Category: Picture this

I recently came across this photograph when perusing some images from the Carol M. Highsmith Collection, and, hailing from the American West, I was cheered by its familiar landscape – not to mention the symmetry of the rainbow. As the title of the image indicates, the hint of a second rainbow is visible above the brighter arc.   Double rainbow (the upper one is faint) over tiny Antares along historic U.S. Route 66 in Arizona. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 2017. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.49616 Curious to see how and where other photographers in the collections might have captured rainbows, I sought out more examples. Reproducing this elusive visual phenomenon in photographic form is difficult, so it is no surprise that most other…

The following guest post is by Maggie McCready, Archivist in the Prints & Photographs Division. A collection of nearly 1,200 prints and posters by 265 different artists is now online at the Library of Congress.  This artwork represents 40 years’ worth of culture, printmaking, and protest based in the San Francisco Bay area. Let me introduce you to the studios of the Mission Gráfica and La Raza Graphics! This autobiographical print demonstrates the hustle and bustle of the La Raza Graphics studio as well as the collaborative spirit it fostered. Artists worked together to illustrate, design, and print posters for local community events and also participated in political conversations at the national and international level. The donor noted that a…