While there’s no substitute for viewing masterpieces in person, Google+ Art Talks (part of Google Art Project) are about as close as you can get to mingling with museum directors, curators, and historians from all over the world–all live through Google Hangouts. You can chat directly with the experts and have them answer your questions.

Last week, MoMA helped launch the discussion series which fittingly centered on creating engaging online courses in art. If you missed it, watch it on YouTube.

Next discussion: Depictions of the female nude in art.

Some of our banners are just like old married couples; they can’t be separated. When a museum prints an image across two banners, they can be hung side-by-side to create an amazing diptych which covers a 6′ by 8′ space. That’s why we sell them as BOGO. Other times, a museum will print two different images on either side of the banner. While this forlorn couple may never see each other, you can by easily experience a totally new look by flipping the banner over. Here are a few examples. Browse the site to see if you can find some more.

Here at BetterWall, we sometimes receive pallets full of banners from our museum partners and have become familiar with their usefulness and necessity in the world of warehousing and shipping. And, as a company who also carries “upcycled” products, we appreciate these clever uses of shipping pallets as office and home furniture and other design elements. We just hope the pallets in this sauna were sufficiently sanded! See more.

Seems you can’t be on social media for a day without someone sharing their shameless love of bacon. Carl Edgar Blake II is equally enamored with all things pig. His goal in breeding the “Iowa Swabian Hall” is to create the perfect pork. His diverse background makes him an unlikely candidate for culinary competitions. “I can build a motorcycle, I can fly a model airplane, I can throw somebody out of a bar, I can wrestle a pig and I can program a computer,” he said. “I’m a strange duck, that’s for sure.”
Read more at the New York Times.com

You read the novel, watched the film, saw the play, and now you can view the painting…coming later this summer: own the banner. Vermeer’s “The Girl with the Pearl Earring” is now on display at the de Young Museum in their newly opened exhibition Dutch Paintings from the Maurithshuis. We snapped this photo of the lovely bejeweled Dutch meisje (girl) gazing over a San Francisco street.

A recent visit to the Saint Louis Art Museum to see again, what is arguably one of the finest collections of German Expressionists anywhere, did not disappoint. The profound paintings of Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and other highly influential early 20th century artists are found in galleries near dramatic works of contemporary German artists such as Ansem Kiefer.

On the way out, we took a few snapshots of several of the museum’s lovely banners which are being used for general branding purposes, Max Beckmann and William Orpen included. We’ll keep you in the know when these banners come to BetterWall.

A bit of little color just in the right spot can make a person’s day. That seems to be a motivation for British pothole gardner, Steve Wheen. His miniature garden scenes set among gray, drab cobblestones have a way of bringing a smile to young and old.

While Philip Johnson’s long “lost” Giacometti is “found” in the artist’s archives, The Estate of David Smith is seeking his “lost” sculptures. In this case, these lost sculptures are unaccounted for and the estate is seeking to include them in a catalogue raisonne (a comprehensive catalogue of artworks by the artist). Recognize any?

Sneak a peak into Ronald Lauder’s library, as it was “re-created” at the Neue Galerie in NYC.

Transforming an outdoor space was exactly what Katrina was looking to do when she recently bought a bevy of banners from BetterWall. The banners are perfectly suited for outdoor living, with silkscreened colors still vibrant and an easy wipe down when dusty.

Katrina used Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party from LACMA’s exhibition “Renoir to Matisse: The Eye of Duncan Phillips” to bring together an outdoor eating and sitting area.

Says Katrina, “The banner was so nice we updated our porch for it, with hardiplank siding to replace that diagonal stuff. The banner really brought our porch alive!”

On the other side of the outdoor space, Katrina used a matching pair of John Constable “The Hay Wain” banners from The Huntington exhibition’s “Constable’s Great Landscapes: The Six-Foot Paintings” to “mirror the scene out from our patio almost exactly”. “I am beyond thrilled with these,” says Katrina. I cannot tell you how much we are enjoying these banners and how much everybody LOVES them. They are a unique way to bring interest and color into any space, outdoors or in.” Thanks for sharing Katrina!