For this midterm, I used ArcGIS to map the death locations of artists listed in tate_artwork_data_1940s. I chose to map location of death as opposed to location of birth because people have a lot more agency in where they die than where they are born and often die in the same general area in which they lived.
First, I uploaded the data to ArcGIS. I selected place of death as the field I wanted mapped. From there I was able to choose how I wanted to display the data. I chose to use points with colors representing the places most common among the artists listed. Then, I used the data analysis tools to find patterns. I chose the cluster pattern because I wanted the map to show places where artists on the Tate’s list congregated. The majority of the artists congregated around London and the UK, which makes sense given that the Tate Galleries are in the UK. However, there were also a lot of pieces from the U.S., South America, and Southeast Asia.
I think making maps like this can help show art movements over time. While this map doesn’t show a lot, maps like this could be used to show the locations and hubs of different art movements. Where did the cubists congregate? The impressionists? The pop artists? We know the answer to some of these questions, but putting them on a map and seeing how they vary from movement to movement could give us more context for the pieces these artists created.
