Blog

A few weeks ago, we shared a blog post about a painting by Beatrice Wose-Smith in the collection of the Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts that was included in the Golden Gate International Exposition. This was just one example of the Syracuse Museum’s (today the Everson Museum of Art) involvement in the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair. The Golden Gate International Exposition had five divisions within the department of fine arts: European Art, Decorative Arts, American Art, Pacific Cultures, and Education. While the Syracuse Museum’s Wose-Smith painting was shown within the context of the American Art division, the Museum played a far bigger role in the fair’s Decorative Arts division. Read More

Humorous and sly, Mildred Beltré's (b. New York, NY, 1969) Where My Dream At? presents an everyday domestic object as a question: a white, linen pillow with black wool script, asking, “where my dream at?” Based in Brooklyn, Beltré is an artist, educator, and community organizer whose diverse works explore social change. For Beltré, her creative framework involves the history of political movements, their participants, structures, and how those experiences impact social lives. She often addresses themes of racism, sexism, capitalism, and imperialism, particularly when envisioning a post-revolution world. Humor, empathy, and social justice are fundamental building blocks for Beltré's work. Read More

Maria Montoya Martinez (1887-1980) was a celebrated potter from San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico. Maria was an active ceramist when modernism was deemed a masculine and primarily white artistic movement, and she interfered with that model to show that Indigenous peoples have their own modernity, and have always been modern. Ceramic making in San Ildefonso was traditionally a female practice, and Maria grew up with a family of potters and creators. She attended Saint Catherine’s Indian School in a time when Indigenous women were struggling to survive economically. Pottery was Maria’s way out of this economically difficult setting to support her family and her village. Read More

Syracuse native Beatrice Wose-Smith (1908-1971) rose to prominence as a skilled painter in Central New York in the 1930s and 1940s. She studied painting at Syracuse University, and after graduating in 1930, Wose-Smith spent two years in New York City as a student of realist painter George Luks. She returned to Syracuse in 1932 and set up a studio in a Victorian home on East Genesee Street on the south side of Fayette Park (today known as Fayette Firefighter’s Memorial Park). Over the next decade, Wose-Smith developed a unique painting style that combined the urban realism she learned from Luks with her personal aesthetic. Read More

Born into the wealthy Longworth family of Cincinnati, Ohio, Maria Longworth Nichols (1849-1932) used her family money to found one of the most successful art potteries in the United States. Nichols’ interest in ceramics began with learning how to paint on china, a pastime—and ultimately a livelihood—that became popular for women in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century. Nichols first learned china painting in 1873 from Karl Langenbeck, a ceramic chemist, and expanded her skills in classes taught by Benn Pittman at the Cincinnati School of Design. Read More