Growing up in multiple countries has allowed architect David Adjaye to always be highly sensitive to the cultural framework of different peoples in his designs.

Breaking Ground

Q&A: Architect David Adjaye On His Vision for the New Museum

The designer of the National Museum of African American History and Culture talks about his vision for the new building

Claudio Sgarbi says he "was totally astonished" when he examined a manuscript including a drawing that seemed to prefigure Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.

The Other Vitruvian Man

Was Leonardo da Vinci’s famous anatomical chart actually a collaborative effort?

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Letters

Readers Respond to the December Issue

Dale Nichols, Navigating Icebergs, 1941 oil on canvas panel, 22 x 25, From the Collection of Valentino Chickinelli, Omaha, Nebraska.

Go Behind the Red Barn and Rediscover Dale Nichols

Though snubbed by scholars, the American realist painter produced surprisingly symbolic works, as a striking new exhibition makes clear

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Too Many Bosses in the Boardroom

Chewing gum magnate William Wrigley knew whose opinion mattered the most: his own

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How the Ubermensch Got Into Harvard

Friedrich Nietzsche philosophizes on where luck and skill come into play

In 2007, cartoonist Kate Beaton, pictured on the right in a self-portrait, launched her webcomic "Hark! A Vagrant," which features spoofs on historical and literary characters.

Finding the Humor in History

The irreverent take on the giants of literature, science and politics could only have come from the brain of cartoonist Kate Beaton

Graceland, Elvis Presley’s home in Memphis, has been kept largely as it was when he lived there, from 1957 until his death in 1977. Dining room mirrors reflect a stairway to the private quarters.

Annie Leibovitz’s American Pilgrimage

In a new book and exhibition, the esteemed photographer pursues a passion for history and lets us see familiar icons in a fresh light

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More Astounding Modern Art Collectors

Like the Steins, other collectors and patrons influenced 20th-century art by supporting new genres and unheralded artists

Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso courted the Steins by doing portraits of them. Pictured are Gertrude, left, and Leo, center, by Picasso and sister-in-law Sarah by Matisse.

An Eye for Genius: The Collections of Gertrude and Leo Stein

Would you have bought a Picasso painting in 1905, before the artist was known? These siblings did

A beak-spouted vessel, circa 1000 B.C.

What’s Up

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Letters

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

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