Educator Resources

Charles Wilbert White depicted the dignity of rural labor with two powerful figures. The contours of scythe, hat brims, and forearms echo the curves of the horizon and clouds, portraying these workers in harmony with the landscape.

Looming in the center of Peter Blume’s painting is a monumental rock, fractured yet enduring, a powerful symbol of humanity’s tenacity and capacity to survive. Men and women struggle to go on living and rebuilding in this postwar scene of destruction.

Barbara Kruger is known for works that provocatively integrate photographs and text. Her art reveals and challenges the ways in which images used in the commercial media often perpetuate stereotypes, objectify women, and encourage conformity.

This suit of ceremonial armor includes more than 22 pieces that could be mixed for parade and sporting tournaments. Students will learn about the production and functions of armor and about the role of the knight in 16th-century Europe.

This dramatic canvas was painted by José Clemente Orozco during his self-imposed exile in the United States. A leader of the Mexican Mural movement of the 1920s and 1930s, Orozco painted Emiliano Zapata who had become a symbol of the Mexican Revolution.

This well-known work depicts a steam train emerging from a fireplace. René Magritte’s realistic portrayals of items that seemingly do not belong together align him with the French Surrealists.

In Many Mansions, Kerry James Marshall combined the real and the ideal to portray residents’ efforts to preserve their community.

A wonderful example of the many shadow boxes Joseph Cornell created in his lifetime, this box combines whimsical found objects including a wooden bird, a ball, bingo chips, stamps, and newspaper clippings.

Walter Ellison portrayed a train station in his native Georgia and commented on the racial climate in the United States in the 1930s.

The works executed in the last decade or so of Philip Guston’s life depict a world populated by hooded figures, disembodied body parts, clocks, light bulbs, and various tools and materials found in a painter’s studio.

This lesson plan focuses on a single work of art from the museum’s global collection and provides sequential activities and extensions that activate students’ critical and creative thinking skills.

This lesson plan focuses on a single work of art from the museum’s global collection and provides sequential activities and related resources to explore diverse perspectives on US-Japan relations, cultural identity, and visual art.

Students will follow the phoenix as an artistic motif, cultural myth, and symbol to consider how people and ideas move across space and time through trade, migration, and warfare.

Students will follow the influence of the material cobalt and the artistic tradition of blue and white pottery to consider how people and ideas move across space and time through trade, migration, colonization, and warfare.

This lesson plan explores the use of silk over time and connects students with Chinese art and culture.