/items/browse?output=atom&tags=Arts <![CDATA[Explore 91ĘÓƵ]]> 2025-03-12T11:26:55-04:00 Omeka /items/show/720 <![CDATA[Home of Tupac Shakur]]> 2022-12-06T16:04:53-05:00

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Title

Home of Tupac Shakur

Creator

Francesca Cohen

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Story

There are very few people who have made an impact on American popular culture like Tupac Shakur. His music served to inspire a generation of musicians--music that was inevitably shaped by his time in Baltimore. Although Shakur did not grow up in Baltimore, the years he spent here marked an important point in his life where he began to transition from a child to an adult. At 14, Shakur and his family moved to Baltimore from the Bronx. The family made their home in the North Baltimore neighborhood of Pen Lucy. They lived in a small first-floor apartment in a traditional brick row house on Greenmount Ave. 

In Baltimore, Shakur had the opportunity to share his talent with the community. In November 1985, the Enoch Pratt Free Library sponsored a rap contest and encouraged participants to rap about the library to be eligible for a cash prize. Shakur, alongside his friend Dana Smith, created the winning song, “Library Rap.” Eventually, Shakur teamed up with several more friends to form a new group, Born Busy. With Born Busy, Shakur made his very first rap recordings. In Charm City, Shakur took his very first steps into rap. At this time, he had no idea he would become a visionary leader of the budding genre. 

For eighth grade, Shakur attended Roland Park Middle School. For high school, Shakur was originally enrolled at Dunbar High School. However, he soon transferred to the Baltimore School for the Arts, where his talent as a performer had a place to shine as a theater major. At school, Shakur practiced his rapping skills. In the days before social networking, Shakur would write raps and share them with his classmates for feedback. Friends and teachers recognized his star potential. Richard Pilcher, who taught at the School for the Arts noted, “You didn’t forget Tupac. There’s no two ways about it, he had charisma for days.” 

Although Tupac Shakur will always be remembered as a West Coast rapper, his short time in Baltimore was crucial to his musical and stylistic development. In an interview Shakur said of his time in Baltimore, “Man, I would have been a totally different person had I not been exposed to these things.”

In the summer of 1988, Shakur and his family left Baltimore behind for another fresh start. Shakur would go on to become one of the top fifty best selling musical artists of all time. Sadly, Tupac passed away in 1996 after being shot in a drive by shooting. In 2002, Shakur was post-humanosly inducted into the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame. 

Street Address

3955 Greenmount Ave, Baltimore, MD 21218
]]> /items/show/704 <![CDATA["Baltimore Uproar"]]> 2021-09-27T16:34:14-04:00

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Title

"Baltimore Uproar"

Creator

Julian Frost

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Subtitle

A Masterpiece in our Metro

Story

At the Upton Metro Station at Pennsylvania Avenue and Laurens Street, an explosion of color greets transit patrons at the conclusion of their escalator journey. “Baltimore Uproar,” a monumental mosaic by the renowned African-American artist Romare Bearden, depicts a jazz band fronted by a singer of ambiguous identity—perhaps Baltimore’s own Billie Holiday. It is no coincidence that Pennsylvania Avenue, which runs directly above ground and recently became a state-designated Arts & Entertainment District, is Baltimore’s historical center for jazz. How did Baltimore attract such a prestigious commission as Bearden?

Born in North Carolina in 1911, Romare Bearden was one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century. He explored numerous forms of art throughout his career, including painting, stage design, and songwriting—but Bearden is best known for his rich collages. His subject matter often dealt with African-American life and the American South, and had a humanistic bent inspired by his experiences serving in World War II. Bearden was also a founding member of The Spiral, a Harlem collective dedicated to debating the role of the African-American artist in the civil rights movement.

A strong baseball player as a young man, Bearden was offered—but declined—a spot on the Philadelphia Athletics fifteen years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. In 1932 while playing for the all-Black, semi-pro Boston Tigers, Bearden pitched against the legendary Satchel Paige, who had played for the Baltimore Black Sox just two years earlier.

Shortly after Bearden graduated from New York University in 1935, Carl Murphy, the publisher of Baltimore’s Afro-American newspaper, offered him a job as a weekly editorial cartoonist. Bearden’s cartoons, which featured prominently on the opinions page, reflected on the realities of America in the time of Jim Crow and the Great Depression.

Bearden’s masterpiece is located on a metro line which, while functional, is just a sample of what a comprehensive metro system could have been for Baltimore. A 1968 planning report envisioned a rapid transit system with six lines emanating from downtown and extending out to the greater Baltimore region—but today, only a northwestern line to Owings Mills and a spur to Johns Hopkins Hospital has been completed. Each metro station was designed by a different architect and received a public artwork by artists of varying renown. Bearden, whose $114,000 mosaic cost the MTA about $30,000 more than the second-most expensive artwork, stood out as the most famous artist of the nine selected. The mosaic, made of fine yet fragile Venetian glass and ceramic and measuring 14 by 46 feet, was assembled in Italy.

