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Public Art in Los Angeles , including murals. The Mural Conservancy of LA. Murals in Tucson. Loyalist and republican murals in Northern Ireland. The murals of Diego Rivera (at the Diego Rivera Web Museum). the Diego Rivera Mural Project.
posted on Jul-23-03 at 12:01 AM

Chinese Pop Posters. More :- Guangzhou's racing track, patrolling despair, Cuba, under New York, Bombay bazaar, and Chinese rural architecture. All from the excellent Atlas magazine - more here.
posted on Jul-21-03 at 12:54 AM

Stone inhabitants and extraordinary houses of Prague. More at the Praha experience.
If you like this, you might also like fifty doors of Paris and San Francisco.
posted on Jul-18-03 at 7:08 AM

Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa, the African. 'According to his famous autobiography, written in 1789, Olaudah Equiano (c.1745-1797) was born in what is now Nigeria. Kidnapped and sold into slavery in childhood, he was taken as a slave to the New World. As a slave to a captain in the Royal Navy, and later to a Quaker merchant, he eventually earned the price of his own freedom by careful trading and saving. As a seaman, he travelled the world, from the Mediterranean to the North Pole. Coming to London, he became involved in the movement to abolish the slave trade, an involvement which led to him writing and publishing The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa the African (1789) a strongly abolitionist autobiography ... '
Of interest :- Ignatius Sancho: African Man of Letters; Quobna Ottabah Cugoano: a Former Slave Speaks Out; American Slave Narratives ('From 1936 to 1938, over 2,300 former slaves from across the American South were interviewed by writers and journalists under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration'); Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938; Excerpts from Slave Narratives.
posted on Jul-17-03 at 6:09 AM

The Elliot Avedon Museum and Archive of Games. Board games from a thirteenth-century 'Book of Games', Inuit games, card games, row games, puzzles, ethnographical papers on games, etc.
A different kind of game at Streetplay - stickball, hopscotch, galleries, and street games worldwide.
posted on Jul-16-03 at 12:34 AM

JCM Artistamp Gallery. More at the Jas Cyberspace Museum. Don't miss bugpost.
posted on Jul-15-03 at 12:29 AM

Images of the Southwest. The American southwest, that is. The Bisbee Deportation of 1917 - 'an event specific to Arizona that influenced the labor movement throughout the United States'; early cartography of the southwest; a rural school newspaper; mission churches; folk arts - Easter eggs, murals and so on; War Relocation Authority camps (some photos ; and more.
posted on Jul-14-03 at 12:12 AM

The Mythical Quest , an old exhibition at the British Library. 'Throughout the world, tales have always been told of heroes and heroines embarking on perilous quests in search of lost loved ones, the secret of immortality, earthly paradise or simply great riches. Many of these stories have elements in common, such as clashes with monsters, battles with the elements, interventions by the gods and tests of moral character, mental cunning and physical strength. These tales have been expressed in songs, literature, art and dance for thousands of years, and are still being reinterpreted today in books, comic strips, interactive games and adventure films.'
More British Library exhibits here, from early Indian photography to the secret life of maps.
Examples of mythical quests :- Monkey: Journey to the West (another version here, not to mention the TV series); the Ramayana (and the Ramakian, the Thai version); Cupid and Psyche at the Classics Pages (subject of a previous thread); the Holy Grail (more at the Catholic Enyclopaedia); the journey of Alexander the Great; Pilgrim's Progress and John Bunyan; the world of Dante and a map of Hell.
posted on Jul-11-03 at 6:25 AM

America in the 1930s : on film, in print, on the air. Some highlights : War of the Worlds, the Robert Johnson notebooks, Superman's identity crisis, Babe Ruth, a female evangelist, building the Chrysler Building.
posted on Jul-9-03 at 7:53 AM

Indigo Arts. Folk art from Africa, Asia, and the Americas - barbershop signs, Hindu gods, vodou, Cuban art and more.
posted on Jul-8-03 at 7:38 AM

Amien Cathedral. A virtual tour. Exterior and interior photos, drawings, movies, texts - most impressive.
Related :- virtual tour of Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle.
posted on Jul-6-03 at 6:48 AM

