Empire State Building Glowing Purple
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and completed in 1931, the building has a roof height…
Latest Stories
Our growing archive of info about art, design, and culture.
Inspiration: “Admiration,” by Karl Witkowski
Karol Dominik Witkowski was born to a Polish family in Jazłowiec (Jaslowiec), near Buchach, Czortków (Podole, Poland, now Ukraine). As young boy he showed unusual talent in making drawings and his parents…
Biography: El Greco (Doménikos Theotokopoulos)
Doménikos Theotokopoulos, famously known as El Greco, which means “The Greek” in Spanish, was born on the island of Crete in 1541, then part of the Republic of Venice. His early life…
Inspiration: “L’heure du Thé,” by Jules Ernest Renoux
Renoux employed a palette based in yellow-orange and ochre in which he painted street scenes admired for their understated beauty and agility of hand. Renoux liked painting the human form, frequently with…
Inspiration: “Portrait Of Oda Krohg,” by Christian Krohg
Christian Krohg was born at Vestre Aker (now Oslo), Norway. He was one of five children born to Georg Anton Krohg (1817–1873) and Sophie Amalia Holst (1822–1861). He was a grandson of Christian Krohg (1777–1828) who…
Inspiration: “In Repaus,” by Nicolae Grigorescu
He was born in Pitaru, Dâmboviţa County, Wallachia now called Romania. In 1843 the family moved to Bucharest. At a young age (between 1846 and 1850), he became an apprentice at the workshop of the…
Biography: Isaac Levitan
Isaac Ilyich Levitan was born on August 30, 1860, in the small town of Kybartai, then within the Russian Empire’s western borders. His family was Jewish, and he came into the world…
Prater Amusement Park, Vienna
The area that makes up the modern Prater was first mentioned in 1162, when Emperor Friedrich I gave the land to a noble family called de Prato. The word “Prater” was first used in…
Biography: Frederick Childe Hassam
Childe Hassam was born on October 17, 1859, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, a neighborhood of Boston that was then still semi-rural. He came from an old New England family, descended from early colonial…
The Gloriette in Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace
Walking towards the Gloriette, this is the right side of the structure. *** The largest and probably best-known gloriette is in the Schönbrunn Palace garden in Vienna. Built in 1775 as the last building constructed…
Inspiration: “Pikkusisloaan Ruokkiva Poika,” by Helena Schjerfbeck
In Paris, Schjerfbeck painted with Helena Westermarck, then left to study with Léon Bonnat at Mme Trélat de Vigny’s studio. In 1881 she moved to the Académie Colarossi, where she studied once again with Westermarck.…
