Arts & Culture

In most Akan states, gold-ornamented sandals identify a ruler. It is taboo for a chief to walk barefoot; to do so, followers believed, would invite disaster.

West African Gold: Out of the Ordinary

The inventive goldwork and royal regalia of Ghana's Akan people —on display in a new exhibition— are drawn, strikingly, from daily life

Most of the flash equipment was custom-built, but Link (left) and his assistant George Thom also used miners' headlamps while they were setting up shots after dark.

The Big Picture

A well-planned single image yells the story of 20th-century transportation

The Robert N. Stewart Bridge

By Design

Over the past half-century the small town of Columbus, Indiana, has turned itself into a showplace of modern architecture

35 Who Made a Difference: Wynton Marsalis

In Katrina's aftermath, the trumpeter has rallied support for his native New Orleans

A Night at the Opera

Weegee's wartime snapshot was widely seen as social criticism, but it was, in fact, a farce

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35 Who Made a Difference: Steven Spielberg

A renowned director contemplates the lessons of history

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35 Who Made a Difference: Maya Lin

The architect melds surface simplicity and underlying intellectual complexity into works of enduring power

35 Who Made a Difference: Frank Gehry

The architect's daring, outside-the-box buildings have revitalized urban spaces

35 Who Made a Difference: David Attenborough

The natural history filmmaker has brought serious science to a global audience

Author Maya Angelou hosts the 2000 annual conference for the Children's Defense Fund in March 2007.

35 Who Made a Difference: Maya Angelou

By singing of her own hardships, she has given strength to others

35 Who Made a Difference: Wendell Berry

A Kentucky poet draws inspiration from the land that sustains him

35 Who Made a Difference: Renée Fleming

The soprano is renowned for her beguiling voice and presence

35 Who Made a Difference: Andy Goldsworthy

Using nature as his canvas, the artist creates works of transcendent beauty

A prodigy who played for President Kennedy at age 7, Ma (in 1988) is no snob, performing Bach to pop to tangos.

35 Who Made a Difference: Yo-Yo Ma

Humanitarian, globe-trotting teacher, good sport, ice-dancing fan and heckuva nice guy. Oh, and he plays the cello

35 Who Made a Difference: Julie Taymor

Transcending genres, the designer and director creates shamanistic theater

A sportive thrill c. 1957.

Fashion Faux Paw

Richard Avedon's photograph of a beauty and the beasts is marred, he believed, by one failing

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Matisse and His Models

The author of a new biography of the artist argues that the women he painted were full partners in the creative enterprise

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Entangling Alliances

From Alaska to France, kindred spirits find common ground

The Outwin Boochever contest: First of its kind in the U.S.

New Faces

Artists, emerging and renowned alike, will vie to display their works in the National Portrait Gallery when it reopens next July

Louis Armstrong (at about 26 c. 1927) "as showing the world what jazz was all about," Driggs says.

Jazz Man

Louis Armstrong before he was Satchmo? A youthful Ella? For photographs of musicians great or obscure, just about everyone turns to Frank Driggs

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