Exotic Entomology. 'Provided for your delight are a small number of the world's butterflies and moths, taken from Dru Drury's three-volume monograph entitled Illustrations of Exotic Entomology.'
Related :- Schreber's Fabulous Beasts. 'In 1774 Johann Christian Dan Schreber authored a multivolume set of books entitled Die Saugthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen. Focusing on mammals of the world, these books were lavishly illustrated with 755 hand-colored plates ... '
posted on Jul-5-03 at 6:42 AM

432: Cosmic Key. 'A compendium of fact, theory and speculation relating to the number 432, and its primary divisors and multiples - 108, 216, 864, 1296; and also the number 9 - being the sum of digits 4+3+2; with excursions into many other mysterious and exotic phenomena. ' Good clean fun.
posted on Jul-4-03 at 5:19 AM

US National Archives & Records Administration Exhibit Hall. Some good American history pieces - the Emancipation Proclamation, government drawings, 20th century photographs, the New Deal and the arts, panoramic photography, 1970s Chicago, World War 2 posters, gifts to presidents, and more.
posted on Jul-3-03 at 2:08 AM

A Year in the Life of a Kyoto Neighbourhood. Actually, more like about six months, but still a worthwhile project.
Related :- the Play of Light, Kyoto and Nepal at night.
Also :- seasons in the Natural History Museum garden, London.
posted on Jul-1-03 at 11:54 PM

African Aperture. 'A website promoting the very best photographers who focus on Africa and providing a 'gateway' to current and past issues, to interesting and notable websites, to features and articles, relating to the themes as listed above.' Check out the gallery of photos of African life; then check out the links page, which leads to sites such as African Ceremonies, Nandiphotos: See Uganda through New Eyes, and Mirella Ricciardi's photos of Africa and children. Quite a collection.
posted on Jun-30-03 at 12:58 PM

Art for a Change. An archive of such things as punk portraits, the German Expressionists, Spanish Civil War posters, Paris 1968 posters; art protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Alberto Korba and his famous photo of Che Guevara; and more politically oriented art.
Related :- anarchist posters from Europe, Australia and North America; John Heartfield versus Hitler (gallery of Heartfield's anti-Nazi photo-montages); Aum Shinrikyo: Japanese Wanted poster art ('The Japanese police made art to capture members of Aum Shinrikyo. We made art to capture the essence of a surreal modern Japan, governed by fear.'); the history and meaning of the CND logo (a.k.a. the 'peace symbol'); posters of pre-1945 Japanese labour movements.
posted on Jun-29-03 at 12:52 PM

Gallery of Fluid Dynamics. 'One of the most attractive features of fluid mechanics is the beauty of the flows one encounters. Whether one is observing vortex streets, the potential flow around an airfoil or body, shock refraction or diffraction, or waves breaking on a beach the aesthetic appeal of fluid mechanics is impossible to deny. '
posted on Jun-28-03 at 12:40 PM

Painting the Weather. Fine art about meteorological phenomena.
posted on Jun-27-03 at 12:37 PM

Saranda's Story. 'My name is Saranda and I am 13 years old. I moved to Liverpool from Kosovo three years ago ... '
posted on Jun-25-03 at 10:47 AM

The National Library of Scotland and its interesting collection of online exhibits : the Murthly Hours, an illuminated book of hours (folios here); 16th century maps of Scotland; playbills from Edinburgh's Theatre Royal; 16th century Scottish books; the albums of the Edinburgh Calotype Club; R.L. Stevenson; Robert Burns; World War I stories; more.
posted on Jun-24-03 at 10:44 AM

Sketches at the Eyepiece. Drawings of the Moon, the Sun, planets and other astronomical objects.
Also The Face of the Moon: Galileo to Apollo. A catalogue of rare books and maps, with images.
posted on Jun-23-03 at 10:39 AM

