Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon and the son of a Cuban refugee, was awarded the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal at a U.S. Naturalization Ceremony at the Smithsonian.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Honored at Citizenship Ceremony

The Smithsonian awarded the internet mogul during a ceremony welcoming newly naturalized citizens

Learning Lab allows visitors to experiment, to manipulate, to play with the collections, to use them as the building blocks to create new things.

Commentary

Something Super Cool Just Turned Up in Your Digital Toolbox

The Smithsonian unveils a game-changing online tool designed to empower anyone to discover and use digital museum resources

The collaboration will result in a new cultural complex to be located on this 4.5 acre triangular site at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the site of the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Smithsonian to Partner with Victoria and Albert Museum to Open a London Gallery

For the U.S. museum and research complex originally funded by Englishman James Smithson, the announcement brings the 19th-century gift full circle

Architects Reimagine Detroit

A new exhibition in Venice showcases how 12 teams would reinvent four sites in Detroit badly in need of facelifts

Street Scene by Walker Evans, 1936, New Orleans, gelatin silver print

Walker Evans Wrote the Story of America With His Camera

One of the greatest historians of 20th-century America was a man who used his camera to stare, pry, listen, and eavesdrop

Untitled, 2016, Jack Ludden. Digital photomontage of Self-portrait, 2014 (left), Self-portrait, 1989 (right), and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1989

How a Museum Cancelling a Controversial Mapplethorpe Exhibition Changed My Life

As an intern at the Corcoran, I suddenly understood the power of art

“We know of only five scrolls of this heroic size by the artist Wen Zhengming [1470-1559] and this is the only known example with a personal poem,” says curator Stephen D. Allee.

When the Painting Is Also Poetry

A sublime new show honors the Chinese tradition of the ‘Three Perfections’—poetry, painting and calligraphy

A portrait of Mary Church Terrell in 1946 by Betsy Graves Reyneau

How One Woman Helped End Lunch Counter Segregation in the Nation’s Capital

Mary Church Terrell’s court case demanded the district’s “lost laws” put an end to racial discrimination in dining establishments

Sita Bhaumik, Saqib Keval, Jocelyn Jackson and Norma Listman (People's Kitchen Collective)

The Smithsonian Gets Experimental and Field-Tests a New Forum for Bringing Artists to the Public

A Two-Day Festival in the historic Arts & Industries Building brings community, artists and scholars together for a “Culture Lab”

Andrew Jackson's official White House portrait by Ralph E.W. Earl.

What the Politics of Andrew Jackson’s Era Can Tell Us About Today

NPR correspondent Steve Inskeep speaks about his book Jacksonland and what it says about America’s democratic tradition

This artist's concept depicts select planetary discoveries made to date by NASA's Kepler space telescope.

Think Big

How Would You React If We Discovered Alien Life?

Experts weigh in on what the detection of other life forms might mean to the human race

"Lux Noctis" is a series of photographs depicting landscapes of North America within the framework of traditional landscape photography, influenced by ideas of planetary exploration,19th-century Romantic painting and science fiction | Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

Photo Contest Featured Photographer

These Drone-Lit Photos of the American West Are Straight Out of a Science Fiction Novel

Photographer Reuben Wu casts new light on a familiar world

Bower by Martin Puryear, 1980, Sitka spruce, pine, and copper tacks

Martin Puryear’s Hometown Retrospective Brings the World Renowned Artist Back to His Roots

After treks to Africa, Scandinavia and Japan, Puryear’s works go on display at the Smithsonian, where he first developed his curiosity for world cultures

Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr in "Hamilton"

Before There Was “Hamilton,” There Was “Burr”

Although Gore Vidal’s book never became a hit on Broadway, the novel helped create the public personae of Alexander Hamilton’s nemesis

Pozzi and her team at the Washed Ashore project, achieve a remarkable and convincing array of textures.

Age of Humans

There’s a Bunch of Animals at the Zoo this Summer Made Out of Ocean Garbage

Delightfully whimsical, the sculptures drive home the message that there’s a whole lot of trash washing ashore

Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) (video still), 2004

Six Critically Acclaimed African Artists Explore the Dimensions and Complexities of Time

Much more abstract than seconds, minutes and hours, time in the hands of artists becomes even more perplexing

Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor at the National Museum of American History discusses the dining traditions at the Supreme Court.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor Dig Into the History of Food at the Supreme Court

The American History Museum and the Supreme Court Historical Society brought the justices together to share tales from the highest court

Is the Internet an Enormous Work of Realist Art?

Journalist Virginia Heffernan makes a compelling case that it is in a new book

How Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Perfectly Illustrates the Power of Art Museums

Three decades after it premiered, the coming-of-age film remains a classic

Burgess will build on the unifying motifs of "Confluence" as he and his team craft their latest opus

Reimagining Portraiture Through Dance

Choreographer Dana Tai Soon Burgess joins forces with the National Portrait Gallery

Page 144 of 365