on Google site:tfaoi.org Norman Rockwell because his name is in the exhibit title, you will retrieve links to 28 essays and articles about him published on our site. We don't need any more citations about him!

"Past Exhibition" posts published by museums and cultural centers on their websites will be the sole source (see footnote 2) of citations. Acceptable posts will include three or more of the following elements: exhibit description; images; recordings of curator interviews and lectures; artist and curator biographies; virtual tours; teacher guides; press releases; media coverage; wall texts; enhanced object labels; illustrated checklists; online brochures, catalogues and gallery guides in .pdf or flip book format. Elements of individual posts will not be considered as separate citations.

Multiple items are often included within one of the elements. For instance, within the images element there may be ten artwork images, two photos of artists and one logo. An exception to the three or more elements rule is a museum's exhibit entry containing a Matterport virtual tour plus a text description of the exhibit. In that case two elements are sufficient. This is because Matterport virtual tours contain wall texts and object labels as well as images.

To provide better attribution, please preface quotes made by named individuals. For example:

Allen True Murals is a 2011 article from History Colorado. In the exhibit description, Alisah DiGiacomo says: "Awarded the job in 1927, True installed the lunette murals and one other mural in the building's two lobbies. Removed prior to the building's demolition in 1976, the murals, entitled The Producers, The Refiners, and The Marketers, depict activities in the petroleum industry." Accessed 7/23

In an exhibit post by a museum, if there are links to URLs outside of the museum's site, the materials accessed through those links won't be counted in the minimum elements criteria. Another way of putting it is we will only accept links directly from an exhibit URL (web address) as valid elements for the exhibit post. Links found elsewhere on a museum website or the internet that are not directly linked to through the exhibit URL are not acceptable.

If a URL is temporary such as in "https://www.Colorado.edu/cuartmuseum/exhibitions/view-upcoming/pioneers-women-artists-boulder-1898-1950," the citation is invalid. The section in the URL that says "/exhibitions/view-upcoming/" is the giveaway. If a URL contains characters that indicate "past," that's a good sign. Usually acceptable URLs contain "exhibitions" or "past exhibitions" or the exhibit name. The don't have "current" or "future" in them. Exhibit URLs must remain posted for a minimum of five years on the museum's website section for past exhibitions. Some museum websites have a "past exhibitions" pull down menu section that contains all past exhibitions, each listed in time order, using only one URL.This method can produce acceptable citations without exhibit-specific URLs if approved elements are included for the exhibit in question and past exhibits are posted for a minimum of five years.

Example of a multi-element citation for another topic a researcher emailed to us via johnphazeltine@gmail.com:

Tony Sarg: Genius at Play https://www.nrm.org/2022/11/tonysarg/ is a 2023 exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum https://www.nrm.org/ which says: "Tony Sarg: Genius at Play is the first comprehensive exhibition exploring the life, art, and adventures of Tony Sarg (1880-1942), the charismatic illustrator, animator, puppeteer, designer, entrepreneur, and showman who is celebrated as the father of modern puppetry in North America. His vast knowledge of puppet technology was instrumental in his design of the inaugural Thanksgiving Day parade balloon for Macy's Department Store in 1927, as well as subsequent parade balloons and automated displays for the company's festive holiday windows, which were imitated nationwide. The creator of a host of popular consumer goods, from toys and clothing to home décor, Sarg also envisioned fanciful illustrated maps and created mural designs for the Oasis Cafe in New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Accessed 9/23

The above citations were published within our Topics in American Art pages.

Quotes from posts will be brief*, with the most salient information about an exhibit selected from its explanatory text. The words for each citation follow a precise order: 1. name of the posted exhibit entry; 2. its permanent link URL; 3. the words "is a (year exhibit began) exhibit at the"; 4. followed by the name of the museum; 5. followed by the URL link to the museum home page; 6. followed by the words "which says:"** ; 7. followed by a direct quote from the description of the exhibit copied from the museum's exhibit description containing over 300 words and less than five sentences in length, usually two to three**; 8. followed by "Accessed (month and date of citation)." Citations will always have the above format.** Emails sent to johnphazeltine@gmail.com will be in plain text and not as .pdf, .doc, .txt or other formats.

