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Arts & Culture / Art & Artists

American Girl by Emma Amos, from the portfolio "Impressions: Our World, Volume I," 1974

Women Who Shaped History

Why Making a Portrait of a Black Woman Was a Form of Protest

For Emma Amos, an African-American artist working in the 1970s, the personal was often political

When we first saw these two figures together at the Met's Mbembe art show in 2014, says the Smithsonian's Kevin Dumouchelle, "it was clear these works likely were from the same slit gong."

Two Enigmatic Nigerian Figures Reunited After a Century Apart

One of many highlights in a new exhibition at the National Museum of African Art

Little Children on a Bicycle

How Instagram Is Changing the Way We Design Cultural Spaces

As neighborhoods, restaurants and museums become more photogenic, are we experiencing an “Instagramization” of the world?

Kiddie Pool

These Photographs Capture the Complexities of Life at Guantánamo

In a new book, photographer Debi Cornwall casts the naval base as “Camp America”

A detail from the controversial panel of Benton’s mural

History of Now

In Defense of Keeping the Indiana University Mural That Depicts (But Doesn’t Glorify) the KKK

American artist Thomas Hart Benton thought it crucial to highlight the dark spots in the state’s history

El Greco: Apocalyptic Vision {The Vision of St. John)

Where Do New Ideas Come From?

With close study, the genealogies of even the most original ideas can be traced

African Lionesses by Lakshitha Karunarathna, 2017 Grand Prize

These Breathtaking Images Are the Cat’s Meow in Nature Photography

Sixty incredible outdoor scenes are now on view at the National Museum of Natural History

The creative output of Fats Domino, who died October 25, 2017 at the age of 89, was consistently compelling, and fans were delighted to eat it all up.

Fats Domino’s Infectious Rhythms Set a Nation in Motion

This Rock ’n’ Roll maverick was a true New Orleans original

This manuscript on astronomy by Issachar Ber Carmoly dates to 1751.

Hidden in a Basement for 70 Years, Newly Discovered Documents Shed Light on Jewish Life and Culture Before WWII

The 170,000 pages found might be “the most important collection of Jewish archives since the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

Confederate Prisoners Being Conducted from Jonesborough to Atlanta by Kara Walker, 2005, from the portfolio Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)

How Kara Walker Boldly Rewrote Civil War History

The artist gives 150-year-old illustrations a provocative update at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Rick Araluce's The Final Stop, installed at the Renwick Gallery, is a world unto itself.

At This Spectral Subway Platform, Trains Approach But Never Arrive

An otherworldly art installation debuts at the Renwick just in time for Halloween

FIU Blackboards by Joseph Beuys,1977-1979, now on view at the Hirshhorn.

What a Pair of Empty Blackboards Can Teach Us About Art and Social Change

Can art alter the course of history? Should artists even try? Joseph Beuys said yes and yes

The box set will include a 300-page companion volume featuring never-before-seen photographs, scholarly commentary and rigorous liner notes.

This Ambitious Landmark Hip-Hop and Rap Anthology Was Successfully Funded

Smithsonian’s nonprofit record label launched a Kickstarter for help and got it

Three-Room Dwelling (detail) by Frances Glessner Lee, about 1944-46

Home Is Where the Corpse Is—at Least in These Dollhouse Crime Scenes

Frances Glessner Lee’s “Nutshell Studies” exemplify the intersection of forensic science and craft

The responsive-design website fits your phone, tablet and computer and can be used to make an itinerary for easy printout and planning.

Take a Tour of the Smithsonian’s Asian Pacific Collections this Autumn

Diverse artifacts all across the Smithsonian Institution captivate and confound in equal measure

Cat's Head, 30 BCE to third century CE

Freer|Sackler: Reopens

Why the Ancient Egyptians Loved Their Kitties

A show opening at the Sackler dramatizes the various meanings that the people of Egypt once associated with cats

A bust of the legless "bicycle girl" zombie executed by Rick Grimes in the Walking Dead pilot.

America’s Undead Are Immortalized at the Smithsonian

The cast of “The Walking Dead” donates a set of perfectly macabre Halloween gifts

A rhino sculpture made from wara (rice straw) from the 2017 Wara Art Festival.

Check Out These Massive Straw Art Sculptures on Japan’s Honshu Island

Art students are giving leftover rice wara a second life

The installation Terminal allows visitors to walk through the work, between the spires and beneath the canopy that connects them.

Freer|Sackler: Reopens

Get Lost Inside These Golden Spires Transforming the Sackler Pavilion

Terminal,the work of acclaimed artist Subodh Gupta, recalls an urban cityscape

Mike deRoos and Michi Main rebuild skeletons of marine mammals for their company Cetacea. Here, deRoos adjusts a blue whale chevron bone placement.

Art Meets Science

How to Give Dead Animals a Second Life: The Art of Skeleton Articulation

Mike deRoos and Michi Main build beautiful models from the remains of Pacific sea creatures

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