Interview with Jason Stieber:
Director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts Library & Research Center

What better way to celebrate Women’s history month than listening to our latest Bert Gallery podcast on the Clara Database of Women Artists launched by the National Museum of Women in the Arts Museum (NMWA), located in Washington, DC. Celebrating their twentieth anniversary, NMWA (www.nmwa.org) has a remarkable archives dedicated to documenting the achievements of women artists. Recently, they were gifted an important collection of letters by Frida Kahlo.

Recently Catherine Bert interviewed Jason Stieber the Director of the NMWA Archives on the Clara Data base, a unique interactive database containing authoritative information on 18,000 women visual artists of all time periods and nationalities. The information in Clara is drawn from the materials in NMWA’s extensive Archives on Women Artists.

Both Clara and the Archives on Women Artists are works in progress. They are continually adding records for new artists and updating information on existing artists.

Click here to download the Clara Database Podcast.

Cultural Awakenings in Rhode Island 2008 by Catherine Little Bert

Interview with James Montford, Director, Bannister Gallery, Rhode Island College

Friday, February 1, 2008
James Montford of Bannister Gallery discusses the lives and work of African American artists Edward Bannister, Wilmer Jennings, Nancy Prophet, and Frank Alston with interview Catherine Little Bert. This interview complements the Bert Gallery Exhibition Struggle, Strength, and Dignity: Opportunities for 20th Century Artists in Providence and coincides with Black History Month.

Download the podcast here.

Visit the Bannister Gallery website here.

Robert Thornton on exhibition at Bert Gallery through March.

Click Here to View Selection from Thornton Inventory Online

Podcast Interview with Robert Thornton

A discussion of his work, his influences, and his time at Rhode Island School of Design.

Listen Here 

About Robert Thornton:

He gave up RISD lens to focus on his own canvas
By Bill VanSiclen, Providence Journal, 1999.

The artist: Robert Thornton, 74.

What he does: painter, photographer
Where he’s been: Born and lives in Providence.
Attended the Rhode Island School of Design.

Man of Mystery: Thornton is a perfect candidate for one of those “Do you know me?” commercials. Though he’s lived in Providence most of his life, and though he’s painted professionally since the mid-1950s, he hasn’t had a gallery show in more than a decade. At the same time, anyone who follows the Rhode Island art scene has probably seen his work.

Who is this mystery man? He’s the former staff photographer for the RISD Museum. “I just kind of fell into it,” Thornton says of the job he held from 1957 to 1992. “I was working as a research assistant when the job opened up. I took it thinking it was a good temporary job. I wound up staying 35 years.”

Painting at night: During the day, Thornton took pictures for posters, catalogs and other museum publications. Then, at night, he’d head back to his studio. “I was always painting,” he says.

But exhibiting was another matter. After winning several awards in the 1960s and ’70s, Thornton decided to stop showing his work. “I just ran out of steam,” he says. His brightly colored paintings pay their respects to many of Thornton’s heroes, including Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, as well as RISD painters such as Gordon Peers and John Frazier.

Artist’s Statement

My motivation has not so much been the study of the craft of painting, but rather exploring the phenomenon of composing. The challenge is not what to paint but, as always, how to paint it. There is no proscribed process- one invents and reinvents the process as new discoveries emerge. It’s a matter of composting and performing simultaneously. As the painter Milton Avery once said, “Painting is like turning corners. You don’t know what’s there until you get there.”

Round II of our round table discussion series on who creates the art market. Part 3 of 3.

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Round II of our round table discussion series on who creates the art market. Part 2 of 3.

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Round II of our round table discussion series on who creates the art market. Part 1 of 3.

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Who Creates the Art Market? Listen to part three of three of a recent panel discussion at Bert Gallery.

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