Penguin Science Fiction Covers

The Art of Penguin Science Fiction' is a website showcasing the history Penguin Books' science fiction cover art. The site is navigated initially visually, from a homepage consisting of thumbnails of the book covers. Once users have navigated away from the homepage, the site takes on more of the structure of a book, with covers and descriptions available via an index or a contents list. The site focuses mainly on the period 1935 - 1977, dividing this into design phases, with a general introduction to all, and a specific introduction to each phase. Covers are shown as small images, accompanied by a brief explanation contextualising the design or artwork within the main history. Covers can be viewed by title as well as within historical context, making it easy to compare designs across the decades.
Link: http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/
Access: Free

Greene & Greene

View the designs of Art Nouveau designers Greene & Greene in a variety of media, from furniture, stained glass, and metalwork, to rare drawings and photographs. From the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Link: http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/sub.asp?key=15&subkey=7951
Access: Free

Vision of Britain Through Time

A Vision of Britain Through Time provides access to over two centuries’ worth of facts, figures, surveys, maps, election results and travel writing showing how 15,000 UK places have changed. The changing story of Britain’s towns and villages can be explored in new depth online, which unites more than 200 years worth of official documents, maps and travel stories.
Link: http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/
Access: Free

Anthropology Collections

This site provides online access to the anthropological collections of the California Academy of Sciences. Highlights of the collection include the Reitz collections of Coptic textiles and Food Technology; the Rollo Beck collection of Oceanic artifacts and photographs; the Allen collection of lamps; and extensive collections of Mayan, Native American, Native Alaskan, Hawai'ian and Kenyan objects. The collections cover an extensive range of materials and techniques, from linen and wool textiles to ceramics, wooden carvings, and metalwork, as well as photographic and written accounts which record the history and usage of the objects.
Link: http://research.calacademy.org/research/anthropology/anthcoll.html
Access: Free

Gemstone Carving

The website for the Getty Museum has provided this online resource on the exhibition held at the Getty Villa from 19 March to 7 September 2009 on `Carvers and Collectors: The Lasting Allure of Ancient Gems'. This exhibition features intaglios and cameos carved by ancient Greek master carvers. Information is provided on the techniques used to carve these objects.
Link: http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/gems/
Access: Free

Barbara Reise Archive

As an introduction to their rich archive, the Tate has provided this online resource featuring the art critic Barbara Reise, and her involvement in the art world of the 1960s and 1970s. Designed as a journey through the archives of Reise, this website features a timeline of events during her lifetime with hyperlinks to relevant items in the archive. Biographical material is also provided including her work as an art history lecturer and critic. The Reise Archive includes material on the `decade of revolution', artist critics and US/UK relationships. The section headed `Art Movements' considers the public and art world reactions to Minimalism and Conceptual art which dominated the 1960s and 1970s. Artists featured in this archive include Dan Flavin, Baranett Newman and Robert Morris.
Link: http://www.tate.org.uk/archivejourneys/reisehtml/
Access: Free

David Hockney's East Yorkshire Landscapes

The LA Louver Gallery in California has provided this online resource to complement their exhibition `The East Yorkshire Landscape', held from 9 February to 24 March 2007 featuring the work of David Hockney. Hockney painted these large landscapes en plein, and he provides a short statement as to why he undertook to work in this way. The website is illustrated with a number of the works in this exhibition and an installation video has been made available describing the Hockney exhibition.
Link: http://www.lalouver.com/html/hockney_07.html
Access: Free

Antony Gormley's Blind Light

This website was published by the South Bank Centre, to complement the Antony Gormley ‘Blind Light’ exhibition, held at the Hayward from 17 May to 19 August 2007. The works featured are ‘allotment’, ‘blind light’, ‘capacitor’, ‘event horizon’ and ‘space station’ in which Gormley addresses issues of architecture and space. A photo essay featuring images of twelve different spaces and different lights from around the world is included.
Link: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/gormley/light.html
Access: Free

