This sizable map was created by George F. Cram who served in the U.S. Army during the American Civil War. After the war ended, Cram joined his uncle Rufus Blanchard's Evanston map business in 1867. Cram's map offers a complete depiction of the railway systems that passed through Missouri and is believed to have been created in 1906-1907. In the lower left hand corner is a key explaining the map's contents including census data, counties, county seats, cities, post offices, railroad stations, villages, etc.
This image documents the immensity of debris left by the Great Flood of 1951. The vantage point appears to come from a western area looking eastward toward the West Bottoms as the original John Deere building located at 13th and Hickory Street can vaguely be seen in the distance. Taking up roughly three-quarters of the image foreground is a mess of barrels, wood, and sections of fencing and roofing. Aside from the bridge and the river itself, there appears to be no end to the expanse to the mass of debris in the photograph.
Earl B. Lewis is an artist and award-winning illustrator who has illustrated over 50 children's books. He works primarily in watercolor depicting stories about the lives of young black children and their struggle in race encounters, children in hospitals, and families. In this painting a mother, father, and child walk down an unpaved road visiting with one another. The father wears all denim with suspenders while the mother wears a long floral dress, completing a traditional image of a working-class family. The child wears a pair of denim overalls and holds a basket of apples.
This reproduction print of a photograph depicts Dr. William Stone Woods (1840-1917) in a traditional three quarter length portrait pose looking bemused. Woods had a long and variant career in the Midwestern United States. He was first a medical doctor trained at the St. Louis Medical College and the Jefferson Medical College. Not long after he became a practicing physician, Woods uptook a wholesale grocery business that supplied workers employed along the Union Pacific Railroad between Nebraska and Utah.
In Berman’s mind, knowledge and information flow like an unseen current between people and media in the library environment. This print is one of ten that visualizes that phenomenon in the ebb and flow of color across them. While the series has a cohesive visual effect when displayed together, each individual unit has its own unique characteristics. In the first of the series, shades of orange emerge from the bottom of the piece overlapping shades of pink and one stroke of bold green to suggest an upward movement carried on by the next piece.
In Berman’s mind, information and knowledge flow like an unseen current between people and media in the library environment. This print is one of ten that visualizes this phenomenon in the ebb and flow of color across them. While the series has a cohesive visual effect when displayed together, each individual unit has its own unique characteristics. In the tenth and final piece of the series, cool blues seem to pass over the white space like streams of air, creating a calmness appropriate for the end of a journey.
In Berman’s mind, information and knowledge flow like an unseen current between people and media in the library environment. This print is one of ten that visualizes this phenomenon in the ebb and flow of color across them. While the series has a cohesive visual effect when displayed together, each individual unit has its own unique characteristics. In the third of the series, vibrant blue, yellow , and red colors are mitigated by subsequent neutral layers trend in a downward motion toward the next piece.
In Berman’s mind, information and knowledge flow like an unseen current between people and media in the library environment. This print is one of ten that visualizes this phenomenon in the ebb and flow of color across them. While the series has a cohesive visual effect when displayed together, each individual unit has its own unique characteristics. In the fourth of the series, vast hues of blue and green create deep wells of visual attention punctuated with yellows and oranges. Within each frame, the layering of color creates new shapes and hues that add to the overall flow of the work.
In Berman’s mind, information and knowledge flow like an unseen current between people and media in the library environment. This print is one of ten that visualizes this phenomenon in the ebb and flow of color across them. While the series has a cohesive visual effect when displayed together, each individual unit has its own unique characteristics. In the fifth of the series, wide bands of cool colors encapsulate streaks of orange and red near the center, altogether leaving little white space on the paper.
In Berman’s mind, information and knowledge flow like an unseen current between people and media in the library environment. This print is one of ten that visualizes this phenomenon in the ebb and flow of color across them. While the series has a cohesive visual effect when displayed together, each individual unit has its own unique characteristics. In the sixth of the series, a vibrant pool of blue appears to center the piece as other streaks of cool-toned color echo off of it. Within each frame, the layering of color creates new shapes and hues that add to the overall flow of the work.
