My Big Art Show

Book excerpt: An exciting educational card game in which children interact with art history from the perspective of a gallery curator My Big Art Show is a thrilling game in which children curate their own art shows. Each card represents a work of art as well as key information, such as artist and date. The cards also use symbols and colors to indicate which movement and theme the work represents. There are twelve movements: Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism, and Pop Art, and six themes: People, Places, Objects, Animals, Story, and Religion. The aim of the main card game is to be the first to “put on a show,” or collect three and four of a kind. The game encourages children to become familiar with great art works and movements from the last five centuries, and helps them recognize the styles and themes that paintings share. The cards show reproductions of over fifty major works of art—by Michelangelo, Velázquez, Degas, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Picasso, Dalí, Warhol, and others. An informative book supports the game by providing further information on the artworks and artists, answers to questions on the cards and alternative games to play.