The Canadian Museum of Civilization's online presence is a huge archive of arts, histories and cultures from Canada and beyond: Native Canadian toys, clothing and musical instruments; dolls in Canada; the Palaeo-Eskimos, who lived in the Arctic before the Inuit; Nova Scotian quilts; Central African artifacts; the 1897 Canadian Historical Dinner Service; landscape kimonos; Canadian war artists; Aba Bayefsky and his art based on the liberation of Belsen; French Canadian painted furniture; outdoor folk art; the Haida; a Tibetan Sand Mandala; puppets; the history of nurses' caps; the Canadian Postal Museum; the Nunavut voyages of Martin Frobisher; more.
posted on Jun-22-03 at 3:17 AM

The Historical Museum of Southern Florida. A good set of exhibits and collections : the Afro-Cuban Orisha religion and associated arts; the Miami Centennial Quilt; South American music in Miami; illustrating Cuba's flora and fauna; vintage Cuban postcards; selections from Audubon's 'Birds of America'; Pan Am memorabilia; and more.
posted on Jun-20-03 at 9:59 AM

Yad Vashem: Online Exhibitions. 'Yad Vashem's task is to perpetuate the legacy of the Holocaust to future generations so that the world never forgets the horrors and cruelty of the Holocaust. Its principal missions are commemoration and documentation of the events of the Holocaust, collection, examination, and publication of testimonies to the Holocaust, the collection and memorialization of the names of Holocaust victims, and research and education.' No Child's Play; Private Tolkatchev; Photos from the Warsaw Ghetto; and much more.
posted on Jun-19-03 at 9:53 AM

The Japanese Manhole Art Museum. More art of streets and cities at Ruavista, from Fifties Buenos Aires to Belfast to reverse painted glass signs in Paris, 1900.
More at the Typographic Signage Project; Vancouver's Neon Heritage; Early American Tavern and Inn Signs; and the Emergence of Advertising in America.
posted on Jun-18-03 at 9:07 AM

Gothic Gardening. The sinister side of a seemingly harmless hobby.
posted on Jun-17-03 at 8:52 AM

Africaserver. Contemporary African art and culture - San art from Botswana, Arms into Art from Mozambique, Dar es Salaam in Delft Blue - a cross-cultural comparison of favourite objects, Marthe Nso Abomo from Cameroon, a Rwanda Genocide Monument, and more.
Related :- Meshu, an artist and political activist from Lesotho who may have been southern Africa's first streaker.
posted on Jun-16-03 at 8:20 AM

The Moonlit Road. A fine collection of ghost stories from the American South.
People who like this may also be interesting in How to Fake a Ghost Photo, or Haunted Mobile Homes.
posted on Jun-15-03 at 7:18 AM

The Woodblock Prints of Ando Hiroshige. Images and essays - a treat for ukiyo-e fans.
Also good for ukiyo-e admirers :- Universes in Collision: Men and Women in 19th Century Japanese Prints; and Hiroshige: A Shoal of Fishes.
posted on Jun-14-03 at 4:07 AM

Maps of Liberia , 1830-1879. The American Colonization Society was founded in 1817 to resettle free black Americans in West Africa. Here's a brief history of the American Colonization Society, with images of places, currency, letters etc.
The Yekepa Memory Project includes materials about Yekepa, Liberia, such as postcards and stamps.
Related :- Liberia, June 1999 photoessay.
Also of interest :- a collection of photos of neighbouring Guinea, 1905.
posted on Jun-13-03 at 1:40 AM

Built St. Louis. The historic architecture of St. Louis, Missouri, its ruins, and its wondrous anachronisms.
posted on Jun-12-03 at 1:36 AM

Images of Afghanistan, 1976-78. A good range.
posted on Jun-10-03 at 12:05 PM

Lianhuanhua Picture Stories from China - Chinese cartoons; and Ling Lung Women's Magazine, Shanghai 1931-37.
posted on Jun-9-03 at 12:01 PM

The Nuba of Sudan : - politics, culture, photographs and wrestlers.
Related :- Survival International; the photographs of George Rodger, who travelled among the Nuba after World War II; the Nuba People; the Dinka and the Nuer, neighbours of the Nuba.
posted on Jun-8-03 at 11:39 AM

The Hellenic Ministry of Culture The Hellenic Ministry of Culture and its many guides and maps for hundreds of Greek archaeological sites, monuments and museums. Here's one of Herakleion, in Crete.
posted on Jun-7-03 at 11:20 AM

