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This statue sits at the head of Hintze Hall to commemorate the importance of Charles Darwin and his work to both the mus...
27/09/2021

This statue sits at the head of Hintze Hall to commemorate the importance of Charles Darwin and his work to both the museum and to biological science 🧬

It was unveiled in 1885, only four years after the museum opened. Science has come a very long way since the nineteenth century, but it is safe to say that Charles Darwin's work underpins modern biological thinking 🧠

Without his work, is the museum would be very different today, so his statue certainly merits pride of place.

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This cast of a gigantic fossil skeleton, leaning a tree trunk, is a Megatherium americanum, a giant ground sloth 🦥These ...
26/09/2021

This cast of a gigantic fossil skeleton, leaning a tree trunk, is a Megatherium americanum, a giant ground sloth 🦥

These elephant-sized beasts were denizens of South America from the mid-Pleistocene to the early Holocene, from about 400,000 to only 8000 years ago. It is part of a family of animals including armadillos, anteaters, sloths and the extinct gigantic glyptodonts.

The first specimen of a Megatherium was discovered in 1788, on the banks of the Luján River in Argentina by a man called Manuel Torres. It was sent to Spain where it was reassembled into a full skeleton and sketched 🦴

These beasts would have weighed up to 4 tonnes and been about 3.5 metres tall. So, even though they were herbivores, they would have been very dangerous!

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These unassuming little birds might look just like the ones you can see all over any city. But they are birds with a ver...
24/09/2021

These unassuming little birds might look just like the ones you can see all over any city. But they are birds with a very important history, one that we must pay close attention to 🪶

These two stuffed passenger pigeons from the nineteenth century are a tiny remnant of the billions that use to exist. Their story was one of the wake-up calls to the genuine possibility of extinction at human hands.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the passenger pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, was the most numerous bird in North America and quite probably the most numerous bird that has ever existed. Flocks of millions of passenger pigeons used to darken the sky and take hours to pass, making so much noise that it was impossible to hold a conversation, according to contemporary accounts.

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The first gasoline or petrol pump was invented and sold by Sylvanus Bowser in Fort Wayne, Indiana on the 5 of September ...
23/09/2021

The first gasoline or petrol pump was invented and sold by Sylvanus Bowser in Fort Wayne, Indiana on the 5 of September in 1885 🛠

The mistake he made was inventing it 20 years before the petrol car was even invented. So the pump wasn’t used for cars but instead used for kerosene lamps and stoves ⛽️

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So here it is, the Morris Oxford YB4259 and it certainly is a bullnose Morris 1926 🚌William Morris began as a cycle make...
21/09/2021

So here it is, the Morris Oxford YB4259 and it certainly is a bullnose Morris 1926 🚌

William Morris began as a cycle maker in 1907 in Longwall Street garage servicing and selling cars. Previously, he had been dealing with bicycles, he had a small hire fleet 🚲

Production started in 1913 with only 404 bull-nosed vehicles built, in 1914 he built 908 and then with the early years in 1915 it dropped to 316. By 1918 the production had fallen to under 200. 1920 post-war 1932 the bullnose Morris output increased to 2000📈

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As a model, the Double Decker was introduced in 1962 as a bus chassis intended for low height double-decker bodywork and...
20/09/2021

As a model, the Double Decker was introduced in 1962 as a bus chassis intended for low height double-decker bodywork and was developed by AEC of Southall in West London 🛠

The restricted height of the railway bridge at Oxford station made it ideal for Oxford services to the west of the city. Its chassis number indicates that it was the last of its type to leave its production line 🚍

The bus became outdated very quickly because, in 1966, the government allowed the one-man operation of a double-decker for the first time. If you look at this bus it is not suitable for one-man operation because the driver cannot turn around in order to give fares 🚌

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Anish Kapoor, Ishi’s Light, 2003 🖼Ishi’s Light is a huge elliptic sculpture by Indian artist Anish Kapoor. With more tha...
18/09/2021

Anish Kapoor, Ishi’s Light, 2003 🖼

Ishi’s Light is a huge elliptic sculpture by Indian artist Anish Kapoor. With more than three meters long height and a diameter of two and a half meters, the shape of the work looks like an eggshell without its pointy edges.

The surface on the outside is bone colour and it is made out of fibreglass. The surface inside is a deep dark red and radiant with the usage of the varnish.

It is the artist's intention for the viewer to stand inside the shell and experience the artwork. The gloss on the inside surface is almost like an object in itself through its density.

Kapoor emphasizes that, for him the reflections are the most important aspect in this artwork.

