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Arts & Culture

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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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World’s Unlikeliest Bestseller

Fifty years ago a brewer’s bet spawned a compelling compendium of feats, stunts and trivia

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Bound for Canaan; The Perfectionist

The original Smokey Bear, playing in his pool at the National Zoo, sometime during the 1950s.

A Bear-Handed Grab

How a stranded cub became the living symbol for one of America’s best-known advertising campaigns

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Going for the Gold

A pop-music confection known as The Village People belted out disco hits in the 1970s that morphed into American standards

Life imitates Frederic Remington (models Josh and Rob Culbertson) at the annual invitation-only event known as the Artist Ride.

Cowboys and Artists

Each summer models decked out in period dress give artists a picture of life in the Wild West

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