Art Authority Blog

It’s All Led to This: The Art Authority Museum

By Art Authority February 2, 2024

 

If you’ve followed this blog, you may remember that in the past decade+ we here at Art Authority have: created a day-one award-winning iPad app, turned that app into an app line and then into a whole art company, acquired 1000Museums worth of art to go with it, and most recently acquired a whole bunch of Museum Store Products too.

After all that, there was only one thing left to do. Art Authority is thrilled that today we are announcing the pre-opening of our own art museum! And what a museum it will be! The Art Authority Museum will ultimately display thousands of the top works of art by hundreds of the world’s most significant artists throughout history. Our lobby, with pre-opening tours available today, February 2, 2024, already lets you experience dozens of the most important works of all time. da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Rembrandt’s Night Watch, van Gogh’s Starry Night, Munch’s The Scream and many more.

Really? you ask. How? No, we are not the world’s best art thieves, and we don’t have $1 billion to spend on our new museum. But courtesy of Apple’s new Vision Pro “spacial computing” headset (coincidentally also available for the first time ever today), we are able to build this new type of museum and provision it full of the world’s best art, in less than a year and at a very affordable cost.

The Art Authority Museum is not built out of bricks and mortar, but it is groundbreaking, being a whole new class of museum. As you’ve probably figured out, the Art Authority Museum is built as an app for Apple Vision Pro. As such, its art viewing experience will differ surprising little from the art museums you are used to visiting IRL (“in real life”). And that experience will be available any time, from anywhere. With no crowds.

We’ve been building the Art Authority Museum since Apple announced Vision Pro last June. And we’re almost ready for its Grand Opening. But groundbreaking apps take time, and we’re not quite ready for what we believe will be one of the grandest of Grand Openings. So, starting today, for the next few months, we’re offering a free “sneak peek” at the museum through a pre-opening tour of what we feel is already one of the most comprehensive museum lobbies in the world.

We realize that it may be difficult for you to get access to a Vision Pro right away, so, for a small taste of the Art Authority Museum without one, and for additional details on the museum itself, please visit artauthority.museum to see what we’re talking about and to sign up to be kept up to date as we complete construction.

We’re looking forward to seeing you soon!

Another Major Art Acquisition

By Art Authority April 24, 2023 ,

 

In July of 2016, we here at Art Authority announced our first major art acquisition, which was 1000Museums worth of art. Our success with that company has led to another similar acquisition.

1000Museums specializes in creating the highest quality archival reproductions for museum stores, as well as for art lovers worldwide. (It is also the basis of the “1000Museums Gift Shop” in the app line.) Over the past 6+ years, we have greatly expanded the set of museums we support, but our product line has remained solely focused on printed items.

We are excited to announce that, effective immediately, Art Authority LLC is now in joint ownership with the leading provider of all types of products for museum stores, Museum Store Products, Inc. The two will still operate as separate sister companies, but with the same owners, same mission to help museums thrive, and same commitment to quality and USA manufacturing (MSP is in New Jersey, Art Authority in Oregon). So now we are not just the leading manufacturer of print products for museum stores, but of all products for museum stores!

Now on Art Channel: The Paul G. Allen Collection

By Art Authority February 6, 2023

 

Late last year, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s art collection sold at auction for over $1.6 billion. That’s $1,600,000,000! Through the magic of Art Channel 2.0 and Apple TV, you can now display dozens of works from that collection on your living room wall. Not bad for $0.99 per month!

Wassily Kandinsky, Tiefes Braun, 1924

Wassily Kandinsky, Tiefes Braun, 1924

Rio San Trovaso, Venise

Henri Edmond-Cross, Rio San Trovaso, Venise, 1904

La Montagne Sainte-Victoire

Paul Cézanne, La Montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1888-1890

Announcing year 12 of the Art Authority Summer Intern program

By Art Authority March 10, 2022 ,

 

It’s that time again! Year 12 of the Art Authority Summer Intern program is starting in a couple of months, and we’re encouraging early applications so art professors and students can consider how the program can enhance their education and career goals.

Following are details based on previous programs; some projects have evolved. If you’re an art history professor and would like to incorporate the program more directly into your online class curriculum, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us directly to discuss doing so. We’re happy to work with college programs to ensure students receive credit for the work they complete during the internship program.

If you’re an art history student, you might want to ask your professors about their thoughts and possible credit.

As discussed previously here, the Art Authority Summer Intern Program offers art and art history majors a 21st-century alternative to traditional art docent internships. By working on our cutting-edge Art Authority apps and 1000Museums.com e-commerce site (museum-approved archival reproductions), technology-focused students gain experience with and exposure to a set of tools they’ll need as “art goes digital.”



