America's Distinguished Artists

a national registry of historic artists

Criteria for inclusion: creating new listings and improving the quality of listings

 

 

All artists honored in the America's Distinguished Artists catalogue [1] are deceased American artists who created representational art. Please click here to read Resource Library's [2] definition of representational art, which is the one we use for the catalogue.

 

Creating new listings from articles and essays in Resource Library [3]

When Resource Library publishes an article or essay, the deceased artists mentioned in the text are cross-checked against the listings in the America's Distinguished Artists catalogue. If the article or essay contains for an included artist:

 

Creating new listings from sources other than Resource Library

These steps are taken by TFAO volunteers leading to nomination of artists and URL links for inclusion in the America's Distinguished Artists catalogue.

Step 1: Happen upon potential candidates when browsing the Web
 
Volunteers naturally enjoy the study of American art and from time to time browse the Web for pages of interest to them. While doing this they may chance upon artists they want to study further. These artists may be good candidates for the catalogue.
 
 
Step 2: Determine that candidates are deceased and created a significant body of representational art
 
 
Step 3: Check to see if candidates are already included in America's Distinguished Artists
 
 
Step 4: Search the Web for biographies
 
Hint: See "Reviewing existing listings" below for search techniques.
 
 
Step 5: Review all of the information gathered to determine the best Web page (URL) for recommendation to TFAO and send a recommendation of an artist and URL by email to TFAO at

 

Reviewing existing listings

Besides recommending new listings, TFAO welcomes volunteers to review existing listings. Volunteers should check with TFAO before choosing a letter to work on to make sure no one else is working on the same letter.

 
First step
 
TFAO recommends, as the first step in the review of existing listings for a letter of the alphabet, that the volunteer open two browser windows on her or his computer.The first browser window shows the America's Distinguished Artists catalogue page under study. The second window is for a Google search page.
 
 
Second step
 
All non-TFAO links on a page for a chosen letter of the alphabet are then checked.
 
If the link for an artist is to a TFAO page, there is no need to check that link further.
 
For artist name links to a non-TFAO pages, the volunteer checks to see if the link is live or broken. If the link is broken the volunteer conducts a Google search.
 
Outdated links occur regularly. Outdated links for listed artists may occur because owners of Web pages choose to relocate artist biographies to other pages. In other cases biographies are permanently erased. Sometimes there is a "404 Not Found" message. For an outdated link the replacement process may be as simple as recommending to TFAO a new link on the source's website. To do this, a volunteer can use a search engine advanced search option to search within the domain name of the dead link.
 
Here is a "404 Not Found" example: When a volunteer checked the artist Alexander Theobald Van Laer in 2006, a message from Google was retrieved saying "404 Not Found - The requested URL was not found on this server." The page for the dead link was http://mattatuckmuseum.org/vanlaer.htm". The volunteer then did a Yahoo advanced web search for the exact phrase Van Laer in the domain mattatuckmuseum.org/ to retrieve a relocated link at http://mattatuckmuseum.org/collections/art/vanlaer.htm/. Update: The Mattatuck Museum once again changed it's link structure after the new link was found in 2006 and the link to the artist as of March, 2007 could again no longer be found!
 
Hint: When conducting the Google search put the word "artist" after the artist's name to help narrow down the search results. There is no need to review more than two pages of Google search results for an artist. TFAO uses Google Advanced Search and sets the results per page to 20 search returns. TFAO has found that 20 search returns are adequate for researching an artist's name.
 
Volunteers use subjective criteria in determining the best Web page for recommendation to TFAO including
-- quality of the source
-- credentials of the author
 
Preference is given to
-- biographical information by recognized scholars for an artist
-- principal art dealers for the estate of an artist
-- descendants of an artist
 
The volunteer reviews the quality and quantity of biographical text devoted to the artist from the search results. Biographical information from .org or .edu sites is favored over .com sites. If a .com site page has over two hundred words more information on an artist than a .org or .edu site page, the .com page is selected.
 
Replacement biographies of less than one hundred words are not used. If no qualifying biography is found, the volunteer advises TFAO that there is no replacement listing for the artist.
 
All links to artist biographies must contain free information. TFAO avoids websites that require a fee to view complete biographies.
 
Search results leading to art.com, artcyclopedia.com, ArtNet.com, AskArt.com, jstor.org, wwar.com, and poster sites are not used.
 
 
Third step
 
The use of an online link checker for single pages can be useful after a page is manually checked to make sure that no disabled links were missed.
 
 
Fourth step
 
The volunteer reviews the information retrieved by the Google search for each artist to determine the best Web page (URL) for recommendation to TFAO. The volunteer then sends a list of recommendations for each reviewed artist and its matching URL by email to TFAO at
 
Hint: On the average volunteers spend about one hour to review and process 30-60 names in the America's Distinguished Artists catalogue.
 

Recognition to volunteers

TFAO greatly appreciates the efforts made by volunteers to improve the America's Distinguished Artists catalogue. Please click here to see how TFAO recognized the work of a volunteer who worked on a letter in the catalogue.

 

Notes:

1. Before 2005 the catalogue was named Distinguished Artists Series. In 2005 it was renamed Distinguished Artists. In May 2008 the catalogue was again renamed to be America's Distinguished Artists.

2. Resource Library is a publication of Traditional Fine Arts Organization. For access to thousands of Resource Library articles and essays by topic, plus other resources, see American Representational Art. For teachers and students wishing to study American art history from additional perspectives, Resource Library contains texts related to a plethora of subjects. An easy way to identify specific texts is to use Resource Library's search feature, as articles and essays are fully indexed. Since American art museums often focus on local art history, an index to assist in identification of articles and essays with a regional focus is useful. See Resource Library's Sources of Articles and Essays Indexed by State within the United States for a handy guide. Also find hundreds of additional texts through Online Articles, Books and Essays (published outside of Resource Library)

3 TFAO editor's judgment: Out of courtesy to people who bookmark pages, America's Distinguished Artists link preference is usually given to Resource Library's pages -- even if they have less biographical information that other pages -- because Resource Library's pages are very stable and are not abandoned over time. When people bookmark links among Resource Library's pages, they are assured of clear routing to the information they want to remember. Some other sources have tendencies to abandon pages without saving pathways to relocated information. Sometimes the information is simply erased. Museums with young websites tend to reorganize them several times -- losing pathways in the process -- before settling on a lasting site map. Museums and art dealers who do not archive online exhibit information may drop pages once special exhibits are ended. New leadership often leads to reorganization of sites and the destruction of prior URL pathways.

The context surrounding the Resource Library information on an artist is often meaningful to understanding the relationship of the artist to larger themes in art history.

The catalogue's links to Resource Library's pages noting individual artists improve over time. When Resource Library publishes a new article or essay related to an artist, the editor's notes at the end of the text are amended to include all prior links concerning the artist. A catalogue link to the most recent text is then created. Further links from Web searches are also added continuously.

 

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