Art & Artists

In his illustrated books, Patel distills the gods and goddesses down to their essentials as shown in this illustration from Ramayana: Divine Loophole (2010).

Sanjay Patel: A Hipster’s Guide to Hinduism

The 36-year-old pop artist and Pixar veteran brings a modern twist to the gods and demons of Hindu mythology

Tail vertebrae from a previously known Alamosaurus specimen (A), compared with a newly-discovered Alamosaurus tail vertebra (B) and a tail vertebra from the large titanosaur Futalognkosaurus (C).

Alamosaurus Gets Pumped Up

New fossils give a body size boost to what may have been North America's largest dinosaur, Alamosaurus

Stubbornly original, Still intended his art to “be engaged in that which exalts the spirit of man.” To achieve that, he said, “a fresh start must be made.”

Clyfford Still's Sublime Art

A new museum devoted exclusively to the work of the abstract painter is opening in Denver. A leading critic takes a close look at one masterwork

“Man does not live by salad alone,” says farmer Tevis Robertson-Goldberg of Massachusetts. “He needs croutons.”

Artisanal Wheat On the Rise

Giving factory flour the heave-ho, small farmers from New England to the Northwest are growing long-forgotten varieties of wheat

See People of the Caribou by Nicolas Villaume at the American Indian Museum's multimedia exhibit "Conversations with the Earth through January 2, 2012.

What's Up

In Robert Walter Weir’s c. 1838 canvas of St. Nicholas (detail), perhaps influenced by a Washington Irving story, the painter envisioned both an enigmatic trickster and a dispenser of holiday cheer.

A Mischievous St. Nick from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

The 19th-century artist Robert Walter Weir took inspiration from Washington Irving to create a prototype of Santa Claus

Instruments developed at the Harvard- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, such as this Solar Probe, will go to the Sun in 2018.

New Angles

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Letters

Readers Respond to the October Issue

The Anamorphose

Is a “Garden” the World’s Greatest New Artwork?

Francois Abelanet's extraordinary turf "sculpture" on a Paris plaza epitomizes a grand tradition of artful illusion

Missionary sisters circa 1920

News from the Preservation Front

Why we need to save orphan films as well as blockbusters

The boulder artist Michael Heizer chose for his installation weighs 340 tons and is as tall as a two-story house.

How to Install a 340-ton Work of Art

Michael Heizer waited decades to find the perfect rock for his Levitated Mass, and now he awaits its slow journey from the quarry to an L.A. art museum

"Going West" by Thomas Hart Benton

Auctioning a Beloved Thomas Hart Benton Collection

Perhaps the nation's best collection of Benton prints was assembled by an idiosyncratic Texan named Creekmore Fath

John de Lancie and Anna Gunn in the world premier of Alan Alda's Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie at the Geffen Playhouse directed by Daniel Sullivan.

Q & A with Alan Alda on Marie Curie

A new play explains how despite the many challenges, the famous scientist didn’t stop trailblazing after her first Nobel

George Catlin's c. 1827 fusion of art and cartography, A Bird's Eye View of Niagara Falls, likely struck 19th-century viewers as highly imaginative.

America's 19th Century Highway: The River

A new exhibition of American wonders underscores the debt our country owes to its waterways

Experience the life cycles of stars and galaxies, such as Centaurus A galaxy, shown here, through January 2012 at the National Museum of Natural History.

What's Up

In 1939, Diosa Costello became the first Latina on Broadway.

Q and A With Diosa Costello

The first Latina on Broadway dishes on her career and how she got her breakout role in South Pacific

The PT-13D prepared Tuskegee Airmen for war.

Breaking Ground

The Tuskegee Airmen Plane's Last Flight

The final voyage of a World War II biplane evokes the exploits of the legendary fighting force

To prevent young birds from imprinting on humans, flock manager Jane Chandler dons a white gown and a mask. She uses a puppet to teach them survival skills.

A Call to Save the Whooping Crane

Smithsonian researchers join an international effort to bring the five-foot-tall bird back from the brink of extinction

Yves Klein produced controversial and boundary-breaking single-color paintings, elemental canvases of fire, water and air, and even galleries emptied of all artworks.

Simple Pleasures

Ralph Eugene Meatyard said that masks erased the differences between people. He photographed his family, shown here, in 1962.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard: The Man Behind the Masks

The "dedicated amateur" photographer had a strange way of getting his subjects to reveal themselves

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