Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

museums of art

(Encyclopedia)museums of art, institutions or buildings where works of art are kept for display or safekeeping. The word museum derives from the Greek mouseion, meaning temple to the works of the Muses. This articl...

Guggenheim Museum

(Encyclopedia)Guggenheim Museum, officially Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, major museum of modern art in New York City. Founded in 1939 as the Museum of Non-objective Art, the Guggenheim is known for its remarkable ...

Art Institute of Chicago

(Encyclopedia)Art Institute of Chicago, museum and art school, in Grant Park, facing Michigan Ave. It was incorporated in 1879; George Armour was the first president. Since 1893 the Institute has been housed in its...

Museum of Fine Arts

(Encyclopedia)Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, chartered and incorporated (1870) after a decision by the Boston Athenæum, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pool their collections of art objects...

modern dance

(Encyclopedia)modern dance, serious theatrical dance forms that are distinct from both ballet and the show dancing of the musical comedy or variety stage. By the late 20th cent., distinctions among modern da...

modern architecture

(Encyclopedia)modern architecture, new architectural style that emerged in many Western countries in the decade after World War I. It was based on the “rational” use of modern materials, the principles of funct...

op art

(Encyclopedia)op art ŏp [key], movement that became prominent in the United States and Europe in the mid-1960s. Deriving from abstract expressionism, op art includes paintings concerned with surface kinetics. Colo...

folk art

(Encyclopedia)folk art, the art works of a culturally homogeneous people produced by artists without formal training. The forms of such works are generally developed into a tradition that is either cut off from or ...

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

(Encyclopedia)Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum was designed by Gordon Bunshaft to house 6,000 pieces of the enormous art collection amassed by ...

Browse by Subject