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Arts & Culture / Art & Artists

Sculptor Anne Arnold and her husband, the abstract painter Ernest Briggs, owned a house with a barn in Montville, Maine, where they raised farm animals, including pigs, cows, and chickens, and kept many dogs and cats. Arnold frequently relied on photographs of her menagerie to create her lively sculptures of animals in metal and wood.

A Look at the Creative Process and What Makes an Artist Tick

A new exhibition delivers a better understanding of where artists find their inspiration

Ground beetle (Carabus (Coptolabrus) elysii), detail

Art Meets Science

Eek! Each of These Insect Portraits Is Made From More Than 8,000 Images

With a mastery of macro, Levon Biss captures every hair and dimple on insects’ vibrant bodies

Ten Things to Love in What Is Now the Nation’s Largest Modern Art Museum

SFMOMA is finally open after three years of renovations, and it’s magnificent

Oceanic whitetip, Cat Island, March 2014 (Instagram: michaelmuller7)

This Photographer Shoots Sharks to Save Them

When he’s not creating movie posters, Michael Muller swims among the oceanic predators, capturing stunning images

Pictured left: Cancun, Mexico on May 14, 2014; pictured right: Helen Frankenthaler, Canyon, 1965

These Photos Taken From Space Look Astonishingly Like Art Masterpieces

ASTER reveals how art imitates reality

Pangolin

Art Meets Science

These Eerie Portraits Capture Endangered and Extinct Animals in a Film That Is Also Vanishing

Denis Defibaugh uses Polaroid 55 film to give animal specimens an afterlife

"Kinetic" dress

Iris Van Herpen Is Revolutionizing the Look and Tech of Fashion

The Dutch designer redefines what it means to be fashion forward

The sensuous curves and subtle walnut grain of Maloof's rocker just seem to beckon and say “Come on in a sit a while.”

Famous for His Rocking Chair, Sam Maloof Made Furniture That Had Soul

A centennial appreciation for this master of mid-century modernism is underway with a California exhibition and an upcoming seminar

Visitors to the American Gothic House Center are encouraged to play the part of the famous pair from the painting.

Grab Your Pitchfork and Take an “American Gothic”-Themed Road Trip

A drive through eastern Iowa is the best way to appreciate one of the country’s most famous images

Berlin Face, Berlin, 2013

Fashion Photographer Klaus Mitteldorf Captures the Chaos of Modern Identity

These images evoke a world of endless distraction

Tara Locklear makes jewelry using recycled skateboards.

Calling All Those in the Market for Skateboard Jewelry, Czech Marionettes or Other Quirky Crafts

The annual Smithsonian Craft Show features 120 of the best craft artisans from around the country

Water spreads like inky-blue fingers into mangrove forests along the shore of Australia's Ord River (top). The sediment load in the water shows up as yellow and orange while mudflats stick out like a light blue bull's-eye on the lower left.

Journey to the Center of Earth

These Stunning Satellite Images Turn Earth Into Art

These images illustrate the brutal beauty geologic processes carve into our planet

Robin Williams by Michael Dressler, 1979

Harken Back to the Glory Days When ‘Time’ Magazine Was King

A new show honors the once powerful cover shot and the artists who made celebs shine bright

In "Gardens Speak," artist Tania El-Khoury explores the human cost of Syria's civil war.

This Haunting Exhibit Unearths the Stories of Syria’s Slain

Ten victims of the Middle East crisis have their stories told in a moving art installation in Washington, D.C.

Run-DMC-JMJ on the rooftop of Russell Simmons's apt

Breaking Ground

Vintage Photos Recall the Early Days of Hip-Hop, Before It Became a Billion-Dollar Industry

More than 400 images from the 1980s to the early 2000s detail the “standout moments” of the rise of Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, Jay Z and many more artists

Untitled by Robert Irwin, 1963-65

To Truly Experience Robert Irwin, You Simply Must View His Artworks in Person

Part visionary, part magician, Irwin makes art that breaks all the rules

Wayne Shorter and McCoy Tyner at Shorter's April 29, 1964 session for "Night Dreamer" at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

These Rarely Seen Images Show Jazz Greats Pouring Out Their Hearts

Frank Wolff’s gritty portraits, the hallmark of Blue Note Records, became a visual catalog of jazz in action

Crisis, From the series Ashab Al-Lai/ Fault Mirage: A Thousand Lost years by Ahmed Mater, 2015

A Changing Mecca Is the Focus of the First U.S. Exhibition to Feature a Saudi Artist

The works of Ahmed Mater at the Sackler examine the stark collision of the sacred and profane

Chester Medicine Crow (Apsáalooke, Crow) and his grandfather Joe Medicine Crow (Apsáalooke, Crow)

Remembering Dr. Joe Medicine Crow

He showed us we are capable of great things when we look within ourselves, says scholar Nina Sanders

Super-Natural (2011/2016), Han Seok Hyun. Artist Han Seok Hyun sourced green materials from supermarkets in Boston and his home city of Seoul for this fanciful landscape.

11 Artists Capture What It Is Like to Live in a Megacity

“Megacities Asia,” a new exhibition at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, features 19 installations inspired by cities with populations of 10 million or more

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