Hidden mothers in Victorian portraits
Categories: history • Tags: art, children, hidden mothers, history, humor, images, photography, victorian era
Tag: history
GUEST POST: Claire Atwater on The Bone Mother illustrations
Categories: history • Tags: art, fairy tale, folklore, guest post, history, illustration, images, trees
Irina Werning: Back to the Future
Categories: Contemporary Art, Ideas • Tags: art, body, children, history, images, nostalgia, photography, time
EJ Bellocq and the Storyville prostitutes
Categories: history • Tags: art, erotic, history, photography, prostitute, unsettling
GUEST POST: Mike Crump on Robert Liston and the Spectacle of Surgical Amputation
Today’s post comes from Mike Crump, a brilliant young neuroscientist doing impressive brain research at Oxford (which is far too complicated for my humble art historical mind to fully understand, let alone articulate to you, so I won’t embarrass myself trying). When not discovering awesome brain things, Mike is interested in the dark corners of the history of science and medicine. He’s written a great article for the blog about a ridiculously interesting Victorian surgeon, Robert Liston, who was one […]
Categories: Guest Post, history • Tags: guest post, history, medicine, science, surgeon, victorian era
19th Century Mug Shots from New Zealand
This slideshow displays a sample of the amazing 19th century mug shots that formed part of a show I curated at the New Zealand Police Museum last year, Suspicious Looking (available here as an online exhibition). Until then, these incredible images had never before been shown to the public. What is it about old mug shots that is so utterly compelling? When we look at them, do we try to see evidence of their criminal nature written in their expression? […]
Categories: history, Museums • Tags: criminal, history, mug shot, museum, new zealand, photography, police, victorian era
Agnes Richter’s embroidered straitjacket
Agnes Richter was a German seamstress held as a patient in an insane asylum during the 1890s. During her time there, she densely embroidered her straitjacket with words, undecipherable phrases and drawings which documented her thoughts and feelings throughout her time there. This remarkable object was collected by Hans Prinzhorn, a psychiatrist who ardently collected the artwork of his patients at a Heidelberg psychiatric hospital in the early 20th century.
Categories: Curiosities, history • Tags: curiosities, history, institution, outsider art, textile, victorian era