“Baltimore Uproar” was unveiled on December 15, 1982. In a 1983 Sun article evaluating public art in the fledgling metro system, art critic John Dorsey acknowledged the mosaic’s grandeur and fitting subject matter, but concluded that the reaction of the public would be the only authentic evaluation. Since its unveiling, Baltimore has indeed embraced and appreciated Bearden’s token to the city that helped shape him.

Street Address

1702 Pennsylvania Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21217
]]> /items/show/630 <![CDATA[Maryland Institute College of Art]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:58-05:00

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Title

Maryland Institute College of Art

Subject

Education

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Subtitle

One of the Oldest Art Schools in the U.S.

Story

The Maryland Institute College of Art was chartered on January 10, 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts. Within months, the new school began offering classes and other programs at "The Athenaeum," a lecture hall at the southwest corner of Lexington and Saint Paul Streets. Unfortunately, the Athenaeum was destroyed by a fire in 1835 and the Maryland Institute stopped offering programs for twelve years.

The “New Maryland Institute” reorganized in 1847 and, two years later, established the Night School of Design to meet the growing city's demand for skilled technical artists and designers. In October 1851, the school moved to the new Center Market building on Baltimore Street. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Maryland Institute boasted over one thousand students and a new mission (adopted in 1879): “diffusing a knowledge of art… fostering original talent… and laying a permanent foundation for a genuine school of high art in Baltimore.”

Even as the students and the curriculum changed and adapted through the end of the nineteenth century, the Maryland Institute continued to occupy the Center Market. Then, on Sunday, February 7, 1904 a fire broke out on Redwood Street and spread across downtown. The Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 burned for thirty hours and destroyed over fifteen hundred buildings—including the home of the Maryland Institute.

With help from local businesses, alumni, and faculty, the Institute started working to rebuild. Michael Jenkins, a member of the wealthy family that had supported the construction of Corpus Christi Church on Mount Royal Avenue, offered the Institute a place to build a new School of Art and Design next door to the church. The State of Maryland and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie contributed funding and a national competition awarded the commission to architects Pell & Corbett of New York City. Inspired by the architecture of Venice's Grand Canal, the building features ornate Renaissance Revival details and large blocks of Beaver Dam marble from nearby Cockeysville. The cornerstone was laid on November 22, 1905 and the Institute's Main Building opened for students in 1907.

In 1959, the school adopted a new name, the Maryland Institute, College of Art, and, over the past few decades, the campus has grown to include a converted train station, an old firehouse, and a former factory. Today, MICA's Main Building is a beautiful reminder of the school's long history making it the oldest continuously degree-granting college of art in the nation.

Related Resources

Official Website

Street Address

1300 W. Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217
]]> /items/show/515 <![CDATA[Walters Art Museum]]> 2018-11-27T10:33:56-05:00

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Title

Walters Art Museum

Creator

Sierra Hallmen

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Story

The Walters Art Museum, so named for William Walters and his son Henry, began as a private art collection. Born in 1819, William was the first of eight children. At age 21 he moved to Baltimore and entered the wholesale liquor trade. He prospered in this and in his dealings with the East Coast railroads. He married Ellen Harper and had three children. The eldest died in early childhood, leaving only Henry and Jennie. In 1861, the family moved away from the Civil War in the U.S. to Paris. There, William and Ellen began collecting European art. Shortly thereafter, Ellen died of pneumonia.

The spring of 1874 brought the family back to Baltimore. William began allowing the public into his private collection every Wednesday in April and May. He donated the 50-cent admission fee to the Baltimore Association for the Improvement in the Condition of the Poor. His collection focused heavily on modern European paintings and Asian art. Upon his death in 1894, the collection passed to his son Henry.

Henry followed in his father’s footsteps as a railway magnate and art collector. His success in business made him one of the wealthiest men in nineteenth century America. He greatly expanded his collection of art with a $1 million purchase of 1,700 pieces, the first of its kind in American art collecting, from priest Don Marcello Massarenti. The purchase contained Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities, Medieval and Renaissance bronzes, ivories and furniture, as well as a wealth of Italian paintings from the 12th through 18th centuries. This would come to be the second largest collection of Italian paintings in North America (the first being the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York).

However, the public doubted the authenticity of the collection he purchased after the self-portrait of Raphael turned out to be a forgery. Unknown to the public, Henry had purchased the collection with several forgeries he intended to resell. The purchase still held many valuable, authentic pieces of art that would serve to better complete his personal collection. He broadened the collection with Egyptian, Ancient Near Eastern, Islamic and Western Medieval art.

Later in life, Henry continued to make individual purchases for his collection, including bringing the first “Madonna” by Raphael into America: Madonna of the Candelabra. After his passing in 1931, Henry bequeathed the building and his collection to the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore for public use. In 1934, the Walters Art Gallery opened to the public. As it added more art to its collection through purchases and gifts, it renamed itself in 2000 to the Walters Art Museum.

Official Website

Street Address

600 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
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