Artists' Books II

Book/Shelf is an online version of, and companion to, the exhibition, held at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, from 26 March to 7 July 2008. The exhibition takes work from MoMA's collection and library, which are "rich in works by artists who tackle the idea of books by stretching the conventions of the medium", and shows exhibits of modern art in the shape of books. The website, which requires Flash plug-in 8.0 or higher, presents highlights of the work including photography, film printing, assemblage, drawing, and sound recording. The works can be arranged by thumbnail view or by artists' names. There are also website credits and a 'checklist'; a PDF document with a list, images where available, and details of each work in the exhibition.
Link: http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2008/bookshelf/
Access: Free

Artists' Books

This is the online companion to the exhibition 'Typebound', curated by Craig Saper and Theo Lotzheld, which was held at the University of Central Florida Art Gallery from 27 January to 6 March 2009. Typebound's two parts; 'The Book's Bound' and 'Socio-Poetics of Typewriting' is an exhibiton of artists' book works where "two of the book's most fundamental elements - its bindings and its type - are separated and examined for creative possibilities as they are freed of their basic, traditional functions." The works shown were from the Florida Collections and The Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry respectively. The website has an introduction to the concept behind the exhibition and the catalogue can be downloaded in full, including a few essays and a number of illustrations. Essays can be downloaded (also as PDF files) independently of the catalogue and there is also a link to images of the exhibition on Flickr.
Link: http://www.readies.org/typebound/
Access: Free

Abner Graboff

The Retro Kid Flickr pool has a collection of scans from designer Abner Graboff.
Artist, illustrator & designer with a career that spanned several decades, from the 1940’s to the 80’s, Abner was best known for creating some of the most ingenious and vibrant children’s books during the mid-century era.
Link: http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=graboff&w=83979980%40N00&m=pool
Access: Free

Edvard Munch Prints

To accompany their new major exhibition on prints by Edvard Munch, Hunterian Art Gallery have just launched a mini-site with some examples of the exhibited works:
Link: http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/munch/munchGallery.php
Access: Free

Edo Natural History

Fauna and Flora in Illustrations : Natural History of the Edo Era is an online exhibition from the National Diet Library of Japan, accessible only in Japanese. The site is divided into four broad sections: an introduction to the materials in the exhibition; the development of natural history publications; the evolution of uniquely Japanese horticulture; and rare birds, strange animals and curious fish. Each section has enlargeable thumbnails of illustrations embedded in explanatory text. The introductory section describes some of the features of the illustrations and the books and other texts in which they appear, and each of the other sections is further broken down into various aspects of the topic it covers.
Link: http://www.ndl.go.jp/nature/
Access: Free

East African Photographs

An excellent resource for anthropologists and researchers of East African colonial history. The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs: 1860 - 1960 forms part of the collection of Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, NorthWestern University. The digital library provides free access to over 7,000 photographs assembled by the British collector Humphrey Winterton which document the life and development of the peoples and nations of East Africa during this period. They include photographs of native peoples and races; the travels of European explorers, traders and colonialists, the development of the British Empire and urbanisation. The database can be searched by keyword or browsed.
Link: http://repository.library.northwestern.edu/winterton/
Access: Free

We Make Stories

Penguin has just launched the We Make Stories site, where children of all ages can create, print and share a variety of story forms. They can make pop-up stories, customise audiobooks, design their own comics, produce exciting treasure maps and develop a variety of entertaining adventures.
Link: http://wemakestories.com/
Access: Free

Ann Shaw and the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine

GSA alumni Ann Shaw has just had a book published by the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine on the lost history of a children's sanatorium in Wales. To accompany the book she has produced a blog, which she used as a research tool to help reconstruct 40 years of missing Welsh history. The book from this project will be added to Library collections soon.
Link: http://www.craig-y-nos.blogspot.com/
Access: Free

Artist Residency: Glasgow Women's Library

Deadline for applications: Friday 24 July 2009

Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) seeks two 6-month part time Artist Residencies to be based within the library. The residencies offer an exciting opportunity for two artists to work with the rich resources of Glasgow Women’s Library - staff, learners, users and archive - to achieve the aims and focus of Making space: toward a public artwork for GWL. The residence opportunities are offered to develop ideas, visuals and participatory working methods that can inform GWL’s ambitions to realise a public artwork for their new premises at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow. The residencies will support the artists’ investigation of Women’s histories and representation in the Public Realm, as well as potential means of engagement and consultation with diverse constituents of GWL.