These past two years have been a learning experience at Art Authority, as far as how to support the internship program during a pandemic and what’s needed to keep our product line evolving. Students have learned a lot too, gained credit towards their major, connected with professionals in the museum industry, and even found jobs as a result of the program (including here at Art Authority). We’re looking forward to seeing what our interns will achieve this summer.

If you or anyone you know would be a good fit for this technology-minded art internship program, please check out the Summer Intern Program Web site site link for more information and an application form. The number of internship spots is limited, so anyone interested should apply as soon as possible. If you have any questions about the program please check the FAQ page or contact us directly.

Closing Open Door: the end of an era

By Art Authority December 31, 2021

 

December 31, 2021.  Open Door Networks Inc., the company that in the last 27 years brought you

Mac-focused dial-up Internet, web page creations tools and easy web publishing, one of the first coffee shops on the Internet, sophisticated Mac server management tools, the Ashland Fiber Network, perhaps the first wireless Starbucks anywhere, Macintosh personal firewalls and other security tools, Internet Security for your Macintosh, AppleTalk-to-IP migration tools, a new way to experience the web, one of the first July 4 parade webcasts, an iPhone app on day one of the iPhone App Store, 100+ iPhone apps after that, an iPad app on day one of the iPad (the award-winning Art Authority for iPad), Art Authority K-12, a decade of college intern programs, Art Channel on day one of the Apple TV App Store, Art Authority LLC, Ranking Artists: an Internet-era Analysis1000Museums fine-art reproductions and much more

is open no longer. It is with pride in this history, but a touch of sadness too, that we announce its formal dissolution. Having sold its 1994-acquired opendoor.com domain name to a company now worth $1 billion, and transferred its apps and other assets to Art Authority LLC (the app that became a company), closing time has finally come to Open Door. Onwards… 

Art Channel 2.0: even better art on your TV

By Art Authority December 13, 2021

 

We’re happy to announce that Art Channel 2.0 is now available for your Apple TV, just in time for the holidays. We could have called it Art Channel 4K, because its main new feature is even better, higher resolution art for your 4K television.

Over the past couple decades, TV has gone from SD (standard definition, around since the 1940s) to HD (turn of the 21st century) to 4K (mid last decade). Computers, iPhones and iPads have similarly increased in screen resolution.

In all cases, our apps and art have kept up. Our first iPhone art app had images with resolutions around 1000 pixels on the bigger side. Our ground-breaking Art Authority for iPad app pushed that to 2000 pixels, which worked especially well when Apple introduced the Retina display in 2012. The Apple TV and Art Channel were next in 2015, but it wasn’t until the Apple TV 4K that the resolution of art on your television could really surpass that of a Retina display iPad. But it has now! 4K images, as displayed by Art Channel 2.0, are nearly 4000 pixels on the bigger side.

Art Channel 2.0 (also available for iPad) introduces some new, dynamic features too, which we’ll be taking advantage of in the near future. So, as they say (anachronistically) in the TV business, stay tuned!

 

Art Authority for iPad ten-year anniversary

By Art Authority April 7, 2020

 

With the world, and our, attentions turned elsewhere, we missed the ten-year anniversary of Apple’s shipping the iPad, and our shipping Art Authority for iPad with it. Just as with the iPhone, we had an app in the App Store on day one.

Ten years later, Art Authority for iPad is still going strong. If anything, with art museums closed, it’s even more relevant today than it was 10 years ago.

art authority for iPad

Urgent: Year 10 of Art Authority Intern Program available early

By Art Authority March 24, 2020

 

We were going to start year 10 of the Art Authority Summer Intern program in a couple months, but we’re pushing up the start as much as we can so art professors and students can consider the program now as everyone scrambles to put and attend art classes online.

Following are details based on previous programs; some may change. Especially if you’re an art professor, please let us know if there are ways we can modify the program to meet your needs. We will certainly be waiving some of the requirements.

As we’ve discussed a number of times on this blog, the Art Authority Summer Intern Program offers art and art history majors a 21st century alternative to traditional art docent internships. By working on our cutting-edge Art Authority apps and 1000Museums.com e-commerce site (museum-approved archival reproductions), technology-focused students gain experience with and exposure to a set of tools they’ll need as “art goes digital.”

We here at Art Authority have learned a lot over the past nine years, both as far as how to run the intern program and as far as what’s needed to keep our product line evolving. Students have learned a lot too, gained credit towards their major, and even found jobs as a result of the program (some have worked here). We’re really looking forward to another great and meaningful summer for all concerned.

