The Public Domain Review January 24, 2018

  • Filed under FYI

Yvette Borup Andrews: Photographing Central Asia
Although often overshadowed by the escapades of her more famous husband (said by some to be the real-life inspiration for Indiana Jones), the photographs taken by Yvette Borup Andrews on their first expeditions through Central Asia stand today as a compelling contribution to early visual anthropology. Lydia Pyne looks at the story and impact of this unique body of images.
 
 
 
 
The Book of the Homeless (1916)
Collection of essays, art, poetry, and musical scores, edited by Edith Wharton, whose profits were used to fund civilians displaced by World War I. Including works by Conrad, Monet, Yeats, Cocteau, and Rodin.
 
 
 
 
The Scottish Sisters Who Pioneered Art Nouveau
Most people have heard of Art Nouveau, but few remember two of the most influential figures in its conception. (No, not Gustav Klimt.) They were a pair of sisters named Margaret and Frances MacDonald, who, along with their Glasgow School of Art classmates Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Herbert MacNair, comprised the Glasgow Four. Art Nouveau wouldn’t be what it is without them.
 
 
 
 
The Dreams of an Inventor in 1420
Bennett Gilbert peruses the sketchbook of 15th-century engineer Johannes de Fontana, a catalogue of designs for a variety of fantastic and often impossible inventions, including fire-breathing automatons, pulley-powered angels, and the earliest surviving drawing of a magic lantern device.
 
 
 
 
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