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America Today
''America Today'' is a mural comprising ten canvas panels, painted with egg tempera in 1930–1931 by the American painter Thomas Hart Benton (painter), Thomas Hart Benton. It provides a panorama of American life throughout the 1920s, based on Benton's extensive travels in the country. Originally commissioned for The New School for Social Research, it has belonged to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City, New York, since 2012. Panels Creation The mural was commissioned in 1929 by Alvin Saunders Johnson, director of The New School for Social Research in New York City, for the school's boardroom. Benton was not offered any payment beyond material costs. Instead, he saw the work as an opportunity to make a name for himself and thereby get more commissions in the future. The subjects were based on Benton's extensive travels in the United States. Benton said about the work: "Every detail of every picture is a thing I myself have seen and known. Every head is a real person d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Hart Benton (painter)
Thomas Hart Benton (April 15, 1889 – January 19, 1975) was an American painter, muralist, and printmaker. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. The fluid, sculpted figures in his paintings showed everyday people in scenes of life in the United States. His work is strongly associated with the Midwestern United States, the region in which he was born and which he called home for most of his life. He also studied in Paris, lived in New York City for more than 20 years and painted scores of works there, summered for 50 years on Martha's Vineyard off the New England coast, and also painted scenes of the American South and West. Early life and education Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri, into an influential family of politicians. He had two younger sisters, Mary and Mildred, and a younger brother, Nathaniel. His mother was Elizabeth Wise Benton and his father, Colonel Maecenas Benton, was a lawyer and four times el ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tempera
Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long-lasting, and examples from the first century AD still exist. Egg tempera was a primary method of painting until after 1500 when it was superseded by oil painting. A paint consisting of pigment and binder commonly used in the United States as poster paint is also often referred to as "tempera paint", although the binders in this paint are different from traditional tempera paint. Etymology The term ''tempera'' is derived from the Italian ''dipingere a tempera'' ("paint in distemper"), from the Late Latin ''distemperare'' ("mix thoroughly"). History Tempera painting has been found on early Egyptian sarcophagus decorations. Many of the Fayum mummy portraits use tempera, sometimes in combina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metropolitan Museum Of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 Fifth Avenue, along the Museum Mile on the eastern edge of Central Park on Manhattan's Upper East Side, is by area one of the world's largest art museums. The first portion of the approximately building was built in 1880. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains an extensive collection of art, architecture, and artifacts from medieval Europe. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 with its mission to bring art and art education to the American people. The museum's permanent collection consists of works of art from classical antiquity and ancient Egypt, paintings, and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New School For Social Research
The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR explores and promotes what they describe as global peace and global justice. It enrolls more than 1,000 students from all regions of the United States and from more than 70 countries. History The New School for Social Research was founded in 1919 by, among others, Charles Beard, John Dewey, James Harvey Robinson, and Thorstein Veblen. In 1933, what became known as the University in Exile, had become a haven for scholars who had been dismissed from teaching positions by the Italian fascists under Benito Mussolini or had to flee Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party. The University in Exile was initially founded by the director of the New School, Alvin Saunders Johnson, through the financial contributions of Hiram Ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alvin Saunders Johnson
Alvin Saunders Johnson (December 18, 1874 – June 7, 1971) was an American economist and a co-founder and first director of The New School. Biography Alvin Johnson was born near Homer, Nebraska. He was educated at the University of Nebraska and Columbia (Ph.D., 1902). Afterwards, he was employed in various positions at Columbia, the University of Nebraska, the University of Texas, the University of Chicago, Stanford, and at Cornell after 1913. He was assistant editor of the ''Political Science Quarterly'' in 1902–06, and editor from 1917 of the ''New Republic'' in New York City. He was a co-founder of The New School in New York in 1918, becoming its director in 1922. Johnson helped to save numerous central European scholars from persecution by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s, then brought them to a specially-created division of the New School which became known as the "University in Exile". There, among others, he worked with the antifascist intellectual Max Ascoli. He wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smithsonian (magazine)
