Art Detective is an initiative from Art UK that involves specialists and the public in solving mysteries about the public collections paintings in the UK.
Art UK
Posted inArt
An Unlikely East-West Collaboration in 1830s Portraits of Tumor Patients
Guangzhou, then called Canton by Westerners, was the only Chinese port open to foreign trading until the Opium Wars of the 19th century, and it became a rare hub of direct interactions between the two cultures. One of these resulted in a surprisingly moving series of paintings portraying bodies disfigured by tumors.
Posted inArt
The Hand-Painted Ghouls and Specters of Mid-20th-Century Carnival Ghost Trains
Almost all carnivals traveling the circuits in the United States and Great Britain in the 1940s and ’50s towed their own haunted railroad.
Posted inArt
The Fantastical Visions of a Forgotten Early-20th-Century Illustrator
Sidney Herbert Sime’s art seems to capture the point at which a dream becomes a nightmare.
Posted inArt
How Anamorphic Paintings Represented the Miracles of the Saints
Which saint you see in this 17th-century painting depends on where you stand.
Posted inNews
A New Website Lets You Browse Images of All Publicly Owned Art in the UK
“THROUGH OUR PUBLIC COLLECTIONS WE ALL OWN ART,” reads a new painting by British artist Bob and Roberta Smith (who is one guy).