Online Resources

ART-TO-GO: Images & Ideas for the Classroom

Art-To-Go is the BMA’s monthly gift to teachers during the school year. It’s a great teaching resource and it’s free. Every month from October to May, you’ll receive an e-mail with a link to a printable full-color image of a BMA artwork. The image is accompanied by a brief, lively commentary that focuses on a single important teachable idea. An archive of Art-To-Go selections is always available.

Current ART-TO-GO: An Artist Honors the Ancestors
May 2019, Epa Mask, 1930s | Bámgbóyè

Epa masks, as headpieces like these are called, can be relatively simple in design—for instance, depicting one figure of an ancestral woman to honor her role in the life. This mask, with its elaborate, multitiered elements, reflects the artistic mastery of sculptor Bámgbóyè, who is considered one of the leading artists of his generation. Bámgbóyè was most active between the 1920s and 1950s, during a period referred to as the Yorùbá renaissance—when warfare had been quelled and the Yorùbá region of Nigeria experienced a period of peace and cultural richness.

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Teacher's Guides

The Baltimore Museum of Art’s Teacher’s Guide to John Waters: Indecent Exposure (PDF in English) The Teacher’s Guide to John Waters: Indecent Exposure is designed to introduce educators and high school students to selected artworks in John Waters’s first visual arts retrospective in his hometown of Baltimore. Explore the artworks through full-color reproductions, detailed descriptions, biographical and historical information, and classroom activities tied to National Core Arts Standards and 21st Century Skills.

The Baltimore Museum of Art’s Teacher’s Guide to Crossing Borders: Mexican Modernist Prints (PDF in English)
Explore the artworks of renowned 20th-century Mexican artists Elizabeth Catlett, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros through full-color reproductions of featured artworks, detailed descriptions, rich biographical and historical information, and classroom activities tied to national standards. This resource is also available in Spanish.

La guía del maestro del Baltimore Museum of Art a Cruzando fronteras: grabados modernistas de México (PDF en Español)
Explore las obras de artistas renombrados mexicanos del siglo XX Elizabeth Catlett, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, y David Alfaro Siqueiros a través de reproducciones a todo color de obras de arte presentados, descripciones detalladas, información biográfica e histórica rica, y actividades para el aula vinculadas con los estándares nacionales.

The Baltimore Museum of Art Teacher's Guide to Matisse/Diebenkorn (PDF)
Discover the work of American artist Richard Diebenkorn and the deep and lasting influence of Henri Matisse on his artistic production. Designed with teachers’ needs in mind, the resource contains robust background information and easy-to-use activities for the classroom.

The Baltimore Museum of Art Teacher’s Guide to the African Collection (PDF)
Investigate the form and meaning of diverse African artworks with vibrant color reproductions, in-depth contextual information and images, and engaging classroom activities.

Lesson 1: Faces of Order and Chaos
Lesson 2: Style and Meaning
Lesson 3: Exchange in Art and Culture
Lesson 4: Asserting Identity
Lesson 5: Art of the Spirit World

Interested in a bound copy of this resource? Beautiful printed copies are now available at the BMA Shop and Amazon!

The Baltimore Museum of Art Teacher's Guide to the American Collection (PDF)
Explore the BMA's world class collection of American art with rich contextual and biographical information, classroom activities, related standards and curriculum, and gorgeous full-color reproductions of featured artworks.

Chapters (PDFs):
Introduction
Lesson 1: Young America
Lesson 2: Symbols of the New Republic
Lesson 3: Made in Maryland
Lesson 4: Western Perspectives
Lesson 5: Unity in Diversity
Lesson 6: The Art of Technology
Lesson 7: Picturing Memory
Lesson 8: Shaping New Traditions
All Classroom Activities

Interested in a bound copy of this resource? Beautiful printed versions are now available in the BMA Shop and Amazon.com!

Design an Animal Stool
This activity sheet is inspired by a wooden seat made by the Lozi peoples of Zambia.  

Recoloring Camouflage and  Make an Inkblot Picture
These single-page Activity Sheets (PDF) are inspired by Andy Warhols’s Camouflage and Rorschach paintings.  

Matisse for Kids Interactive Game
In this child-friendly website, Matisse’s perky schnauzer Raoudi jumps out of the canvas and onto the screen for a delightful exploration of his master’s bold, bright paintings. 

Onstage with Toulouse-Lautrec
This sample selection from the Toulouse-Lautrec Teacher Packet summarizes Toulouse-Lautrec’s poster style, introduces cabaret singer Aristide Bruant as a performer, and analyzes the poster Ambassadeurs: Aristide Bruant.

The Cone Collection
 This Flash movie introduces the BMA’s Cone Collection, Baltimore’s legendary Cone Sisters, and the artwork of Henri Matisse.

The Essence of Line: French Drawings from Ingres to Degas
Searchable by artist, title, provenance, subject, and date, this online database holds more than nine hundred 19th-century French drawings from the collections of the BMA and the Walters Art Museum. 

Multimedia Projects
Film and audio excerpts with captivating art works in full detail explore a variety of mediums, movements, and artists.
Produced by Samuel H. Kress Foundation Interpretive Fellow Nora Krinitsky and Johns Hopkins University students in the Museums and Society program, Jennifer Tam and Nicholas Simko.

BMA Behind the Scenes

BMA Behind the Scenes takes you behind closed doors to see Museum staffers prepare for exhibitions and care for treasured artworks. Learn about the careful planning that goes into lighting the galleries, controlling temperature and humidity, framing artworks, and creating packing crates for safe travel. In each case, the everyday tasks involved in museum work will be related to concepts such as teamwork, accuracy, problem solving, and other skills that you teach in your classroom. 

Winter 2013: New Light for the Galleries (PDF)
Summer 2012: The Keeper of the Hygrothermographs (PDF)
Spring 2012: Cleaning a Mosaic, Inch by Inch (PDF)
Winter 2011-12: Preparing Prints for Exhibition (PDF)
Fall 2011: Reinstalling George IV (PDF)