In Berman’s mind, information and knowledge flow like an unseen current between people and media in the library environment. This print is one of ten that visualizes this phenomenon in the ebb and flow of color across them. While the series has a cohesive visual effect when displayed together, each individual unit has its own unique characteristics. In the seventh of the series, the color current appears to bow upward and is dominated by vibrant blues with a few streaks of yellow. Within each frame, the layering of color creates new shapes and hues that add to the overall flow of the work.
In Berman’s mind, information and knowledge flow like an unseen current between people and media in the library environment. This print is one of ten that visualizes this phenomenon in the ebb and flow of color across them. While the series has a cohesive visual effect when displayed together, each individual unit has its own unique characteristics. In the eighth of the series, dense layering of greens, blues, oranges, and browns takes up most of the print, continuing a surge of movement from one piece to the next.
In Berman’s mind, information and knowledge flow like an unseen current between people and media in the library environment. This print is one of ten that visualizes this phenomenon in the ebb and flow of color across them. While the series has a cohesive visual effect when displayed together, each individual unit has its own unique characteristics. In the ninth of the series, underlying layers nearly suggest a landscape canyon scene washed over by currents of blue and green.
Diego Rivera was a famed artists in the Mexican Muralists, a group active throughout the 1900s whose work explored the social and political implications of Mexican life after the 1910 Revolution. Rivera often depicted themes of Mexico's history and social issues using strife as well as triumph to draw a line from the past to the present. In so doing, he presented nationalist themes that he (and the Mexican government) hoped would encourage unity and reinforce pride in Mexican civil society.
This beautifully framed enlarged reproduction print from the January 1910 edition of "Engineering News" is from an article entitled "A Comprehensive Sewer System for Kansas City, Mo." The article highlights the brief study of the needs and local conditions necessary for creating an outline for a comprehensive sewer system.
Known for his American Gothic painting, Grant Wood was a proponent of regionalism in the arts and developed an aesthetic for rural midwestern life in the 1930s. Wood drew on characteristics of Northern Renaissance art and Art Deco design to create a vision of the American landscape more idealized than what was experienced then as the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. The struggle and destitution characteristic of the Depression are left out of this painting of Stone City Iowa, presenting instead a quiet but vibrant view of a farming homestead nestled in a river valley.
Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter and Muralist. He was born in Neosho, Missouri in April 1889. After spending several years in the U.S. Navy and other travels, he moved to Kansas City and began teaching at the Kansas City Art Institute.
Through the thick brush strokes and swatched fields of this later Vincent Van Gogh painting one can make out a row of dwellings built into the hillside. van Gogh painted this scene from Chaponoval, an agricultural village outside of Auvers sur Oise, France. In the 1890s when this painting was created, Chaponoval remained relatively untouched by the Industrial Revolution raving elsewhere in France and Europe. The cottages depicted here convey a snapshot of this way of life maintained in the building technique using sandstone and heavily thatched roofs.
This print illustrates a three-tiered fountain comprised of two simple bowls and receiving pool, each separated by shafts decorated with shell and floral motifs. The text across the bottom reads "Fountain Elevation" with a scale of 1"=1'-0". Stylized floral motifs adorn the corners of the print creating a border around the fountain that otherwise appears to hover alone in the drawings' atmosphere and ultimately emphasizes its ethereal nature.
The original painting that inspired this print had a perplexing effect on its viewers. Four girls appear on a bridge, standing close to one another and peering out over the water that belies the popular Norwegian resort Aasgaardstrand. The foremost figure is turned toward the viewer, nearly faceless with no distinguishable features. Her ambiguity implants an eeriness in the scene. The bridge trails off, swerving right out of the frame just below a twilight-toned sky.