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Arts & Culture / Art & Artists

Diller's gag lines were typed and meticulously filed into 48 drawers of a large, beige Steelmaster cabinet on wheels.

How Many Volunteers Does It Take to Transcribe Phyllis Diller’s 53,000 Jokes?

Playing around in this massive joke file is like a crash course in brash humor

The World of Radio (detail) by Arthur Gordon Smith

The Romance and Promise of 20th-Century Radio Is Captured in This Mural

At the Cooper Hewitt, a rare opportunity to view “The World of Radio” with its masterful vignettes celebrating the Modern age

Yayoi Kusama with recent works in Tokyo, 2016

Follow the Polka Dots to Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms That Are Breaking Museum Records

“Polka dots are a way to infinity,” says Japan’s most successful artist, now at the Hirshhorn

The beauty of this mutant strain of the fungus Trichoderma reesei belies the organism’s potential for dismantling biomass.

Art Meets Science

Scientists Make Art From Objects Invisible to the Naked Eye

Sophisticated microscopes, satellites and other instruments can create stunning images in experts’ hands

Ace Harlyn (active ca. 1930–40), Charlie Wagner tattooing Millie Hull, 1939, oil on canvas

Tattooing Was Illegal in New York City Until 1997

The New-York Historical Society’s newest exhibit delves into the history of the city’s once-turbulent ink scene

Misty Copeland sees dance as a “language and a culture that people from everywhere, all over the world, can relate to and understand and come together for.”

In the Footsteps of Three Modern American Prima Ballerinas

A new exhibition shows that classical ballet and the role of the ballerina are rapidly changing

Left: Matisse's Notre Dame, a Late Afternoon, 1902. Right: Diebenkorn's Ingleside, 1963.

The Lasting Influence Matisse Had on Richard Diebenkorn’s Artwork

The great American painter owed a luminous debt to the French Modernist

“The Hirshhorn’s unique modernist architecture offers a striking backdrop for the orchids’ brilliant color,” says the museum's director Melissa Chiu.

Why Orchids Belong in an Art Museum

Washington’s much-anticipated annual flower show moves to the Hirshhorn for the flora that loves to perform

This is a pyramidal neuron, so named for the pyramid-shaped body at the center of this drawing, from the cerebral cortex of a human. This outermost layer of the brain integrates information from sensory organs, commands movements and is the hub for higher brain functions, such as consciousness. In his drawing, Cajal gives the branches or dendrites different weights to show how the neuron extends in three-dimensional space. It’s likely that this represents a sort of idealized portrait of a pyramidal neuron, a synthesis of many observations.

Art Meets Science

Revel in These Wondrous Drawings by the Father of Neuroscience

A new book and exhibition pay homage to Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s impressive powers of observation

Yellow Landscape, Isamu Noguchi, 1943, magnesite, wood, string, metal fishing weight

To Bear Witness to Japanese Internment, One Artist Self-Deported Himself to the WWII Camps

The inhumanity brought on by Executive Order 9066 spurred Isamu Noguchi to action

The Admiral, 16th century | Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Atlas of Eating

A Brief History of Food as Art

From subject to statement, food has played a role in art for millennia

Oil portrait of Barack Obama by Kadir Nelson

A Portrait of Obama in the Final Days of His Presidency

Commissioned for Smithsonian magazine, this painting shows a leader at a crossroads

Marsh Ponds; Mavilette, Nova Scotia, 2014

Canada

A Photographer Captures Emptiness and Longing in Longfellow’s Nova Scotia

Photographer Mark Marchesi spent four years tracing images from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem, “Evangeline”

Dried cohineal insects from the author's study

The Bug That Had the World Seeing Red

How a Mesoamerican insect once created the globe’s most coveted color

Iron-thiocyanate complex, droplet on surface

Art Meets Science

Time-Lapse Photos Reveal the Beauty of Metal Crystals Growing

Photographer Emanuele Fornasier spends hours capturing the intricacy of chemical reactions

Top Left: Horace Poolaw, American Indian Museum; Ming Dynasty and Rothko, Sackler, Any Sherald, Visual Arts Gallery, NMAAHC; Noguchi, SAAM. Bottom Left: Bill Viola, Portrait Gallery, Jacob Lawrence, Phillips Collection, Steven Young Lee, The Renwick and Ragnar Kjartansson at the Hirshhorn

Ten Exhibitions to See in Washington, D.C. Over the Holidays

Several innovative art shows, some which close early in the new year, are a must-see

Pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama, 2016

This Great Pumpkin Heralds the D.C. Arrival of Yayoi Kusama

The Hirshhorn’s 65-year retrospective boasts six mirror rooms by this hugely popular artist

Radio Nurse by Isamu Noguchi, 1937

The Innovative Spirit fy17

After the Tragic Lindbergh Kidnapping, Artist Isamu Noguchi Designed the First Baby Monitor

The six-decade career of the artist and commercial designer is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Want to See Installation Artist Doug Aitken’s Latest Work? Grab Your Scuba Gear

"An open line of communication and mutual exchange can ensure that grassroots operations are able to thrive in increasingly challenging urban arenas."

Commentary

In the Aftermath of Oakland’s Tragedy, How Museums Can Better Serve Local Arts and DIY Venues

One Smithsonian curator weighs in on new best practices for outreach

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