If you or anyone you know is curious about the program, please check out the Summer Intern Program Web site for more information and an application form. The number of spaces are limited, so anyone interested should apply as soon as possible.

A quarter century of Open Doors

By Art Authority January 4, 2020 , ,

 

You likely now know us as Art Authority, but we got our start 25 years ago today as Open Door Networks, Inc. On January 4, 1995, Open Door’s founder, Alan Oppenheimer, left Apple Computer and Silicon Valley to move to Ashland Oregon and start a company to help Macintosh users experience a new communications and information system, “the Internet.” Alan had helped build the original Mac’s similar system (“AppleTalk”) and hoped he could bring that system’s user-focus, ease-of-use and security to Mac users as they joined the fledgling Internet.

The new company, and its AppleTalk-based Internet access system, was announced at Macworld in San Francisco on that day in 1995. It’s been a long, strange, 25-year trip since then. Not only was the Internet just getting started, but a new publishing and e-commerce system called the world wide web was just being rolled out as well. Open Door helped Mac users, and Apple itself, not just surf the Internet and Web, but also publish on it by turning the Macintosh into a world-class Web server. A series of server utilities followed (WebDoor, HomeDoor, LogDoor and MailDoor). Open Door also hosted a number of the earliest web sites.

Reading the handwriting written large and bold on the world wide web wall, Open Door worked with Apple on utilities to help Mac users migrate from AppleTalk-based networks to ones using Internet (IP) protocols. The next sign post was pretty clear too, reading “Be safe out there.” Thanks to its initial design, the Mac was already the most secure way to access the Internet, but Open Door’s DoorStop Personal Firewall helped further secure Macs against an ever-growing variety of international Internet evil-doers. DoorStop, licensed by Internet security company Symantec, became the basis of a suite of Macintosh Internet security products, including the book “Internet Security for Your Macintosh.”

Meanwhile, back in our home town of Ashland, Oregon, Open Door helped the city plan and roll out a city-wide fiber-optic network, and we used that network to provide free, wireless Internet access at the local Starbucks, perhaps the first Starbucks anywhere to provide that now-omnipresent service. We also used the network for one of the first-ever July 4 parade webcasts.

In early 2004, Alan and Open Door were asked to present a keynote talk, “A History of Macintosh Networking” at the Mac’s 20th anniversary celebration. The presentation was again at Macworld, where the company had been introduced nine years before.

In 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, the biggest change to computing (and society in general) since the personal computer. It was immediately clear that Open Door had a role to play with that world-changing device, but it wasn’t clear what that role was. We had an app available day one of the App Store (iEnvision), and would introduce over 100 apps within the first year. But by the time of Apple’s next game-changer, the iPad in 2010, it was clear that our classic-art viewing app was the big winner.

We just didn’t know how big! Available again on day one, Art Authority for iPad would be featured by Apple many times, and win the Apple Rewind award as best reference app two years in a row. The educational version, Art Authority K-12, would be highlighted by Apple VP Phil Schiller in a keynote at the Guggenheim Museum, and iPhone and Mac versions would follow, along with a curated version for the Apple TV, Art Channel. The Art Authority database would grow to over 100,000 works of art from nearly 1000 museums.

art authority for iPad

We were pleased and honored by the difference we were able to make at this new intersection of art and technology. Things got even more interesting when the real art authorities found us. We ended up changing the name of the company to Art Authority LLC, acquiring the pioneering fine art retailer 1000Museums, and making major contributions to the art world in which we are now so firmly entrenched. Our museum-approved archival reproductions are second to none, and we’ve given back hundreds of thousands of dollars directly to the art world in the form of royalties. We’ve also sponsored an internship program for nine years running.

From dial-up Internet to fine art reproduction over a quarter century. Quite the ride. We can’t wait to find out what the next quarter century will bring!

 

Happy Holidays

By Art Authority November 29, 2019 ,

 

In keeping with modern-day tradition, Art Authority and our 1000Museums brand of museum-approved archival prints would like to help you ring in the holidays with free apps and special pricing on our prints.

Our award-winning Art Authority for iPad and iPhone apps are FREE this weekend. So if you haven’t already, please go out and get them. You can then browse the collection of over 100,00 classic works of art from hundreds of museums worldwide.

And what do you do after visiting the museum(s)? Go through the museum gift shop, of course. The 1000Museums gift shop is built into the apps, or you can get to it directly at 1000Museums.com.

And did we mention everything at 1000Museums is 30-50% off this weekend? And shipping in the U.S. is free!

So what are waiting for? Happy Holidays!

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