Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

Attributed to Albrecht Dürer, The Virgin and Child With a Flower on a Grassy Bank, circa 1503

Cool Finds

Sketch Bought at Estate Sale for $30 May Be Dürer Drawing Worth $50 Million

Dated to around 1503, the depiction of the Virgin and Child bears the Renaissance master’s monogram and watermark

David Allan, Edinburgh Milkmaid With Butter Churn, circa 1780–90

See a Rare Watercolor of a Black Woman Living in Edinburgh in the Late 18th Century

Staff at the National Galleries of Scotland, which recently acquired the David Allan painting, hope to uncover more information about the sitter’s identity

Frida Kahlo's Diego y yo (1949) sold at auction for $34.9 million on Tuesday night. 

Intimate Frida Kahlo Self-Portrait Sells for $34.9 Million, Smashing Auction Records

The stunning work became the most expensive Latin American artwork ever sold, breaking a benchmark set by the Mexican painter’s husband, Diego Rivera

Virtual reconstruction of Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan as it may have looked around 600 C.E., when it decorated a manmade cave temple in southern Cambodia

A Botched Restoration Left These Ancient Cambodian Statues With Swapped Limbs

Now properly pieced together, the sculptures of Hindu deity Krishna are on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art

Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, holding the Mattel Hoverboard in a scene from Back to the Future II

Marty McFly’s ‘Back to the Future II’ Hoverboard Sells for $500,000

Signed by the franchise’s star, actor Michael J. Fox, the movie prop easily surpassed its auction estimate

Ai Weiwei's Whitewash (1995–2000), pictured here in the M+ museum's newly opened galleries, features 126 Neolithic clay jars unearthed in China.

Major Contemporary Art Museum Debuts in Hong Kong Amid Censorship Concerns

M+ promises to be a leading cultural destination, but China’s new national security law threatens its curatorial freedom

The room combines art that evokes imagined futures and artifacts from different contexts within the African diaspora.

The Met’s New Period Room Envisions a Thriving Afrofuturist Community

The Manhattan museum’s latest imagined space blends Black history and contemporary art

Attributed to Mary Way or Elizabeth Way Champlain, A Lady Holding a Bouquet, circa 1790–1800

Women Who Shaped History

These Sisters’ Innovative Portrait Miniatures Immortalized 19th-Century Connecticut’s Elite

An exhibition at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum is the first to showcase Mary and Elizabeth Way’s unique creations, which went unrecognized for decades

Ruffo’s installation features rolled botanical prints filling 17th-century wooden bookcases.

The Vatican, Home to Centuries-Old Masterpieces, Opens a Contemporary Art Gallery

Pope Francis calls for a “new beauty” that is reflective of a new, more diverse world

This 16th- or 17th-century copper alloy plaque—one of the ten Benin Bronzes removed from view—depicts a high-ranking warrior flanked by musicians and a page holding a ceremonial sword.

History of Now

Why the Smithsonian’s Museum of African Art Removed Its Benin Bronzes From View

Displaying the looted artworks does “a huge amount of harm,” says director Ngaire Blankenberg, who has affirmed her commitment to repatriating the objects

New research suggests this portrait of an old man was painted by Rembrandt himself.

A Painting Stolen in East Germany’s Biggest Art Heist May Be a Rembrandt

An exhibition at Schloss Friedenstein addresses two art history mysteries: one about the 16th-century Dutch portrait and another about the 1979 theft

Art collector John Foster spotted this sculpture, titled Martha and Mary, in the front yard of a St. Louis home in 2019. 

Cool Finds

Art Enthusiast Spots Long-Lost Sculpture by Black Folk Artist in Missouri Front Yard

William Edmondson had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1937 but was buried in an unmarked grave following his death in 1951

A view of the Anahuacalli Museum's main "temple" structure, which was inspired by Aztec architecture and completed in 1964

Diego Rivera’s Utopian ‘City of the Arts’ Debuts 64 Years After the Artist’s Death

The Anahuacalli Museum has expanded its campus to create a community art center first envisioned by the Mexican muralist in 1941

Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF (short for "mischief") sold 999 fake Warhol drawings and 1 real print. All the works are billed as identical, making it impossible for consumers to know for certain if they own the "authentic" print.

For Sale: One Real Warhol Print, Hidden Among 999 Fakes

Collective MSCHF sold the 1,000 drawings for $250 each in a stunt designed to draw attention to authenticity in the art world

Studded with gems and carvings of classical figures, the two tiaras and accompanying jewelry are expected to sell for between $410,000 and $690,000.

Two Tiaras Once Owned by Josephine Bonaparte Are Up for Auction

Napoleon’s empress was an early 19th-century style icon. Now, two of her diadems are on sale at Sotheby’s

The Denver Art Museum's newly renovated campus, with the 50,000-square-foot Sie Welcome Center in the foreground

Denver Art Museum’s Much-Anticipated Renovation Centers Indigenous Voices

The four-year, $150 million project added 30,000 square feet of exhibition space to the Colorado museum’s high-rise building

Conservators discovered this painting, Untitled (Virginia Summer), beneath another work by Gorky, The Limit (1947). The artist's relatives had previously noticed sections of The Limit peeling up at the corners, revealing bright blue paint below.

Cool Finds

This Arshile Gorky Painting Spent 70 Years Hidden in Plain Sight

Experts discovered a sea-blue canvas by the Armenian American artist concealed beneath another one of his works on paper

Julie Green poses in front of a selection of The Last Supper plates in 2015. The artist died on October 12 at age 60.

Remembering Julie Green, Who Painted the Last Meals of Death Row Inmates

The artist, who died this month at age 60, sought to emphasize condemned prisoners’ humanity

Tompkins Harrison Matteson, Examination of a Witch, 1853

History of Now

Reckoning With—and Reclaiming—the Salem Witch Trials

A new exhibition unites 17th-century artifacts with contemporary artists’ responses to the mass hysteria event

JR's Greetings From Giza is one of ten enormous art installations featured in the "Forever Is Now" exhibition.

First-of-Its-Kind Art Installation Appears to Levitate the Tip of a Giza Pyramid

See stunning photos of new contemporary art installations at the historic Egyptian plateau, including an illusion by street artist JR

Page 101 of 297