''Smithsonian'' is the official journal published by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The first issue was published in 1970. History The history of ''Smithsonian'' began when Edward K. Thompson, the retired editor of ''Life (magazine), Life'' magazine, was asked by the then-Secretary of the Smithsonian, S. Dillon Ripley, to produce a magazine "about things in which the Smithsonian [Institution] is interested, might be interested or ought to be interested." Thompson would later recall that his philosophy for the new magazine was that it "would stir curiosity in already receptive minds. It would deal with history as it is relevant to the present. It would present art, since true art is never dated, in the richest possible reproduction. It would peer into the future via coverage of social progress and of science and technology. Technical matters would be digested and made intelligible by skilled writers who would stimulate readers to reach upward while not turning the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company
Equitable Holdings, Inc. (formerly The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States and AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company, and also known as The Equitable) is an American financial services and insurance company that was founded in 1859 by Henry Baldwin Hyde. In 1991, French insurance firm AXA acquired majority control of The Equitable. In 2004, the company officially changed its name to AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company. By 2018, the company had over 15,800 agents licensed by the State of California. In January 2020, it changed its name to Equitable Holdings, Inc. following its spinoff from AXA and the related public offerings beginning in May 2018. History Equitable opened its headquarters at the Equitable Life Building in 1870 in the Financial District of Manhattan, with entrances facing Broadway, Pine Street, and Cedar Street. Aside from Hyde, who was president of Equitable, the firm's officers included James Waddell Alexander (Vice President), George W. Ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AXA Equitable Center
Axa Equitable Center (originally the Equitable Tower or Equitable Center West) is an office skyscraper at 787 Seventh Avenue, between 51st and 52nd Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Completed in 1986 and designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes, the building measures tall with 54 stories. Equitable Center West was developed by the Equitable Life Assurance Society (later renamed Equitable Holdings, part of Axa) adjacent to Equitable's existing skyscraper at 1285 Avenue of the Americas. The facade is clad in granite, applied in a two-tone pattern of white horizontal and red vertical bands. The building has three setbacks, as well as a penthouse at the top with arched windows. Equitable acquired an extensive collection of artwork to display in the building's public spaces. There is a public galleria from 51st to 52nd Street, which forms part of 6½ Avenue, as well as an arched entrance atrium from Seventh Avenue. The complex also includes an under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Williamstown, Massachusetts
Williamstown is a town in the northern part of Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, United States. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,513 at the 2020 census. A college town, it is home to Williams College, the Clark Art Institute and the Tony-awarded Williamstown Theatre Festival. History Originally called West Hoosac, the area was first settled in 1749. Prior to this time its position along the Mohawk Trail made it ideal Mohican hunting grounds. Its strategic location bordering Dutch colonies in New York led to its settlement, because it was needed as a buffer to stop the Dutch from encroaching on Massachusetts. Fort West Hoosac, the westernmost blockhouse and stockade in Massachusetts, was built in 1756. The town was incorporated in 1765 as Williamstown according to the will of Col. Ephraim Williams, who was killed in the Fre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Williams College Museum Of Art
The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) is a college-affiliated art museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is located on the campus of Williams College, and is close to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and the Clark Art Institute. Its growing collection encompasses more than 14,000 works, with particular strengths in contemporary art, photography, prints, and Indian painting. The museum is free and open to the public. History WCMA was established in 1926 by Karl Weston, an art history professor who made it his mission to provide students with a place where they could experience art directly, rather than as slides or in textbooks. The college's art collection, in large part donated by Eliza Peters Field in 1897, had been housed in two small wings of what was then the college library, Lawrence Hall, designed by Thomas A. Tefft in 1846. When the library was moved to Stetson Hall in 1920, Weston transformed the octagonal brick building into an art museu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1931 Paintings
Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia. * January 25 – Mohandas Gandhi is again released from imprisonment in India. * January 27 – Pierre Laval forms a government in France. February * February 4 – Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gives a speech calling for rapid industrialization, arguing that only strong industrialized countries will win wars, while "weak" nations are "beaten". Stalin states: "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us." The first five-year plan in the Soviet Union is intensified, for the industrialization and collectivization of agriculture. * February 10 – Official ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
