Recto|Verso

News stories have been swirling in recent days regarding the winner of the most recent Kentucky Derby, Medina Spirit. Following the race, Medina Spirit failed an initial drug test with his blood ...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2021/05/17/the-history-of-horse-doping/

A recent news story out of France reported that the French national railroad system had converted a high-speed TGV train into a hospital train, to move COVID-19 patients from Strasbourg to less s...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2020/04/02/the-hospital-train-in-world-war-i-germany/

Hans Bellmer was a Surrealist German artist and photographer. Born in 1902 and initially working in the fields of advertising and graphic design before transitioning to fine art, Bellmer’s firs...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2018/09/24/the-erotic-imagination-of-hans-bellmer/

John Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfeld) was an important and ground-breaking artist in Germany, known as the inventor of photomontage. He anglicized his name in protest against the anti-British se...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2018/08/01/the-political-photomontages-of-john-heartfield/

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the massive strikes and demonstrations held in Paris and across France in May 1968. To this day, “May 68” is considered to be a cultural, social, and ...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2018/05/16/il-est-interdit-dinterdire-it-is-forbidden-to-forbid-the-protests-that-defined-a-generation/

The 1960s were a tumultuous time in history, both in the United States and around the world. The 1960s saw the Bay of Pigs, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., i...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2018/05/02/by-any-means-necessary-black-power-and-the-rise-of-the-black-panther-party/

The Crimean War broke out on October 16, 1853 and lasted until early 1856, and was fought initially over the rights of Christian minorities in the Holy Land, which was under the domain of the Ott...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2018/04/04/iron-and-ice-the-battle-of-kil-bouroun-in-crimea/

The history of tarot is long, and probably surprising to some. The earliest known surviving full deck dates to the early 15th century in Italy. Painted by Bonifacio Bembo for the Duke of Milan, i...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2017/07/19/divination-and-cartomancy-an-impressive-collection-of-tarot-cards/

The late 19th and early 20th centuries were periods of major change and important historical events throughout the United States, as well as key developments in photography technology. Life could...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2017/05/31/historical-and-documentary-photography-in-19th-and-early-20th-century-america/

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was the largest and most ambitious agency created by the United States government as part of the New Deal, established under President Franklin Delano Roos...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2017/04/27/breaking-gender-barriers-women-and-the-wpa-milwaukee-handicraft-project/

A complete archive of the original artwork, photographs, advertisements, and fully edited and corrected typewritten essays which comprise the official guide to the 1936 Democratic National Conven...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2016/06/30/printers-archive-for-the-official-program-of-the-democratic-national-convention-of-1936/

Cuba, OSPAAAL (Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa, and Latin America), 1971 and 1972  Extensive and Culturally Significant Archive of Approximately 500 Political Posters....

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2016/04/15/a-collection-of-leftist-political-posters-1960-2010/

“It is a riot, a revival of paganism…It is also, in its way, a hymn to beauty, a living explosion of the senses and of the emotions.” – E. Berry Wall, Neither Past Nor Puritan In 1892, He...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2015/09/08/le-bal-des-quatz-arts-revelry-and-debauchery-in-turn-of-the-century-paris/

              Paris in the late 19th and early 20th century, especially during the periods known as the Belle Époque and les Années Folles, was a hotbed of intellectual and artistic life...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2015/08/17/the-ecole-de-montmartre-in-1920s-paris/

  Journalism in France has a rich tradition of political satire and caricature, dating back many hundreds of years and gaining footholds at many crucial moments in France’s history. Popular in...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2015/01/23/charlie-hebdos-ancestors/

“Anni di piombo” (“The Lead Years”) has little nostalgic resonance in the US. Unlike “Mai ‘68”, which instantly evokes exhilarating scenes of French student occupations, demonstrati...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2014/08/11/lead-years/

52 Examples of Jewish-American Sheet Music from the Early 20th Century. A collection of English-language sheet music, ca. 4-8 pp. each, in orig. color illus. wrrps., most published in New York, B...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2014/05/09/sheetmusic/

Novyi Lef. Zhurnal Levogo Fronta Iskusstv. Year 1, No. 1 (January 1927) through Year 2, No. 12 (December 1928) (all published). 24 issues, published in 22 vols. as issued, comprising a complete f...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2014/03/11/novyi-lef/

Collection of Invitations, Programs, Flyers, Posters, Broadsides and other Ephemeral Items pertaining to the Palladium nightclub, June 1985 – May 1987. ca. 170 items ranging from single sheet t...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2014/01/21/palladium/

Collection of 20 titles, ca. 50-300 pp. each. Paris / Geneva / Moscow, 1897-1973, offered with Inforespace. Cosmologie Phénomènes Spatiaux Primhistoire. Revue Bimestrielle. Nos. 1 (1972) – 67...

https://www.rectoversoblog.com/2013/08/15/soucoupes-volantes/