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Georgia O’Keeffe’s captivating flower paintings and Southwestern landscapes have made her one of the world’s most recognizable modern artists. O’Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887, and raised in Wisconsin. Throughout her childhood, she took art lessons at home with her siblings and later attended lessons at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Virgi
On June 14, 2004, the official portraits of President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton were unveiled in the East Room of the White House. These paintings made history as the first official White House portraits created by a Black artist, Simmie Knox.
Gilbert Stuart is one of the most famous portraitists in American history, best known for his unfinished Athenaeum depiction of President George Washington. Gilbert Stuart was born in Saunderstown, Rhode Island on December 3, 1755, the youngest of three children. His family moved to Newport, Rhode Island a few years later, and Stuart began painting as a teenager. He initially studied under
Historians have previously discussed the wider impact of technological innovations that facilitated the emergence of the illustrated press in the mid-nineteenth century.1 Founded in 1857, Harper’s Weekly offered its readers not only the opportunity to read about the news but also visually bear witness to it for the next six decades. It covered politics, society, and war, as great scholarly at
The White House Diplomatic Reception Room is perhaps best known for its scenic wallpaper, installed during the John F. Kennedy administration in 1961. The highly detailed panorama, designed by French artist Jean-Julien Deltil and produced by Jean Zuber and Company, depicts notable American places including Niagara Falls, Boston Harbor, West Point, and the Natural Bridge in Virginia. It is worth noting
Through research and analysis of written accounts, letters, newspapers, memoirs, census records, architecture, and oral histories, historians, museum professionals, and descendants seek to restore the voices of enslaved people. Although it is possible to construct certain details of an enslaved person’s life, it is often difficult to know about their physical appearance because it is extraordinarily rare to find im
First families have welcomed pets to the White House since its earliest occupants assumed residency. Dogs have been the most prevalent presidential pet in American history. However, in recent years, cats have become more frequent occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The increased feline occupancy of the White House in the past fifty years is likely a reflection of cats becoming a