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.
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.
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.
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.
RISD Museum intern Alicia Valencia (RISD 2015, Furniture) explains how the act of looking closely formed her impressions on Samuel Gragg's Elastic armchair.
In the flood of digital-ness that comprises our daily experience, it can be easy to forget that most of what all of our complex devices are doing is simply counting. It's no coincidence that the word digital comes from digits, our fingers, that most elementary of counting machines.
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.
While the sixth-floor galleries are undergoing an extensive renovation, the Museum is carefully studying and conducting conservation work on the monumental 12th-century wooden Dainichi Nyorai Buddha. When the Buddha is returned to its gallery in late spring 2014, it will be stabilized and we'll know much more about the art that went into creating this nearly 10-foot-tall sculpture.
The discovery of these treasures resembles that of a valuable manuscript. They are a new “Codex Africanus,” not written on fragile papyrus, but in ivory and imperishable brass.