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Arts & Culture / Art & Artists

Anatomically Correct Hibiscus; yarn; 2005; 45" x 45" x 32"

Art Meets Science

Sowing a Garden, One Knit Flower At a Time

Providence-based artist Tatyana Yanishevsky’s sculptures of various plant species are botanically accurate in almost everything but their scale

Family photographs collected from around the United States are featured in Beyond Bollywood. Here, Pandit Shankar Ghosh, Shrimati Sanjukta Ghosh, with Vikram (Boomba) Ghosh at Samuel P. Taylor State Park, Lagunitas, Calif., ca. 1970.

How Museums and the Arts are Presenting Identity So That It Unites, Not Divides

Curators and practioners of the arts share a renewed focus on how culture and heritage shape who we are as Americans

Lighting the sails at the Sydney Opera House.

Australia

Sydney’s Spectacular Technicolor Art Festival in Nine Mesmerizing GIFs

3-D digital light projections and interactive sound sculptures transform famous landmarks around Australia’s largest city

As a child, Nicholas Alan Cope recalls hearing the national anthem at Orioles games in Baltimore, the song's hometown. As an adult, he rose to the challenge of photographing the icon itself.

These Artistic Interpretations of the Star-Spangled Banner Call Out the Inner Patriot

In paintings, photos, music, videos and poetry, contemporary artists intrepret the flag that bravely waved above Fort McHenry

The delicate painting in question depicts a hibiscus, a symbol of autumn.

A Scholar’s Detective Work Uncovers a Masterpiece at the Freer Gallery

Thought to be from a minor artist, this painting proved to be older and more significant than previously thought

Getting to Know Whistler’s Father

Whistler’s mother is a superstar. But the painter’s dad has languished in obscurity—until now

Brown and Silver: Old Battersea Bridge, James McNeill Whistler, 1859—1863

Washington, D.C.

See 19th-Century London Through the Eyes of James McNeill Whistler, One of America’s Greatest Painters

The largest U.S. display in 20 years of Whistler artworks highlights the artist’s career in England

Thorax and wings of a tree bug (Pentatoma rufipes) found in 1990 in Graubünden, Switzerland, part of the Chernobyl fallout area. Hesse-Honegger notes that the right wings are disturbed and the scutellum is bent.

Art Meets Science

Chernobyl’s Bugs: The Art And Science Of Life After Nuclear Fallout

In 1986, a Swiss artist set out to document insects from regions affected by the Chernobyl disaster, and science is starting to catch up with her

In Portrait of Nan, Wood highlighted his sister’s femininity.

Meet Grant Wood’s Sister, the Woman Made Famous by “American Gothic”

The painter gave his sibling Nan a makeover in his alluring portrait of her

This Reversible Painting Flips Your Expectations of Art

A painter looks at her canvas from a new perspective

Washington, D.C.

Portraiture in the Time of Mad Men

The Portrait Gallery takes a look at portraiture as it faces Abstract Expressionism in the era of Don Draper’s mid-century modernism

The old and the new and the cardboard meet in Tokyo, by Luke aan de Wiel.

These Intricate Cardboard Models Perfectly Capture the Look and Feel of World Cities

A photographer and model-maker created these dreamscapes, including a forest animal, to convey the essence of the urban metropolis

View of Takanawa Ushimachi under a Shrouded Moon, Kobayashi Kiyochika,1879

Tokyo in Transition: Woodblock Prints Cast an Ambiguous Light on Japan’s Modernization

A collection of works by the great Eastern modernist Kobayashi Kiyochika are on view at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Desmarestia herbacea, acid kelp; Santa Cruz, CA; c. 1898; Collection: University Herbarium, UC Berkeley, CA

Art Meets Science

These Delicate Images of Seaweed Were Captured Using a Flatbed Scanner

In a new book, photographer Josie Iselin highlights the exquisite colors and forms of kelp and other marine algae

Artist Todd McGrain's sculptures of five extinct North American birds are now on display in Smithsonian gardens.

Art Meets Science

Bronze Sculptures of Five Extinct Birds Land in Smithsonian Gardens

Artist Todd McGrain memorializes species long-vanished, due to human impact on their habitats, in his “Lost Bird Project”

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These Sketches Will Take You Into the Artistic Mind of Edward Hopper

At the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, a new exhibition and a novella delve into the inexplicable sense of mystery in Hopper’s paintings

Zebrafish embryo

Art Meets Science

A Scan of a Mechanical Heart Pump Fitted in a Live Human and Other Eerily Beautiful Scientific Images

From a photo of a tick biting flesh to a closeup of a kidney stone, the 18 winners of the 2014 Wellcome Image Awards highlight objects we don’t usually see

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Art Meets Science

Can Bullets Be Beautiful?

Photographer Sabine Pearlman exposes the surprisingly delicate innards of rounds of ammunition

Measuring 745 feet across, Janet Echelman's Skies Painted with Unnumbered Sparks is her largest aerial sculpture to date.

Art Meets Science

A Massive Aerial Sculpture Is Hoisted in Downtown Vancouver

Artist Janet Echelman combines ancient techniques with modern technology to create her largest-ever net sculpture for TED’s 30th anniversary

It is time that we drop Hollywood’s humanoid view of extraterrestrials. In reality, David Aguilar says, “We are going to find bizarre adaptations.”

Life in the Cosmos

What Will Extraterrestrial Life Look Like?

Illustrator David Aguilar melds art and science to imagine how alien creatures might adapt to their environments

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