"Banquet Still Life", ca. 1653–55, Abraham van Beyeren, Dutch, ca. 1620/21–1690, oil on canvas, 42 1/8 x 45 1/2 in. (107 x 115.5 cm), Seattle Art Museum, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 61.146, Photo: Eduardo Calderón

Thirteen Ideas For How to Spend Your Earth Hour

Earth Hour is this Saturday night, March 23 from 8:30–9:30 pm. What is Earth Hour as opposed to Earth Day? It is a global, grassroots effort to inspire environmental action and change, by turning off all lights and electronics and give it a rest, already. The earth was...

Hand Line Reflection Method 5 of 100, 1995, Terry Winters (American, born 1949), ink on paper, 13 x 8 ½ in., The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, a joint initiative of the Trustees of the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection and the National Gallery of Art, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services, 2008.29.48, © Terry Winters, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, Photo: Elizabeth Mann. On view in the Modern and Contemporary art galleries, third floor, SAM downtown, starting Saturday, 16 March.

SAMblog: An extraordinary collection

Starting in 1962, a New York City couple—a librarian and her husband, a postal service employee—built an unlikely collection of art that included some of the most important names in Minimal and Conceptual art. Passionately devoted to the art of their time, Dorothy and Herbert Vogel...

The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, ca. 1638-40, Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish, 1598–1664), oil on canvas, 59 1/16 x 62 5/8 in., Partial and promised gift of Barney A. Ebsworth Collection, 2011.36, Photo: Courtesy of Agnew’s Gallery, London. Currently on view in European Masters: The Treasures of Seattle, special exhibition galleries, fourth floor, SAM downtown.

SAMart: More than just a Spanish family

Flush with international power and resources from its holdings in Europe, the Americas and Asia, the royal court of Spain was the greatest art collector in the country. Before the seventeenth century, Spanish patrons mostly commissioned art from Italian and Flemish artists; but in the...