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Maar’s Surrealist work is on display at SFMOMA and will be featured at Paris’ Centre Pompidou and L.A.’s Getty Center in 2019.

A Look Back at the Artist Dora Maar

The photographer best remembered as Picasso’s muse steps out of his shadow

Brown’s portable instrument, 40 inches high by 50 inches wide, had a signature flourish: silver trim.

The Electric Organ That Gave James Brown His Unstoppable Energy

What was it about the Hammond organ that made the ‘Godfather of Soul’ say please, please, please?

Mid-19th Century specimens collected in Latin America by Alfred Russel Wallace include parrot wings and marsupial pelts.

The Great Feather Heist

The curious case of a young American’s brazen raid on a British museum’s priceless collection

What Will Our Society Look Like When Artificial Intelligence Is Everywhere?

Will robots become self-aware? Will they have rights? Will they be in charge? Here are five scenarios from our future dominated by AI

Ask Smithsonian

Why Don’t We See Fireflies in the Western U.S.?

You asked, we answered

The towering, 2,500-year-old “Mother of the Forest” (second from left) died after its bark was stripped for display in New York in 1855.

How California’s Giant Sequoias Tell the Story of Americans’ Conflicted Relationship With Nature

In the mid-19th century, “Big Tree mania” spread across the country and our love for the trees has never abated

The names of 50 victims of the 1887 Thibodaux massacre in Louisiana are among those inscribed on the new memorial.

A New Memorial Remembers the Thousands of African-Americans Who Were Lynched

Next month’s opening of the monument in Alabama will be a necessary step in reckoning with America’s deadly past

Grizzly, a detection dog in training, is learning to sniff out stolen antiquities.

Dogs May Soon Be on the Front Lines in the Fight Against Artifact Smuggling

A project with the University of Pennsylvania is seeking a new tool in an important battle

What the Founding Fathers’ Money Problems Can Teach Us About Bitcoin

The challenges faced by the likes of Ben Franklin have a number of parallels to today’s cryptocurrency boom

How Do You Make Beer in Space?

Strap on your beer goggles and join us on a hops-fueled rocket ride

Discussion of our January/February Issue

Feedback from our readers

Joseph Kayan, a Goroka Show participant from Chimbu Province, wears boar tusks and the tail of a tree kangaroo around his neck. The design of his headdress is specific to his village: it includes bird-of-paradise feathers, with reeds to fill out the shape. His armlets hold sprigs of plants from his region.

Striking Photos of the Past and Present of Papua New Guinea

From tribal traditions to urban strife in the island nation

Clockwise from top left, new illustrations by Ryan Schude, Edel Rodriguez, Tim O'Brien, Melinda Beck.

A 21st-Century Reimagining of Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms”

The iconic paintings helped the U.S. win World War II. What do they mean today?

Ask Smithsonian

Who Was the First First Lady to Adopt a Cause and More Questions From Our Readers

You asked, we answered

After Audubon's health began to fail, his family completed the project, producing the color plates in installments for about 300 subscribers.

The Fantastic Beasts of John James Audubon’s Little-Known Book on Mammals

The American naturalist spent the last years of his life cataloguing America’s four-legged creatures

Hamsters are nearsighted and colorblind. To find their way through dense fields, they rely on scent trails.

Why Are These Hamsters Cannibalizing Their Young?

Scientists are stalking French cornfields to find out

The Archaeology of Wealth Inequality

Researchers trace the income gap back more than 11,000 years

Wood took aim at the Daughters of the American Revolution, whose members, he claimed, “are trying to set up an aristocracy of birth in a Republic.”

A Preview of Grant Wood’s New Retrospective at the Whitney

The artist who posed as a farmer gets the star treatment at the New York museum in his biggest show ever

In Search of the Real Grant Wood

The denim-clad artist who painted American Gothic wasn’t the hayseed he’d have you believe

When news of Tennessee’s ratification reached Alice Paul on August 18, she sewed the thirty-sixth star onto her ratification banner and unfurled it from the balcony of Woman’s Party headquarters in Washington.

How Tennessee Became the Final Battleground in the Fight for Suffrage

One hundred years later, the campaign for the women’s vote has many potent similarities to the politics of today

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