Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

Image of the 12th-century Buddha statue

Crime-Fighting Art Expert Helps Bring Stolen Buddha Statue Back to India

The statue comes home 57 years ago after being stolen

The Whitechapel fatberg is a massive clump of congealed fat, wet wipes, diapers and miscellaneous waste

You Can Now Watch the Whitechapel Fatberg’s Decay on Livestream

The toxic clump of sewage oil and waste housed at the Museum of London has, so far, changed colors, ‘sweated,’ hatched flies and grown yellow pustules

It’s often difficult to tell “where the art ends and the building begins”

Swiss Institute Reimagines Duchamp’s Readymades for the Modern World

The exhibition asks visitors to revisit the objects in their daily life that are often taken for granted

View the Uffizi’s Ancient Treasures From Afar, in 3D

A new website has digitized 300 objects from the Florence gallery’s Greek and Roman collection

How an Artist Is Rebuilding a Baghdad Library Destroyed During the Iraq War

“168:01,” an installation now on view at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, encourages visitors to donate books to the University of Baghdad

Charles II attempted to ban public coffeehouses, which he viewed as hotbeds of "fake news" and seditious murmurings

Missouri Exhibition Explores the Centuries-Old Specter of ‘Fake News’

Curator considers three categories of ‘fake news’: error, hoax and truths deemed false

Pocket-Sized Bible Returns to Canterbury Cathedral After 500 Years

The volume was lost after Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the cathedral’s monastery

Cool Finds

Fog Sculptures Are Enshrouding Boston’s Historic Parks

Artist Fujiko Nakaya brings five fog installations to life to mark the Emerald Necklace Conservancy’s 20th anniversary

"Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine"

Hundreds of Newly Found Poems Reveal the Devastation of the U.K.’s ‘Cotton Famine’

When the American Civil War crippled England’s cotton industry, impoverished workers turned to poetry to convey their plight

In addition to the graduate program, ASU and the WWII Museum will offer a series of non-credit courses designed for those seeking a less rigorous academic experience

First US-Based World War II Master’s Degree Program Will Launch in January

The online graduate program is a collaboration between Arizona State University and the National World War II Museum in New Orleans

Langston Hughes circa 1939

Researcher Finds Earlier Birth Date for Langston Hughes

It has long been believed that the famed poet was born in 1902, but his name appears in newspaper articles from 1901

Circumstantial evidence links Rita and Jerry Alter to the 1985 heist.

Did This Couple Steal a $160 Million de Kooning?

The Thanksgiving snapshot places Jerry and Rita Alter in Tucson, Arizona, just a day before the 1985 heist

Last November, "Salvator Mundi" sold for $450 million, becoming the most expensive work of art ever sold privately or at auction

Historian Asserts That Leonardo’s Assistant Painted Majority of ‘Salvator Mundi’

The Oxford research fellow names Bernardino Luini as main artist, believes da Vinci only painted between five to 20 percent of the painting

One of the known Pablo Picasso works held in collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tehran.

Ten Picassos Discovered Amid Tehran Museum’s Hidden Collection of Western Art

The Picassos will be included in a major exhibition of works that have been held in storage since Iran’s 1979 revolution

The world's most Michelin-starred chef ever

Trending Today

Joël Robuchon, the World’s Most Michelin-Starred Chef Who Transformed the Mashed Potato

The French chef turned the focus of fine cuisine toward simplicity and flavor

“Today, they started to demolish my studio ‘zuo you’ in Beijing with no precaution,” the long-time dissident wrote on Instagram

Authorities Raze Ai Weiwei’s Beijing Studio

The contemporary art giant is known for his caustic criticism of the Chinese government

A plan for the Virginia women's monument

American South

New Virginia Monument Will Pay Tribute to Hundreds of Historic Women

The monument features 12 bronze statues and a wall etched with 400 additional names of women who played an important role in shaping Virginia’s history

Hemingway photographed in 1956, the year he completed “A Room on the Garden Side.”

Trending Today

New Semi-Autobiographical Hemingway Story Published

“A Room On the Garden Side” was written in 1956 and takes place during the liberation of Paris in 1944

Following Malcolm X's 1965 assassination, the original manuscript and unpublished chapters of his autobiography remained hidden from the public

New York Public Library Acquires Unpublished Chapter of Malcolm X’s Autobiography

The public is just weeks away from being able to view these “lost” works

Researchers at the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas, have attributed the painting to British portraitist and illustrator John Vanderbank

Have Researchers Unraveled the Six-Decade Mystery of a Kansas Museum Portrait?

The team believes it has identified the rightful artist behind ‘Mrs. Thomas Pelham,’ a nearly life-size portrait depicting an 18th-century aristocrat

Page 160 of 290