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Arts & Culture / Art & Artists

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Letters

Readers Respond to the March Issue

"Why Design Now?" is an exhibit at New York City's Cooper-Hewitt where designers address social and environmental issues.

What’s Up

Veterinary dentist Barron Hall was called to help a 15-year-old female western lowland gorilla who had a fractured tooth.

Q and A with Barron Hall, Veterinary Dentist

Root canals on cheetahs, lions and gorillas is just another day at the office for veterinary dentist Barron Hall

Rare correspondence—carried by a vanished courier—is one of only "two pieces of what collectors call 'interrupted mail' from the Pony Express," says Postal Museum curator Daniel Piazza.

A Rare Pony Express Artifact

A letter that took two years to reach its destination evokes the hazards of the Pony Express

G. Wayne Clough became the first Smithsonian Secretary to travel to Antarctica.

Antarctica!

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Letters

Readers Respond to the February Issue

Worry over the exquisite art—including an image of the protector goddess Tara—has fueled photographer Aditya Arya's efforts.

Glimpses of the Lost World of Alchi

Threatened Buddhist art at a 900-year-old monastery high in the Indian Himalayas sheds light on a fabled civilization

Cobalt Blue Series is among the 162 rare Viennese works selected to be on display at the Cooper-Hewitt, in New York City starting April 23.

What’s Up

In a letter to the Daguerreian Journal in 1851, Levi Hill claimed to have invented color photography.

A 160-Year-Old Photographic Mystery

In 1851, Levi Hill claimed he invented color photography. Was he a genius or a fraud?

The National Museum of Natural History, opened in 1910, is the largest museum on the National Mall.

Two Centennials for the Smithsonian

In 2010, the Institution celebrates two seminal events – the founding of its Natural History Museum and the inauguration of its research in Panama

First lady Michelle Obama's donates her Jason Wu inaugural ball gown to the First Ladies' Collection at the National Museum of American History.

First Lady’s Inaugural Gown Arrives at Smithsonian

Michelle Obama donates her Jason Wu gown to the First Ladies’ Collection at the National Museum of American History

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Letters

Readers Respond to the January Issue

The five-foot-wide Tata Nano car is on view at the Cooper-Hewitt until April 25.

What’s Up

Ongoing studies of Neanderthal skeletons unearthed in Iraq during the 1950s suggest the existence of a more complex social structure than previously thought.

The Skeletons of Shanidar Cave

A rare cache of hominid fossils from the Kurdistan area of northern Iraq offers a window on Neanderthal culture

Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Natural History Museum, proposed that climate change was the driving force in human evolution.

Q and A: Rick Potts

The Smithsonian anthropologist turned heads when he proposed that climate change was the driving force in human evolution

The new hall at the Natural History Museum explains our ancestral tree.

From the Castle: Becoming Us

Homo heidelbergensis—one of five sculptures crafted for the new exhibition hall at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History—takes shape at a Baltimore foundry.

Sculpting Evolution

A series of statues by sculptor John Gurche brings us face to face with our early ancestors

Renoir's home in Cagnes-sur-Mer, in the South of France, was a source of inspiration (The Farm at Les Collettes, 1914).

Renoir’s Controversial Second Act

Late in life, the French impressionist’s career took an unexpected turn. A new exhibition showcases his radical move toward tradition

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Letters

Readers Respond to the December Issue

Through May 31, the American Indian Museum explores the lives of people (the Foxx family) who share African-American and Native American ancestry.

What’s Up

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