This work is inspired by another painting called Anna’s Light by painter Barnett Newman. Anna refers to Newman’s mother while Ishi refers to Kapoor’s son, Ishan. Anna’s Light depicts a bright tone of red on a large canvas while the inside of the Ishi’s Light is a very dark red tone. Kapoor tells how influential Newman’s work: “When you stand in front of this huge work, it is as though it ceases to be a picture. It completely surrounds and engulfs you. It astounded me that art could step out of narrative so completely; that art could seem to have nothing to say, and yet engage all the truly important things that there are to say.”

Pablo Picasso, Bust of a Woman, 1944 🎨Painted by famous painter Pablo Picasso, Bust of a Woman is a representation of a ...
17/09/2021

Pablo Picasso, Bust of a Woman, 1944 🎨

Painted by famous painter Pablo Picasso, Bust of a Woman is a representation of a woman figure in a Cubist style.

Overall, the figure is composed through the geometrical shapes and lines. With background, which consists of vertical purple and horizontal red lines and bright, green colour of the woman's dress creates an invigorating contrast. The asymmetrical composition of the woman's face is also a striking image of the painting.

Henri Matisse, The Snail, 1953 🐌The famous artist Henri Matisse created this body of work -which is known as gouache déc...
15/09/2021

Henri Matisse, The Snail, 1953 🐌

The famous artist Henri Matisse created this body of work -which is known as gouache découpée -when he was unable to paint due to his illness.

His assistants painted disposal sheets of paper with gouache and through Matisse’s instructions the pieces are put exactly where he wants them to be as collage works.

He claims that he is fascinated with this technique because it enables him to draw through the colour.

Matisse says: "I first of all drew the snail from nature, holding it. I became aware of an unrolling, I found an image in my mind purified of the shell, then I took the scissors"

Monika Sosnowska, Pavilion, 2016Pavilion is a large sculpture which consists of black painted interwoven steel which cre...
14/09/2021

Monika Sosnowska, Pavilion, 2016

Pavilion is a large sculpture which consists of black painted interwoven steel which creates a distorted look. With rectangle black surfaces in patches, the artwork has cage-like structure. Standing on the floor with, Pavilion is five meters wide and almost seven meters long. Its height is three meters and it weights almost two thousand kilograms.

Influenced by her research on the 1960s housing estate Osiedle Slowackiego in Lubin and the Przyczólek Grochowski estate in Warsaw, she documented these residences by using digital photography. She worked on her sculptures based on these photographs which enable her to observe Warsaw's rebuilding process.

In Pavilion Sosnowska focuses on the Oskar Hansen's concept of 'Open Form.' This concept means that the people become an active part of the space they live in.

However, as Sosnowska noticed when she visited the estate, the utopian ideas were failing with the usage of low-quality materials and detrimental physical state. This idea of failure echoes in Pavilion through its crooked look.

🦞 📞Salvador Dalí, Lobster Telephone, 1936📞 🦞Famous Spanish artist Salvador Dali made Lobster Telephone for English poet ...
12/09/2021

🦞 📞Salvador Dalí, Lobster Telephone, 1936📞 🦞

Famous Spanish artist Salvador Dali made Lobster Telephone for English poet and collector Edward James, a rich man who had a passion for surrealist art.

As the title suggests, Lobster telephone is a surrealist object that is literally formed with a rotary telephone and a plaster lobster placed on the speaker. The lobster’s tail has put the mouthpiece of the speaker and it is also where lobster’s sexual organ resides. The certain placement associates the object with the sexual desires of unconsciousness.

Consisting of six large square paintings, Cage 1 to 6 are abstract painting series by the German artist Gerhard Richer, ...
11/09/2021

Consisting of six large square paintings, Cage 1 to 6 are abstract painting series by the German artist Gerhard Richer, these pieces are intended to be displayed together in one room.

Similarly, each painting is thickly painted and textured through multi directionally scratching in order to reveal the layers of paints. These individual pieces differ from each other in terms of the overall colouring. Cage 1 is mainly lime green and white.

The title cage comes from American composer John Cage, who is very famous with his work 4'33' which Cage captures the sound of the silence during 4 minutes and 33 seconds.

Richter explains how Cage is influenced him: 'Despite all my technical experience, I cannot always exactly foresee what will happen when I apply or remove large amounts of paint with the scraper. Surprises emerge, disappointing ones, pleasant ones, which in any case represent changes to the painting - changes that I have to process first in my mind before I can continue.'

The idea of enabling the uncertainty and surprises during art making process is what makes Richter's works as unique and distinctive.

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