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Arts & Culture / Art & Artists

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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

The Anamorphose

Is a “Garden” the World’s Greatest New Artwork?

Francois Abelanet’s extraordinary turf “sculpture” on a Paris plaza epitomizes a grand tradition of artful illusion

Missionary sisters circa 1920

News from the Preservation Front

Why we need to save orphan films as well as blockbusters

The boulder artist Michael Heizer chose for his installation weighs 340 tons and is as tall as a two-story house.

How to Install a 340-ton Work of Art

Michael Heizer waited decades to find the perfect rock for his Levitated Mass, and now he awaits its slow journey from the quarry to an L.A. art museum

"Going West" by Thomas Hart Benton

Auctioning a Beloved Thomas Hart Benton Collection

Perhaps the nation’s best collection of Benton prints was assembled by an idiosyncratic Texan named Creekmore Fath

John de Lancie and Anna Gunn in the world premier of Alan Alda's Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie at the Geffen Playhouse directed by Daniel Sullivan.

Q & A with Alan Alda on Marie Curie

A new play explains how despite the many challenges, the famous scientist didn’t stop trailblazing after her first Nobel

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