The Coronado Couple
More a personal capturing of a tumultuous quarter-year than a Franklin tribute, my latest window is nonetheless founded on Franklin’s nostalgia for France and his friends there.
Archive of posts filed under the Artworks category.
Art in the Capitol
The Washington Post today published an exclusive report surveying the works of art in the U. S. Capitol showing slaveholders and supporters of the Confederacy as well as enslaved people. It begs the wearying search for the location of the new line, to be drawn somewhere between the Robert E. Lee statue erected in a …
Keep Thy Shop
Keep Thy Shop, a stained glass panel installed in my library/office October 2022 in honor of Benjamin Franklin’s career as a printer. Images edited and screen printed from J. G. Chapman’s engravings for Rev. H. Hastings Weld’s 1849 edition of BF’s Autobiography, texts from Poor Richard, including “Keep thy Shop, & thy Shop will keep …
White Box Theatre
Roy Goodman has introduced me to this wonderful theatrical piece performed at Franklin & Marshall College in 2006. Bravo, Sebastienne Mundheim! Source:White Box Theatre website
Franklin and Broomcorn
I enjoyed this story out yesterday for a lovely new piece of public art, pictured above, and what I sense is the good-natured whimsy of the town of Arcola, Illinois. Arcola is embracing its history as The Broomcorn Capital of the World, and has privately commissioned a statue by Jerry McKenna honoring Benjamin Franklin for …
Imperfect History
The Library Company of Philadelphia is in a two-year project to develop the Library’s Graphic Arts Department. The project is called Imperfect History: Curating the Graphic Arts Collection at Benjamin Franklin’s Public Library. I found this American version of the Ages of Man interesting: Benjamin Franklin Bache’s one-penny specie (one ninetieth of a dollar) from …
Friendship Windows
As a private tribute to a Dungeons and Dragons game that played out over 35 years, I made a stained glass window that combined a saying of Franklin’s from Poor Richard (May, 1735) with a drawing of a boat from that game. Pictured above is the main window in the home of a wizard in …
Painting at Auction
Tomorrow, Pook and Pook will be auctioning this 19th Century oil painting, from a Maryland estate, Downington, Pennsylvania. 7 Bids as I write this, up to $950. Happy Bidding! Follow-up: while its estimate was in the range of $500-$1000, I see that is sold for $6,500. This is not the short-selling-squeeze that is roiling Wall …
Franklin in the Oval
The biggest Franklin news of the week is the presence of the gray-coat portrait in the Oval Office. The history of this painting, President Biden’s rationale for selecting it, and how this might refresh a conversation about Franklin’s historical value and worthiness is more substantial and important than I can approach at the moment. As …
Rising or Setting Sun Window
Expressing Franklin’s anxieties – and my own – in stained glass.