* For exhibit descriptions, the quoted word count element is substantive if over 300 words. If there are over 300 descriptive words for the text element and they are accompanied by one or more exhibition-centric videos that are over three minutes long -- or there's a Matterport virtual tour including legible wall text and object label spot magnification -- the three or more elements rule won't apply because of the high level of substance provided with only two elements.

** An exception is when quoted descriptive text is by a person instead of the museum, please preface quotes made by the named individual. For example:

Allen True Murals https://www.historycolorado.org/story/stuff-history/2011/05/01/allen-true-murals is a 2011 article from History Colorado https://www.historycolorado.org/. In the exhibit description, Alisah DiGiacomo says: "Awarded the job in 1927, True installed the lunette murals and one other mural in the building's two lobbies. Removed prior to the building's demolition in 1976, the murals, entitled The Producers, The Refiners, and The Marketers, depict activities in the petroleum industry. "Accessed 7/23

We will pay for:

- citations we approve and publish online at our sole discretion. We are only interested in citations of original materials we believe will be freely available online for at least ten years, based on the track record of their publishers and the structure of their URL directories. This requirement is important because in our experience materials published online frequently perish over time. One citation for museum exhibit-related materials will be accepted. The estimated number of acceptable citations is unknown.

- citations that don't essentially duplicate previous citations.

- up to 40 approved citations at a price of $5.00 USD per citation. There will be four milestone payments of ten citations per milestone. The contractor will submit and have approved all ten citations before we escrow the funds for that milestone. If the contractor finds less than ten approved citations for a milestone, we will not escrow funds for that milestone.

- Each batch of 10 citations per milestone will be emailed to johnphazeltine@gmail.com. Each batch will be formatted only in plain text, excluding formats such as .pdf and .doc files.

- Before we enter an contract, each applicant for this contract will send two trial citations for our approval. If we approve those two citations, and subsequently enter into a contract, those two citations will be included towards the first milestone.

The time limit for this study will be four months from it's inception.

Footnotes:

1. "Past Exhibition" posts published by museums and cultural centers on their websites will be the sole source of citations. A post contains content for a sole exhibit identifiable by a discrete URL structure (web address) identifying the exhibit. Sole exhibit URLs always contain a final string of unique characters following the last forward slash in the URL. A Wikipedia definition of URL and its structure is found at <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL>.

Examples of discrete URLs are:

https://www.albanyinstitute.org/exhibition/the-hudson-river-school-landscape-paintings-from-the-albany-institute. In this example the discrete URL for the exhibit has a final string of characters (the-hudson-river-school-landscape-paintings-from-the-albany-institute.) following /exhibition/.

https://imca.uci.edu/exhibition/radiant-impressions. In this example the discrete URL for the exhibit has the final string of characters (radiant-impressions) following /exhibition/.

https://www.newpaltz.edu/museum/exhibitions/woodstock%20art%20colony#d.en.151383. In this example the discrete URL for the exhibit has a final string of characters following /exhibitions/.

https://imca.uci.edu/exhibition/bruton-sisters/. In this example the discrete URL for the exhibit has a final string of characters following /exhibition/.

https://castellaniartmuseum.org/exhibitions/ecce-sublimia-the-art-of-christianity

In this example the discrete URL for the exhibit has a final string of characters following /exhibitions/.

https://www.museum.ucsb.edu/news/feature/506.

In this example the discrete URL for the exhibit has a final string of characters following /feature/.

As stated above, freelancers must be familiar with URL terminology, including: domain, folder, pathway, subdirectory, directory, slug, premalink, file name, page path. People not familiar with URL structure should not apply for this contract.

