Staff Voices

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blog-a-thon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month.

With Halloween fast approaching, digital projects librarian Bettina Smith offers up some suggestions for easy DIY costumes inspired by the Archives’ collections.

We continue to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month with a post by archivist Rihoko Ueno, who looks at one of Miné Okubo’s major artistic subjects: the cat.

For Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, archivist Rihoko Ueno examines how the life and work of artist Miné Okubo was affected by being detained in an internment camp during World War II.

Elana Hain, Smithsonian American Art Museum intern, and Mary Savig, curator of manuscripts at the Archives of American Art, explore perspectives of the life of Yasuo Kuniyoshi through oral history interviews with those who knew him. “Artist Teacher Organizer: Yasuo Kuniyoshi in the Archives of American Art” is on view in the Lawrence A. Fleishman Gallery through July 10, 2015.

The Ivan C. Karp papers and OK Harris Works of Art gallery records, 1960–2014, recently donated to the Archives of American Art, are highlighted here by deputy director Liza Kirwin and archivist Cathy Gaines.

For Veterans Day, Kelly Quinn, the Terra Foundation Project Manager for Online Scholarly and Educational Initiatives, looks at the contributions of artist Anna Coleman Ladd in aiding soldiers disfigured during World War I.

Curator of Manuscripts, Mary Savig, on artists and models who inspire as they strike a pose.

Think you’ve got what it takes to be an artist’s model? Vogue with us on Instagram and Twitter using #StrikeAPose.

Elizabeth Botten, curator of the exhibition Artists and Their Models, considers a group of reference photographs used by Violet Oakley in the making of the Dante Window.

Rihoko Ueno, archivist and co-curator of the exhibition Monuments Men: On the Front Line to Save Europe’s Art, 1942–1946, on view through April 20, 2104, examines Monument Man Walter Horn’s connection to the recovery of the Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire, and a cache of gold coins.