Hammer Blog

"Kate Lawson," a striking vintage gelatin silver print acquired by the Grunwald Center last year, anticipates the eccentric, non-canonical beauty that has become a hallmark of works by Catherine Opie, whose arresting portraits of artists and designers are currently on view at the Hammer Museum.

It's the end of the month, so it's time once again for Hammergram! We are fascinated by the photos our visitors take of the objects and spaces at the Hammer. Hammergram is a monthly round-up of our favorite visitor photos in the hopes that it will inspire you to share your own Hammer experience with us.

The sometimes overly precious trappings of the belle épreuve stood in opposition to lithography’s popular status as an easy means of disseminating images to a wide audience. Lithography, though it shared etching’s affinities with drawing, had not enjoyed the commercial or critical success that etching had in the 1860s and 1870s.

Around 1860 growing critical favoritism toward etching paved the way for the so-called etching revival, which would flourish in France and England throughout the 1860s and 1870s. The Parisian publisher Alfred Cadart (1828–1875) founded the Société des aquafortistes (Society of Etchers) in 1862.

It is a tale of madness, of conspiracy, of friendship, of disease, of jealousy, of anguish, circumstance and over one hundred years of art historical intrigue. Upon voluntarily entering the psychiatric hospital of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole at Saint-Rémy in March 1889, did Vincent van Gogh know that he was embarking on the most prolific period of his career?