By Emily J. Peters, Curator of Prints and Drawings — Prized for its brilliant coloring and matte surface, the pastel medium was used by artists in Europe as early as the 16th century. But it was the 18th century that saw the zenith of the medium, coinciding with the enormous rise in popularity of portraiture as an artistic genre. …

By Robin Hanson, Conservator of Textiles, The Cleveland Museum of Art, and Holly Witchey, Adjunct Professor, Department of Art History and Art, Case Western Reserve University —

By Dean Yoder, Senior Conservator of Paintings and Head of Paintings Conservation — Venus Discovering the Dead Adonis, one of the most important and powerful Italian Baroque paintings in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), is undergoing a multiyear conservation effort (fig. 1). The mythological story of Venus and Adonis owes its origin to Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This interpretation is probably…

Benjamin Levy, Guest Curator and PhD Candidate at Case Western Reserve University The exhibition Photographs in Ink, on view through April 2, 2023, looks at the intersection of photography and printmaking. Whether used for visual communication or creative expression, photographic images produced in printer’s ink have increasingly saturated our daily…

By Seth Pevnick, Curator of Greek and Roman Art — Each of the many ancient Greek vases on view in the Dr. John and Helen Collis Family Gallery (102B–C) has multiple stories to tell (fig. 1). Their painted figures, whether black or red, human or animal, may show characters from ancient mythology or actions of or events from daily life…

By Rachel Arzuaga, Interpretive Planner, and Stephanie Foster, Lead Interpretive Planner — A museum is nothing without its visitors. The stories of the artworks and the people who interact with them make museums come alive. At the Cleveland Museum of Art, we are committed to building an audience-centered culture. This idea is key to the work of the interpretation department. Interpretation sits…

By Sabine Kretzschmar, Manager, Education Art Collection — One of the goals of art museum exhibitions is to shed light on little-known stories. It is more meaningful when the process is shared with members of the community — in this case, a group of eight high schoolers from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Currently Under Curation (CUC) program…

By Gerhard Lutz, Robert P. Bergman Curator of Medieval Art — Around 1490, the young, ambitious artist Tilman Riemenschneider was commissioned to make several sculptures for the Benedictine monastery of Saint Peter in Erfurt, Germany. Riemenschneider’s workshop was in the episcopal city of Würzburg in Franconia (present-day Bavaria). The finished sculptures had to be transported across the Thuringian Forest, a low…

By Emma Zavodny, Curatorial Intern in Contemporary Art — The S. Mueller Family Galleries of Contemporary Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art displays a variety of works that expand and, at times, upend viewers’ conceptions of artistic expression, as well as the larger art historical canon. The galleries feature works by artists from around the globe, allowing visitors…