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 future is an abstract concept, hard to decode and difficult to predict. A summer intern reflects on fashion and future in this creative writing piece.
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.
In 1971, a group of radical students in Providence produced stirring silkscreen posters. Their images contributed to the vibrant visual culture of antiwar protest.
How do we describe images and the experience of looking at images? Student Grace Xiao reflects on the process of writing alt text for "Variance: Making, Unmaking, and Remaking Disability."
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.
This rare example of Gorham's "Mythologique" flatware service was purposefully left unfinished as they are samples, combining elaborate hand-worked detail with mechanized brute force.
For conservators, fabrics incorporating metallic components raise complex questions about construction, materials, and manufacturing techniques, all of which impact how an object will be stabilized and displayed
Architects have been recognized as key figures in furniture design since the late 19th century, although they've certainly been designing furniture for far longer. But what compels them to do so?
This article explores the concept of purity in criticisms of Inuit prints by briefly introducing the history of printmaking in Cape Dorset and looking at 1970s Western art historians' expectations of Inuit art.
Unfinished paintings by Eastman Johnson, John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt reveal new techniques that emerged in France in the second half of the 19th century.
A chance meeting between the wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes and Theodore Davis, an illustrator and journalist for "Harper's Weekly", in the White House conservatory produced one of the most extraordinary dinner services.