Favorite Friday

Fridays are our favorite because they’re all about YOU! In response to your requests, coming to us through social media and email, we’re giving you everything you’re asking for and more.

A painting depicts two women walking together through a hallway wearing dresses and shawls. Another woman can be seen sitting in the background on a bench against a wall and a group of women are sitting near a doorway leading to a porch or entrance where another woman is standing.

John Singer Sargent’s Venetian Interior

Today’s Friday Favorite features John Singer Sargent’s Venetian Interior, suggested by Meg Scanlon, our Manager of School Student Programs.

A portrait of a person wearing a sweater and bowtie. They are standing, looking into the camera with their hands in their pockets.

Zanele Muholi’s Faces and Phases

I am producing this photographic document to encourage individuals in my community to be brave enough to occupy public spaces, brave enough to create without fear of being vilified, brave enough to teach people about our history and to rethink what history is all about; to reclaim it for ourselves, to encourage people to use artistic tools such as cameras as weapons to fight back.

An abstract artwork shows various shapes and patterns making a frost-like design

Lari Pittman’s Out of the Frost

“I want to offer a painting that somehow the viewer has to stand in front of it and almost not believe it. But in the act of not believing it, what they’re actually seeing, they get swept away in it.”—Lari Pittman

Detail of a tall, narrow painting of black text on an off-white background that is clear and legible at the top but becomes layered and muddled towards the bottom; the text reads “We are the ink that gives the white page a meaning” and repeats down the painting

Glenn Ligon’s Prisoner of Love #1

For today’s Favorite Friday, we are highlighting Glenn Ligon’s Prisoner of Love #1. His practice combines photography, painting, and printmaking to explore issues of race, sexuality, identity, and language.

A woodcut print depicts a woman kneeling next to a basin of water. She has one hand in the basin and the other arm wrapped around a squirming young child.

Happy Birthday, Mary Cassatt!

Born in Allegheny City (now the North Side), Cassatt became one of the leading figures in the Impressionist movement. Many of us are familiar with her paintings of women and children, but did you know that Cassatt was also an experimental printmaker?

A painting depicts the head of a unicorn with a tower as its horn. against the background of dark mountains and a night sky with stars.

René Magritte’s Le coeur du monde (The Heart of the World)

This week’s Friday Favorite comes from our associate curator of education Lucy Stewart, who requested René Magritte’s Le coeur du monde (The Heart of the World). Lucy told us why this piece has special significance to her:

A photograph of eighteen women wearing nurse uniforms in front of church building.

Celebrating National Nurses Week

Happy National Nurses week! A big, heartfelt thank you to all nurses everywhere—we are indebted to you for everything that you are doing, today and always! This week, you are our Favorite Friday! Please enjoy these works from our collection that honor nurses throughout history.

An actor in a costume and stage makeup looks off to the left. The backdrop behind him shows people walking across a bridge to a village.