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About Ellsworth.

The project
Daniel Hamilton

Ellsworth is a personal project created and designed by Daniel Hamilton and built for educational and research purposes. It connects open-access artwork data from museum collections and consolidates them into a single, searchable intelligence layer, with tools to discover movements, trace influence, and interact with the collection in ways no single museum could offer on its own. It's intended to encourage exploration, learning, and a deeper understanding of art history through its many themes, stories, and connections.

Writing

I believe AI offers educators, researchers, students, and art history lovers new ways to stimulate curiosity, develop and refine critical thinking skills, and engage more deeply in intellectual discussion when framed through the perspectives of agents designed as art critics. These critics are crafted with their own unique experiences, emotions, personalities and narrative voices based on the world's top and lesser unknown art critics and curators. I could go on, but, I write about the project on my personal site.

Data & sourcing

Museum artwork data is provided under open access terms. Wikipedia & Wikidata content is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Biographical facts such as birth and death years, nationality, and movement affiliations are sourced from Wikidata and museum records.

AI-generated content

Artist profile narratives, including pull quotes, biographical text, and data stories, are generated by Claude AI (Anthropic) and may not reflect scholarly consensus. Exhibition reviews in the Play section are also AI-generated, written by a panel of agent critics.

Accessibility

Ellsworth targets WCAG 2.2 Level AA, verified through a full remediation pass covering landmarks, headings, focus management, keyboard navigation, dialog semantics, color contrast (including icon-only controls), and support for reduced-motion preferences.

Every route below is checked automatically before anything ships: a Playwright + axe-core suite (24 tests, every route in both light and dark) runs against the full site, and Lighthouse accessibility audits are re-verified whenever a change touches shared layout or global styles.

Home100
Figures100
Movements96
Works100
Events100
Palettes100
Exhibitions96
Exhibition builder100
Critics100
This page100

The two 96s share one cause: palette-color swatch buttons on card listings sit under the 24×24px minimum touch-target size (WCAG 2.5.8), which is tracked for a fix. Everything else on those pages passes clean. Detail-page templates (artist, exhibition, event) are covered by the same automated suite, not listed individually above since each renders different content per page.

Last verified: September 2026.

Feedback & bugs

This project is intended for art education and research and is growing constantly. If you find inaccuracies or bugs, use the Bug Reporter in the lower right of the page to share them. I read every one and will address it. I hope you have fun and learn something new!

Recent updates
2026-09
Added a real accessibility breakdown below, with current Lighthouse scores per route instead of just a footer badge.
2026-09
Exhibitions redesigned: a guided step-by-step curation wizard, critic-scored roster review, and easier navigation back to the exhibitions overview from anywhere in the flow.
2026-09
Landing page redesigned around a full-bleed collection hero and a consolidated Discover / Visualize / Play overview.