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For the last day of National Oceans Month.

These vintage postcard images are from our Postcard Collection. We wish you were here!

June is also National River Month.

Basia Irland is an American artist, environmental activist, writer, and educator whose work and career focus on rivers and watersheds, water scarcity, climate change, ecological restoration and waterborne diseases.

In “What Rivers Know: Listening to the Voices of Global Waterways,” Irland asks, “What if rivers could talk and tell their stories?” and writes their stories as the voice of a river. Below text is one example from the publication, and the last image is the accompanying image for this river.

“According to geologists, I am one of the oldest rivers in the world, having flowed for millions of years. As an old-timer, I have a low gradient with slow erosion, whereas younger cousins flow more quickly, tumbling down to the sea carrying lots of sediment. My waters flow south to north for 218 miles and helped shape the Appalachian Mountains. I am the French Broad River, named by French settlers in the region centuries ago at a time when I was one of the two broad rivers in western North Carolina.

The Cherokee have a variety of names for me: Agiqua in the mountains, Zilicoah above Asheville, and Tahkeeosteh after Asheville. As with most indigenous groups around the world, the Cherokee go to the river to pray and perform submergence ceremonies. The phrase “going to water” in the Cherokee language is synonymous with the words for bathing and submerging. Historically, the tribe recognized my floods as a natural part of any river’s cycle and did not attempt to dam or divert my waters. They knew, too, that I brought rich soil for agriculture when I flooded, and fresh sand for floors of their dwellings.” (from “What Rivers Know” – p.57)

Irland, Basia, Lucy R. Lippard, and Sandra Postel. 2025. What Rivers Know : Listening to the Voices of Global Waterways. First edition. Texas A&M University Press.

June is National Ocean Month. Here are some close-ups from an artists’ book entitled There is an ocean by Joshua Beckman.

In the words of the artist, this book portrays the high stakes of letting oneself go, of the inherent tension and displaced youth of the young, especially young gay men.

Check out the books for Pride Month in the Reading Room!

This display doesn’t concern itself with categories or labels that we often use to describe the boundaries of our identities. Queerness defies definition, boundary, and convention. How can we categorize in a single display that which defies easy categorization–that which often defines itself and contradicts its own determination in the same glorious breath?

Instead, our display invites you to explore the books here, think about how labels overlap, contradict, and how people categorize themselves, but more than anything come together in love. Some of the books here contain images of self-harm and accounts of violence. Queer history is at times violent and painful, but it bears that pain alongside great love and joy. The art surrounding queerness reflects this.

Books in this display are available to borrow for Harvard ID holders.

“When I went to art school, a neighbor said, ‘Some of the people in the art school just don’t work at all. Lazy buggers.’ And I said, ‘Oh, I am going to work, don’t worry.” And I did. “I knew when I was very young that gay people hid things and I didn’t want to do that I thought: ‘Well, I’m just going to be an artist, I have to be honest.” “Love is the only serious subject.” “Drawing makes you see clearer and clearer, and clearer still.” “I draw flowers every day on my iPad and send them to my friends so they get fresh blooms every morning.” “Artists, even when they’re dead, are alive in their work.”

Quotes are from “The World According to David Hockney”

In remembrance of David Hockney, who passed away at the age of 88 on June 11th, 2026, the Fine Arts Library is showcasing selected publications about his work in the Pride Month Books display in the Reading Room. Elsewhere in the Reading Room, you will also see what is featured in the video—an accordion book entitled “David Hockney: A Year in Normandie” that we have spread out for viewing.  

David Hockney (July 9, 1937 – June 11, 2026) was a British painter known for his vivid and stylized portraits, sunny scenes from his time spent in Los Angeles, and bold landscapes. His subjects were deeply personal—often his friends, loved ones, parents, and later, his dachshund friends Stanley and Boodgie. Hockney was openly gay. He painted his lovers and naked young men, but also imbued male desire in various other images and celebrated gay life—intimacy, love, friendships, beauty, and desires—without explicitly describing them. In his work, they were felt as a constant presence in the air, and he captured them with love.

Since the beginning of 2019, Hockney made his home in Normandy, France. He had been using an iPad for a decade in his work, but during the pandemic, he focused on the surrounding countryside, creating more than 100 images on his iPad in just a few weeks.

On National Photography Day.

From early days, photographs were used to teach the history of art and architecture. Since the 1880s, lantern slides were used for teaching, and then in the mid 1930s, the 35mm slide was introduced one year after the invention of Kodachrome, Kodak's three-color process. 35mm slides were vital for teaching - think of today’s PowerPoint!

Since the founding of the Fogg Art Museum in 1895, the Fine Arts Library has served the needs of teaching faculty, art museum staff, undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and historians at Harvard and around the world. By 1920s, many universities had slide libraries, including Harvard. Since then, FAL has acquired over 600,000 35 mm slides, mainly from the courses taught by Harvard faculty over the decades.

Caramate is a vintage slide projector. Instead of using a standard slide projector to project images onto a screen for group viewing, the Caramate allowed individual users to quickly check the images and make sure that slides were inserted into a carousel in the right direction and correct orientation.

On World Ocean Day.

“What we enjoyed most on Awashima Island was the chance to spend time along the shore and discover the ocean. We learnt to dive there, and were amazed by the strange and beautiful creatures we encountered. Most of them we had never seen before. But even here, so far from home, we recognized some of the creatures. This was both surprising and comforting, and it got us thinking—aren’t all living things related in some way? It’s water that connects marine life in Awashima to the freshwater life in Ganjad. Around the world we use different languages and give different names to seas and oceans, but they’re all related. Most rivers flow into the sea, and common currents connect nature and people to each other.” – from The deep, for the text Arun Wolf and Gita Wolf from an oral narrative by Mayur Vayeda and Tushar Vayeda.)

The Vayeda brothers tell their journey from an indigenous Warli community in Maharashtra, western India, growing up in the village of Ganja, to a small Japanese island called Awashima. They connect the village stream they knew from their childhood to the deep oceans they encountered in Awashima.