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Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

Left: Cara Romero, Wakeah, 2018, and right: Flor Garduño, Reina (Queen), 1989

Major Donation to MoMA Spotlights a Century of Women Photographers

Newly announced gift of 100 works by 76 artists runs the gamut from photojournalism to experimental images

A "deliberately inconvenient" twin champagne glass created by Athens-based architect Katerina Kamprani

Virtual Travel

Take a Virtual Tour of Failed Designs, From the DeLorean to Google Glass

An online exhibition showcases 40 creative flops, including a curvy ping-pong table and a doll dubbed Little Miss No-Name

The newly restored artworks highlight predator-prey conflicts in the natural world.

Newly Restored Pompeiian Frescoes Capture Hunting Scenes in Vivid Detail

Researchers used a laser to clean the ancient artworks before retouching their faded sections

Just six comparable Ming dynasty bowls are known to survive today.

Cool Finds

Porcelain Bowl Bought at Yard Sale for $35 Could Sell at Auction for $500,000

The blue-and-white vessel is a rare Ming dynasty dish dated to the early 15th century

Rioters enter the U.S. Capitol's rotunda as chemical irritants fill the corridor on January 6, 2021.

History of Now

Curators Seek $25,000 to Repair Artworks Damaged in U.S. Capitol Attack

Rioters vandalized six sculptures and two paintings, in addition to smashing windows, breaking furniture and spraying graffiti

Vincent van Gogh, Scène de rue à Montmartre (Impasse des Deux Frères et le Moulin à Poivre), 1887

Rare Vincent van Gogh Landscape Will Go on View to the Public for the First Time

Housed in a private collection for the past century, the 1887 painting of a Parisian windmill is set to go on auction next month

These brightly colored geese have no modern, real-world counterpart.

Tomb Painting Known as Egypt’s ‘Mona Lisa’ May Depict Extinct Goose Species

Only two of the three kinds of birds found in the 4,600-year-old artwork correspond to existing kinds of animals

A crew in Richmond, Virginia, removes a statue of Confederate naval officer Matthew Fontaine Maury on July 2, 2020.

The U.S. Removed Over 160 Confederate Symbols in 2020—but Hundreds Remain

Following mass protests against racial injustice, watchdog group records new push to remove racist monuments from public spaces

The bust depicts York, an enslaved member of the 1804 Lewis and Clark expedition.

Anonymous Artist Installs Bust of York, Enslaved Explorer Who Accompanied Lewis and Clark, in Portland Park

The monument replaces a statue of conservative editor Harvey Scott that was toppled last October

West African culinary traditions

Education During Coronavirus

New Online Portal Chronicles the Culinary Legacy of the African Diaspora

“Feast Afrique,” a digital tool created by food historian Ozoz Sokoh, features nearly 200 texts spanning 1828 to the present

Researchers used infrared photography to take a closer look at a sentence scrawled on Edvard Munch's The Scream.

New Research

Who Scribbled This Cryptic Graffiti on ‘The Scream’?

New research suggests that the painting’s artist, Edvard Munch, wrote the secret message around 1895

The museum plans to store some 250,000 of its 620,000 artifacts at a new facility in Liévin.

How the Louvre Is Protecting Its Cultural Treasures Against Extreme Weather

Spurred by flooding linked to climate change, the Paris museum is relocating a third of its collection to a new conservation center

This mural—found on the east wall of the south transept in the Augsburg Cathedral—depicts the beheading of St. John the Baptist.

Cool Finds

1,000-Year-Old Bavarian Frescoes Depict Life and Beheading of John the Baptist

The paintings, which adorn the Augsburg Cathedral in southern Germany, are among the oldest of their kind in northern Europe

Rome's Basilica dei Santi Apostoli has housed bones said to belong to St. James and St. Philip since the sixth century A.D.

Bones Venerated as St. James the Younger’s Don’t Belong to the Apostle, Study Suggests

Researchers dated the femur fragments to between 214 and 340 A.D.—at least 160 years after the saint’s lifetime

The Bayeux Tapestry dramatizes William the Conqueror's victory over Harold Godwinson in 1066.

Explore Every Stitch of the Famed Bayeux Tapestry Online

Viewers can peruse a high-resolution image of the 224-foot medieval masterpiece, which chronicles the 1066 conquest of England

A number of terracotta heads were found separated from the rest of their bodies.

Cool Finds

2,000-Year-Old Terracotta Figurines of Deities, Mortals, Animals Found in Turkey

Some of the petite sculptures still bear traces of the pigments used to decorate them

The newly discovered face cream represents the earliest known instance of a Chinese man using cosmetics.

Cool Finds

This 2,700-Year-Old Chinese Face Cream Combined Animal Fat and ‘Moonmilk’

Researchers found the ancient moisturizer in a nobleman’s tomb

Featured in the museum's first temporary exhibition, the Fisk Jubilee Singers introduced spirituals to audiences around the world.

A New Museum in Nashville Chronicles 400 Years of Black Music

The culmination of two decades of planning, the National Museum of African American Music opened its doors last month

Artist Simon Berger created the portrait by strategically hammering cracks into a pane of glass.

Kamala Harris Portrait Draws Inspiration From the Glass Ceiling She Shattered

Artist Simon Berger created the unconventional likeness of the vice president in just one day

The researchers determined that a right-handed craftsperson created the markings in a single session.

Cool Finds

120,000-Year-Old Cattle Bone Carvings May Be World’s Oldest Surviving Symbols

Archaeologists found the bone fragment—engraved with six lines—at a Paleolithic meeting site in Israel

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