Articles

Why Artists Rarely Control Their Own Legacy After Death

Samuel Reed

Why Artists Rarely Control Their Own Legacy Aft...

Artists often shape their work but lose authority over how it is remembered. Estates, museums, and markets play a defining role in legacy.

Otto Dix, To Beauty, 1922 via WikiArt/Public Domain

Nathan Cole

A Curation of 20th Century Paintings You Should...

A curated guide to seven twentieth-century paintings that reveal how artists used symbolism, psychology, and myth to reshape modern visual language.

Lina Bo Bardi via architectuul

Louisa Penrose

Lina Bo Bardi and Architecture as Social Experi...

Lina Bo Bardi shaped modern architecture through museums, public spaces, and social design that prioritize human experience with built environments.

Yves Tanguy The Rapidity of Sleep (Detail); mookiefl, CC BY-NC 4.0, via Flickr

Taylor Grant

A Chronological Guide to Yves Tanguy’s Underrat...

A curated examination of overlooked Yves Tanguy paintings that reveal how structure, repetition, and space shaped his singular Surrealist vision.

Georges de La Tour, Magdalene with the Smoking Flame, c. 1640 via Wikipedia/Public Domain

Eleanor Brooks

Light and Shadow as Meaning Across Art History

Light and shadow shape how meaning, emotion, and attention operate in art, guiding historical perception through direction, intensity, and symbolic presence.

Roberto Matta, Untitled, 1942-3, ©Roberto Matta. ADAGP, Paris / VEGAP, Madrid © Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid via Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza

Rebecca Levenson

Carl Jung and the Rise of the Unconscious in Mo...

A study of Carl Jung’s influence on modern artists who treated the unconscious as a source of form, symbol, and creative authority.

Jackson Pollock, Guardians of the Secret, 1943, © Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York via SFMOMA

Arthur Kingsley

Unexpected Early and Late Works by Jackson Pollock

Early and late paintings by Jackson Pollock reveal how figuration, symbolism, and structure shaped his work beyond the drip period.

José Clemente Orozco, Dive Bomber and Tank, 1940 © 2026 José Clemente Orozco / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SOMAAP, Mexico via MoMA

Margaret Allen

Mexican Masters Who Transformed Art Through Pub...

A study of Mexican muralism and its leading figures, examining how Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros, and Tamayo reshaped art through public space.

Thomas Hart Benton, Fire in the Barnyard, 1944 via Sotheby’s

Jack Lowry

Thomas Hart Benton and the Shape of Modern Amer...

Thomas Hart Benton shaped modern American art through movement, labor, and narrative, revealing how identity and history became visual form.

MoMA staff dismantling Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937) prior to its shipment to Spain, 1981 via MoMA.

Samuel Reed

What Happens to a Painting Before It Enters a M...

An inside look at how paintings move from studio or collection into museums, shaped by research, conservation, and institutional decision-making.