Albert Einstein (1879-1955) solved a key puzzle for physicists in 1915 with his celebrated theory of relativity, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, and, most significantly, fundamentally changed our understanding of space and time. Recognized world-wide as a great scientist, Einstein received...
At first glance, it may seem contradictory that celebrated artist Chuck Close is best known for his large-scale portraits. Close has prosopagnosia, which means that he has trouble recognizing faces—even those of people he has known for years. But flattening out a face through the process of painting...
In the case of architect Frank Furness (1839-1912), one can easily see how the buildings are the product of the man. Furness has been described as hotheaded and difficult, as well as pioneering and imaginative. Critics and admirers alike have called his buildings challenging, even outrageous, but...
This Arma Christi Roll arrived at CCAHA as a rolled bundle of parchment, linen, and leather measuring just five inches wide and a few inches tall. When CCAHA Paper Conservator Minah Song unrolled it for examination, she revealed a nearly six-foot-long manuscript—one of just 20 known copies of the...
A couple from the Philadelphia area was wandering through the shops in London’s Kensington district, perusing old maps and prints, when the two came across a piece of history that reminded them of home: an aquatint and etching by T. Cartwright called Philadelphia, from the Great Tree at Kensington...
Less commonplace today—maybe because they never unstuck cleanly from the not-so-tasty backing paper—Candy Buttons were once a childhood staple. The colorful dots of sugar came in three flavors, lemon, lime, and cherry, arrayed in rows of four. “Candy Bottoms,” a work reminiscent of the candy (but...
Known as the “Poet of the People” for his ability to capture in writing the struggles and achievements of ordinary Americans, Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) produced a wide range of critically-acclaimed works—from poetry to children’s stories and American folk song compilations—in his lifetime. He...
The owner of this crayon enlargement portrait had always admired it while it hung, for as long as she can remember, in her aunt’s home in Camden County, North Carolina. In the 1980s, she finally asked her aunt if she could have it. “I asked my aunt, ‘who is it?’, and she said it was her grandmother...
