Resources

Art Sôlido explores a wide range of topics related to the visual, performing and media arts. Each issue is designed to engage and inform students, faculty, alumni and artist.

A visit to the Louvre and its collections lets visitors discover Western art from the Middle Ages to 1848, as well as a large number of ancient civilizations. Yet it also offers another history to explore. The grand palace that houses the museum, which dates back to the late twelfth century, is a true lesson in architecture: from 1200 to 2011, the most innovative architects have in turn built and developed the Louvre. Long the seat of power, this royal residence was also home to French heads of state until 1870 and is one of the major backdrops to the history of Paris and of France.

When The Met was founded in 1870, it owned not a single work of art. Through the combined efforts of generations of curators, researchers, and collectors, our collection has grown to represent more than 5,000 years of art from across the globe—from the first cities of the ancient world to the works of our time.

The collection of Count F. Baudouin arrived in the Hermitage in 1781 through the mediation of Melchior Grimm. For over 20 years Grimm worked as Catherine’s agent, acquiring art for her in Paris. He initially recommended the Baudouin collection to the Empress, stressing that it was well known to Russians coming to Paris. With 199 paintings, mainly form the Dutch and Flemish schools, this was Catherine’s last major acquisition of a whole collection for the Hermitage. The picture gallery gained nine works by Rembrandt (Portrait of the Poet Jeremias de Decker, Portrait of an Old Woman, Portrait of an Old Man) and paintings by Anthony van Dyck, Adriaen van Ostade and Salomon van Ruysdael.

The building that today houses the Museo Nacional del Prado was designed by architect Juan de Villanueva in 1785. It was constructed to house the Natural History Cabinet, by orders of King Charles III. However, the building’s final purpose – as the new Royal Museum of Paintings and Sculptures – was the decision of the monarch’s grandson, King Ferdinand VII, encouraged by his wife Queen Maria Isabel de Braganza.The Royal Museum, soon quickly renamed the National Museum of Paintings and Sculptures and subsequently the Museo Nacional del Prado, opened to the public for the first time in November 1819.

Tate holds the national collection of British art from 1500 to the present day and international modern and contemporary art. British art is represented by artists chosen for their contribution to its history and development, rather than their nationality alone. The collection has recently expanded its holdings of modern and contemporary artworks from Africa, Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and South Asia.

As the preeminent institution devoted to the art of the United States, the Whitney Museum of American Art presents the full range of twentieth-century and contemporary American art, with a special focus on works by living artists. The Whitney is dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting, and exhibiting American art, and its collection—arguably the finest holding of twentieth-century American art in the world—is the Museum’s key resource. The Museum’s signature exhibition, the Biennial, is the country’s leading survey of the most recent developments in American art.

The original collection of the British Museum included antiquities, coins and medals, natural history specimens and a large library collection. It now comprises over 8 million objects spanning the history of the world’s cultures: from the stone tools of early man to twentieth century prints.

The Uffizi gallery was built in 1581, under the request of Granduca Francisco de’ Medici, son of Cosimo I. The original design was that of Giorgio Vasari, one of the leading painters and architects during the 15th century. His plan for this museum was quite a strategically planned building as it was constructed adjacent to the Medici Palace and extended until the Arno river, over the Ponte Vecchio bridge. The space was originally intended for offices and to host bureaucratic meetings for various magistrates as apposed to holding masterpieces as it is today. It was built rapidly despite minor difficulties and major social events taking place in the area.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation was founded in 1937, and its first New York–based venue for the display of art, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, opened in 1939. With its exhibitions of Solomon Guggenheim’s somewhat eccentric art collection, the unusual gallery—designed by William Muschenheim at the behest of Hilla Rebay, the foundation’s curator and the museum’s director—provided many visitors with their first encounter with great works by Vasily Kandinsky, as well as works by his followers, including Rudolf Bauer, Alice Mason, Otto Nebel, and Rolph Scarlett. The need for a permanent building to house Guggenheim’s art collection became evident in the early 1940s, and in 1943 renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright gained the commission to design a museum in New York City. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened on October 21, 1959, and in 2019, celebrates 60 years as an architectural icon and “temple of spirit” where radical art and architecture meet.

The national museum of the Musée d’Orsay opened to the public on 9 December 1986 to show the great diversity of artistic creation in the western world between 1848 and 1914.