For further details please download a job description, cover sheet and application information from GWL on 0141 552 8345 or e-mail: info(at)womenslibrary.org.uk

Public Craft Collections

A new guide to contemporary craft in national and regional public collections has been launched online on the Crafts Council website.
Link: http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/collection-and-exhibitions/public-craft/
Access: Free

Cultural Cartography

Who Knew Whom is an online database which focuses upon the connectivity of famous people. Compiled by Nat Goodden of the University of Gloucestershire, the intention is to provide a map of cultural networks based on the connections - such as by friendship, acquaintance, family, or collaboration - between artists, musicians, scientists, philosophers and other notable people throughout history. Each connection must be proven by evidence that can be supported by an authoritative source available on the Internet. The database is searchable by name, or by browsing an alphabetical list of names, and provides a brief summary of each individual's connections to other people in the database.
Link: http://culturalcartography.net/
Access: Free

American Utopias

This site provides free access to online exhibition about 'American Utopias' which has been created by the Beinecke Library, Yale University. It includes essays on political works about utopias (ranging from the early writings of Thomas More to science fiction idealised worlds contained in the novels of the 1960s); the image of the Utopia in fiction and an overview of historical utopian communities in American history. Each section is illustrated with images of illustrations, in some case digitised primary source documents, from the holdings of the Beinecke Library.
Link: http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/utopia/
Access: Free

Turkish Shadow Puppets

Online exhibition from National Library of Turkey looking at the Turkish tradition of shadow puppetry, with a special focus on the play Karagöz or Hacivat. These shadow plays are thought to have originated in Southeast Asia and were brought over to Turkey with migrants from Central Asia to Anatolia. The performances play out behind a white screen with puppets or "tasvir" appearing in silhouette. Each "tasvir" is made out of camel or water buffalo hide and are animated by rods.
Link: http://www.mk.gov.tr/bolum.php?name=menu&mid=57&yenidil=ing
Access: Free

Turkish Film Posters

The National Library of Turkey has launched a gallery of Turkish film posters, from its humble beginnings in 1908 through to today’s flourishing Turkish film industry.
Link: http://www.mk.gov.tr/sinema/
Access: Free

Maastricht Ceramics

Images of Maastricht ceramics, via Bibliodyssey.
Link: http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2009/06/maastricht-ceramic-design.html
Access: Free

Balzac's Paris

This is a virtual tour of the Paris which existed at the time of Balzac the great French novelist. It was produced using online maps, engravings and other visual materials from the Vernon Duke Collection, University of California Riverside. The compilers explain that the Paris Balzac knew (1799-1850) has largely disappeared. However, it helps enormously to understand his novels, many set there, if we can know something of the early nineteenth century capital city. The tour is divided into 4 parts; Locating Balzac's Paris, Balzac's Paris, Visiting Balzac's Paris and the Epilogue. The Table of Contents has background information, and then links to maps and images for each of these sections, plus explanations, showing what Paris looked like. In addition, there are quotations from his novels slotted in by relevant landmarks.
Link: http://www.balzacsparis.ucr.edu/
Access: Free

Ornament and Pattern

"Several thousand images from nearly 100 volumes on decorative art and surface ornament, mainly portfolios of plates, pattern books, and scrapbook compilations." Find images of flowers, animals, butterflies, house colors, ceramics, and more. Many images are from French publications. From the New York Public Library (NYPL).
Link: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=all&col_id=163
Access: Free