In the Middle Ages, several saints were represented as knights in art, making it difficult to identify RISD’s Crusading Saint. This article will explore his possible identities.
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 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.
As the world bears witness to the recent tragedies of George Floyd’s death, the deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the countless numbers of Black people before them, it’s difficult to feel like I have anything new to say on a subject that I should meet with respectful listening, but as the director of this institution it is my job to lead both in words and in deeds.
A student in a RISD course on pan-African aesthetics, inspired by a photograph in the collection, explores Black youth occupying space in movements from La Sape to Noirwave.
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
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.
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.
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.
