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.
How do you lay an Egyptian mummy to rest in a museum? Our curator considered a number of factors in orienting Nesmin, RISD's Egyptian mummy, in his new case in the freshly renovated gallery, but found a strange coincidence in her final decision.
In 1969, artist Andy Warhol was invited to curate an exhibition at the RISD Museum using works from the permanent collection that were not on view, but in storage.
RISD student Joanna Cortez shares how the RISD Museum served the Providence community during World War II. Joanna participated in the Museum's Andrew W. Mellon Summer Internship Program this summer.
Books of hours made during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance were products of collaboration between scribes, illuminators, bookbinders, and, sometimes, the original patron or owner. A recent acquisition of a French book of hours made in Rouen around 1510 tells the story of this collaboration through the structure of its contents, iconography, and assembly.
A rare female artist, Diana Mantuana's engraving of Atilius Regulus in a Barrel plays an important role in the history of the practice of printmaking and its reception in Renaissance Italy.
In the fall of 2014, RISD art history students curated an exhibition comparing Tokaido Road views by artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858). That exhibition is now on view in the Museum.
This salad spoon and fork set, made by the Gorham Manufacturing Company ca. 1885, is named after the coastal town of Narragansett, Rhode Island. Replete with intricately detailed shells, seaweed, and sea creatures—including small fish and tiny crabs—these two sea-encrusted utensils were my point of inspiration for a set of five brooches. In the following article I will describe some of the basic processes used to create my Narragansett-inspired jewelry
Artist Anya Ventura explains the context behind an audio tour and printed guide that she and Anther Kiley created illustrating episodes from the lives of seven objects from the Museum's galleries. Their 2012 work "Fragments" was one of the winning projects in the RISD Museum's annual *Sitings* competition for site-specific installations by RISD degree candidates.
As the RISD Museum hosts the final stop on the tour of Graphic Design: Now in Production, an exhibition that began at the Walker in 2011, we're starting a series that updates the show by checking in with some of the designers featured in it, to see the work they have been doing since 2010.
As a part of its new Clinical Arts and Humanities Program, the Alpert Medical School partnered with the RISD Museum to create the workshop series "From Galleries to Wards." Workshop participants, Samuel Kase and Cia Mathew, reflect on their experience.
This was the introduction to Out of Line, an open studio space for RISD Museum visitors during the run of the exhibition Lines of Thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to Now From the British Museum (October 6, 2017–January 7, 2018).
RISD Museum object photography generally follows typical museum practice: a straightforward approach to framing and lighting with great concern for color fidelity. For *Artist/Rebel/Dandy*, the curators suggested that we go in a different direction.
RISD Museum intern Alicia Valencia (RISD 2015, Furniture) explains how the act of looking closely formed her impressions on Samuel Gragg's Elastic armchair.