Many museums today struggle with confronting their problematic legacies and transforming their current practices to become the diverse, inclusive institutions they aspire to be.
Website that uses the weather to make programmatic selections from the RISD Museum based on conditions, first in Providence, then in a city of the user’s choosing. The goal was to give museum-goers a tangible point of access to art, and to make unexpected groupings of objects.
A colossal Romanesque head in the RISD collection has yet to be securely identified, but the sheen of his nose suggests that it was rubbed by many penitent hands during the course of this sculpture’s life.
This late fifteenth-century Virgin and Child was created with subtlety, flexibility, and portability in mind. These features were central to its medieval use—and its use at the RISD Museum.
Devotional representations of Saint Barbara, a Christian martyr whose legend extended across both Western and Eastern medieval worlds, flourished in fourteenth-century Europe. An examination of the Providence Saint Barbara reveals a sculptural tradition with a complex and colorful practices of medieval devotion to the cult of saints.
During the Fall of 2015, Sheila Bonde’s graduate students in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University undertook an investigation of the wood sculptures in the RISD Museum collections. This multi-author paper includes some of their findings.
The American and European jewelry collection at the RISD Museum, part of the Decorative Arts and Design Department, is made up of more than 800 works, including necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and rings from the medieval period to present day.
The RISD Museum is proud to participate in this non-partisan initiative of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), which uses design to encourage civic engagement.
A student dismantles the outdated terminology and practice of “master copies” by constructing a series of copies that works to bolster underrepresented artists and subvert the pervasive presence of white males in the Western art canon.
The handmade object has a tendency to prompt memories from the craftsperson who made it. In this reflection on an embroidered purse from the 1970s, Ariel Wills and Kate Irvin are joined by maker Christina Bevilacqua for a dynamic conversation that demonstrates the narrative qualities embodied in material culture.
Faculty member Rosa Weinberg reflects on the relevancy of art analysis as a starting point for exploring form in design and as a powerful habit of mind for beginning designers.
RISD student Tito Crichton-Stuart analyzes Robert Mapplethorpe’s exoticisation of the black body and proposes potential acquisitions that could serve as counterpoints in the collection
In 1971, a group of radical students in Providence produced stirring silkscreen posters. Their images contributed to the vibrant visual culture of antiwar protest.
A summer conservation intern’s investigation into the uses of infrared photography in recording Samoan siapo and the significance of new visual information gained.
A summer intern meditates on the medium of murals and how they appear on RISD’s walls, using Photoshop to understand what is lost when seeing incomplete works out of context.
Safely stored away during gallery renovations, all 196 pieces of RISD's Gilded Frost and Jet Chandelier by Dale Chihuly have been expertly reinstalled.