2. We will only accept links directly from an exhibit URL (web address) as valid elements for the exhibit post. Links found elsewhere on a museum website or the internet that are not directly linked to through the exhibit URL are not acceptable.

The following web page (post) for an exhibit from another project has three elements, so it is ok. The elements are shown or linked to in the exhibit web page. The 13 other links listed below are not necessary and can't be a part of the citation. The freelancer did a lot of extra work for nothing!

Following is a exhibit post submitted by a freelancer that has 13 unacceptable links:

-In American Waters: The Sea in American Painting https://crystalbridges.org/calendar/in-american-waters-2/ was an exhibition co-curated by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art https://crystalbridges.org/ in Bentonville, Arizona and Peabody Essex Museum https://www.pem.org/ in Salem, Massachusetts. The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art described the exhibition as follows: "For over 250 years, artists have been inspired to capture the beauty, violence, poetry, and transformative power of the sea in American life. Oceans play a key role in American society no matter where we live, and still today, the sea continues to inspire painters to capture its mystery and power. In American Waters is a new exhibition in which marine painting is revealed to be so much more than ship portraits. Be transported across time and water on the wave of a diverse range of modern and historical artists including Georgia O'Keeffe, Amy Sherald, Kay WalkingStick, Norman Rockwell, Hale Woodruff, Paul Cadmus, Thomas Hart Benton, Jacob Lawrence, Valerie Hegarty, Stuart Davis, and many more. Discover the sea as an expansive way to reflect on American culture and environment, learn how coastal and maritime symbols moved inland across the United States, and consider what it means to be "in American waters". Accessed 9/23.

In American Waters: The Sea in American Painting Travel Itinerary:

Peabody Essex Museum https://www.pem.org/ in Salem, Massachusetts from May 29, 2021 to October 3, 2021

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art https://crystalbridges.org/ Bentonville, Arizona from November 6, 2021 through January 31, 2022

Video In American Waters: Elio Villafranca in Conversation with Chief Curator Austen Barron Bailly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56t2yCQGoxY

Video Peabody Essex Museum Curator Daniel Finamore on American Waters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87SnlRHbMuI

Exhibition Catalogue: https://shop.pem.org/products/in-american-waters-the-sea-in-american-painting

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Maritime Glossary: https://crystalbridges.org/blog/ready-for-in-american-waters-heres-your-maritime-glossary/

Podcast Postcard from Crystal Bridges: https://soundcloud.com/peabody-essex-museum/pemcast-ep-23?utm_source=clipboard&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Fpeabody-essex-museum%252Fpemcast-ep-23

Podcast Sea Shanties and the Environment: https://soundcloud.com/peabody-essex-museum/pemcast-21-sea-shanties-and-the-environment?utm_source=clipboard&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Fpeabody-essex-museum%252Fpemcast-21-sea-shanties-and-the-environment

Press Release 'Return to the Sea: In American Waters Opens at Peabody Essex Museum': https://crystalbridges.org/blog/return-to-the-sea-in-american-waters-opens-at-peabody-essex-museum/

Press Release 'In American Waters Casts New Light on Our Relationship with the Sea':

https://www.pem.org/press-news/in-american-waters-casts-new-light-on-our-relationship-with-the-sea

Article 'In American Waters PEMcast: Our Connection to the Sea': https://crystalbridges.org/blog/in-american-waters-pemcast-our-connection-sea/

Article 'Diving into the sea's transformative power with In American Waters' by Dinah Cardin:

https://www.pem.org/blog/diving-into-the-seas-transformative-power-with-in-american-waters

Article 'A word with Curator Dan Finamore on summer exhibition In American Waters': https://www.pem.org/blog/a-word-with-curator-dan-finamore-on-in-american-waters

Exhibition on the Peabody Essex Museum's website: https://www.pem.org/exhibitions/in-american-waters

Return to Content Enrichment Projects

Our catalogues provide many more useful resources.

American Representational Art has links to dozens of topics.

Distinguished Artists is a national registry of historic artists.

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