The Museum of the History of Science , Oxford, has an impressive collection of online exhibits - from medieval scientific instruments and the history of cameras to images of Tycho Brahe and 'the geometry of war' - mathematics and the early modern European battlefield.
posted on Jun-6-03 at 9:08 AM

Unseen America. First person photographs by low income people. Via Bread and Roses, a cultural resource for the labour movement in the New York area.
posted on Jun-5-03 at 7:48 AM

Aztecs at the Royal Academy. The exhibition may be over but the website can still be enjoyed.
posted on Jun-4-03 at 7:32 AM

The Digital Journalist: Features. The Digital Journalist: Features. Photojournalism features on a spread of human life, from Afghan child labour, the Dalai Lama and the Soviet Union to Marilyn Monroe, jazz and Smalltown USA. (Warning - adverts).
posted on Jun-1-03 at 2:14 AM

Khajuraho. History and extensive galleries on the Indian temple site (built in the tenth century) famous for its erotic sculptures. (Not suitable for work, and the front page contains a warning that it is not suitable for under-21's). (more inside)
posted on May-31-03 at 12:19 AM

How to Walk of Japan. Strange tourist attractions - some NSFW.
posted on May-29-03 at 11:52 PM

Huarochiri: A Peruvian Culture in Time. 'Huarochir is an Andean province near Lima, Peru. This site offers an ethnographic and historical tour of some of its communities. It samples the Huarochir Quechua Manuscript, which alone among colonial documents explains a pre-Christian tradition in an Andean language, and visits modern highlanders who inhabit and interpret the mythic landscape.' Related :- Martin Chambi. Chambi was an Amerindian Peruvian photographer famous for his photographs of indigenous Andean life. The site is in Spanish - no impediment to enjoying the photographs.
posted on May-28-03 at 11:36 PM

South African Photography during the Era of Apartheid. A good collections of photos of men, women and children.
Related :- Inside Africa: Soweto uprising remembered - the famous photo of Hector Peterson; Sam Nzimi, Photographer of the Apartheid Era; Peter Magubane.
posted on May-27-03 at 11:17 PM

Online Tours of Great Artworks. From the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC :- Julia Margaret Cameron; Degas; Jasper Johns; Manet; and more.
Related :- the online collection of the National Gallery in London is similarly extensive, and organised bytheme.
posted on May-25-03 at 4:01 PM

Painting with Marxism. A gallery of socialist realism and the Mexican muralists, with a nice links section (such as the Chisholm Gallery's Russian, Spanish Civil War and Cuban posters. More at the Art of Marxism. (The children's literature page is quite intriguing).
posted on May-24-03 at 3:54 PM

Comic Strip Classics Stamps. (via Dublog).
Related :- A nice collection of exhibits at the National Postal Museum, part of the Smithsonian (such as this exhibit of Cuban stamps and this one on FDR's stamp collecting); the Bath Postal Museum of British postal history; stamps of Greenland; stamps of Tibet.
posted on May-23-03 at 5:32 AM

Object Not Found. Lost and found photographs, postcards and letters.'The collection of postcards, photographs and letters collected here allows me to peek into a however small part of other peoples lives. '
Found via Countries of the Mind, a page about an imaginary world, and its postage stamps and postcards.
Related interest :- P22 Mail Art, and gallery.
posted on May-22-03 at 12:06 AM

Madhubani Painting - 'an on-line exhibit of folk paintings by women artists who live in the Madhubani district of northern India.' With a gallery of paintings depicting, among other things, interpretations of popular Hindu stories.
Related :- an exhibition of Maithil paintings at asianart.com; Patterns and Prints of India.
posted on May-20-03 at 1:43 PM

Political Cartoons from US Presidential Elections 1860-84. Related interest :- American Political Prints 1766-1876; the World of Thomas Nast; British General Election Cartoons 1959-97; Madam & Eve, a popular cartoon about the new South Africa; The Censored Cartoons Page, 'a guide to the cuts and edits which have been rendered to the classic cartoons of Warner Brothers, MGM, Paramount, and other studios when broadcast on television ... ' ; Iranian Cartoons; the London Cartoon Gallery.
posted on May-19-03 at 10:58 AM