An ongoing dispute over a statue commemorating South Korean victims of the Japanese imperial army’s sex slavery has escalated, with Japan summoning its ambassador and a consul general back to Tokyo.
World War II
Posted inIn Brief
A Protest Monument to Victims of Sex Slavery May Become Permanent
Municipal officials in Busan returned a statue it had originally confiscated after protesters erected it next to the Japanese consulate as a tribute to the thousands of Korean women forced into Japanese military brothels.
Posted inArt
The British Artist Who Painted Through War and Found Surrealism
A retrospective devoted to the British painter Paul Nash shifts the focus from his radical interpretations of war and Surrealism to his innovative use of color.
Posted inIn Brief
Van Gogh’s 128-Year-Old Bed May Rest in a Dutch Village
While researching his latest van Gogh book, scholar Martin Bailey tried to track down the yellow bed the artist famously painted and developed an alternate theory as to why he sliced his ear.
Posted inArt
A Lost 15th-Century Mural that Depicted Death’s Indiscriminate Dance
In 1942, an Allied bombing in Lübeck, Germany, destroyed a famous 15th-century dance of death mural by artist Bernt Notke.
Posted inArt
How a Leg Splint Shaped the Iconic Eames Chair
Before Charles and Ray Eames made their name with modernist chairs, they perfected the molding of plywood with a military leg splint for World War II.
Posted inBooks
How the Bulldozer Smoothed Postwar America into a Blank Slate
Demolition and construction following World War II radically altered the landscape of the United States, and one machine in particular allowed for such a dramatic overhaul.
Posted inArt
A Digital Story Leads You Through Italy’s WWII Resistance
To mark the 70th anniversary of Italy’s 1945 liberation from fascism, the Milan-based duo We Are Müesli developed an interactive story based on the country’s 20 months of partisan resistance.
Posted inNews
40,000 Canisters of Aerial Film from World War II Land Online
Aerial photography dates to the early years of the 20th century, when pioneers like George R. Lawrence launched cameras into the skies with kites.
Posted inArt
A Photographer Who Exposed the Scars and Traumas of Postwar Japan
LOS ANGELES — The story of Yokosuka, as told by photographer Ishiuchi Miyako, takes place in lonely, foreboding streets, where the miracle of Japan’s postwar economy seems to not have shaken off the grit and grime of history.
Posted inArt
Sole Surviving Jean Prouvé Prefab Military Shelter Surfaces at Design Miami
MIAMI BEACH — With prefabricated housing now essential in addressing housing shortages, emergency relief, and even architecture in Antarctica, the mid-20th century pop-up designs of the late Jean Prouvé are receiving renewed attention.
Posted inArt
The British Government’s Only Woman Artist in WWII Finally Gets a Retrospective
Evelyn Dunbar was the only woman to be salaried as an Official British War Artist during World War II, painting and sketching images of the home front, particularly the Women’s Land Army where civilians were employed in agriculture to fill in for absent soldiers.