History

September 1942. Continuing our backstage tour of the New York Times. "Newsroom. Copy readers at the telegraph desk, which handles all dispatches from the U.S. outside New York City. Man wears hat because of draught." Photo by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information. View full size.

go here Or for just images here.      

Caped crusaders in mufti: Adam West and Burt Ward in 1966, snapped on the "Batman" set in L.A. by Richard Hewett for Look magazine. View full size.

Cover of What is Contemporary Art? A Guide for Kids by Jacky Klein and Suzy Klein, published by The Museum of Modern Art MoMA’s current exhibition, Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store, celebrates the early years of artist Claes Oldenburg’s extraordinary career, when he experimented with painting and sculpture by reworking the stuff of every day into larger than life objects made with unexpected materials. Oversized sculptures like the plush Floor Cone (1962) and the papier-mâché “Empire” (“Papa”) Ray Gun (1959) imbue viewers with child-like wonder—and at times, bewilderment—so it’s fitting that Oldenburg’s iconic duo of juicy cheeseburgers would grace the cover of MoMA’s children’s book, What is Contemporary Art? A Guide for Kids. Oldenburg’s Two Cheeseburgers, with Everything (Dual Hamburgers) (1962) may look good enough to eat, but as the book explains, they are in fact made of thick cloth covered in hard painted plaster. Authors Jacky Klein and Suzy Klein, a former museum curator and an arts and culture writer, go on to explain that Oldenburg “loves to make soft things in hard materials and hard things in soft materials.” It’s kid-friendly information that allows adults to have their own second looks at well-known works in MoMA’s collection. The book explores a wide range of iconic works from the past 50 years through inventive categories like “Getting Dressed,” which groups together Joseph Beuys’s Felt Suit (1970) and Vito Acconci’s Adjustable Wall Bra (1990–91), and “Read All About It,” which features artworks that employ wordplay, like Ed Ruscha’s OOF (1962). Also included in the roster are Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein, Damien Hirst, and Louis Bourgeois, among others. Spreads from What is Contemporary Art? A Guide for Kids A short biography of each artist is included, along with prompts asking kids to think about materials and processes,  quotes from the artists, idea boxes that bring important contemporary art concepts to light, and a glossary of key art terms. Whether for kids to explore on their own, or for grown-ups looking for some answers themselves, What is Contemporary Art? serves as a great introduction to contemporary art. Download a free PDF sample to check out chapters like “Bizarre Beasts” and “Playing Games.”

September 1942. "New York. Looking downtown from the Third Avenue elevated railway in the 'Fifties'." A platform on the long-vanished El. Medium format nitrate negative by Marjory Collins for the Office of War Information. View full size.

Marilyn Monroe and Navy pilot snapped by Charlotte Brooks in 1952 for the Look magazine assignment "Helicopter View of L.A." Also, a nice lei. View full size.

Blossom and Fruit. A Choice Collection of Hebrew Texts for Jewish Public and Private Instruction=Tsits u-Feri. Compiled and published by Julius Katzenberg.  New York: Industrial School, Hebrew Orphan Asylum, 1882. AAS certainly has Hebrew texts geared to Christian divinity students, but this text is geared to the needs of Jewish children and youth.  AAS has [...]

On this date in 1942, this happened: The young man striking the dramatic pose is Stjepan Filipovic, an anti-fascist partisan hanged in the city of Valjevo by the Serbian State Guard, a collaborationist force working with the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia. Filipovic is shouting “Death to fascism, freedom to the people!” — a pre-existing Communist slogan that Filipovic’s martyrdom would help to popularize. Smrt fašizmu, sloboda narodu! … or you can just abbreviate it SFSN! In the city where Filipovic died, which is in present-day Serbia, there’s a monumental statue in his honor replicating that Y-shaped pose — an artistically classic look just like our favorite Goya painting, poised between death and victory. (cc) image from Maduixa. Filipovic was a Communist so we’re guessing that he would not have had a lot of truck with the ethnic particularism that’s latterly consumed the Balkans. Times being what they are, however, the national hero to Tito’s Yugoslavia has become a post-Communist nationalist football. That Valjevo monument — it’s in Serbia, remember — calls him Stevan Filipovic, which is the Serbian variant of his given name. But as Serbia is the heir to Yugoslavia, he at least remains there a legitimate subject for a public memorial. Filipovic himself was Croatian, but his legacy in that present-day state is a bit more problematic: in his native town outside Dubrovnik, a statue that once commemorated Filipovic was torn down in 1991 by Croat nationalists; its vacant plinth still stands sadly in Opuzen. (Opuzen’s film festival, however, awards its honorees a statuette replicating the destroyed monument.)

August 1942. "Interlochen, Mich. National music camp where 300 or more young people study symphonic music for eight weeks each summer. Girl putting check on board to indicate she is in swimming." Photo by Arthur Siegel. View full size.

Circa 1908. "North End bridge, Springfield, Massachusetts." Points of interest include the signal light on the pole and sign on the bridge. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.