Smart News: Arts and Culture | Smithsonian Magazine

Amber Anderson and Sara Sanders were awarded an honorable mention for the 2015 Library of Congress Leicester B. Holland prize.

Step back in time with architectural drawings of buildings steeped in history

January 26, 2016

An accident knocked the beard off the boy king’s distinctive mask, prompting a hasty repair

January 26, 2016

Is it a shell, a toilet bowl, a cupcake? Either way, it's now available on Google Street View.

Visit New York’s Guggenheim Museum Without Leaving Your House

It’s easier than ever to immerse yourself in the iconic, Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum

January 25, 2016

Listen to J.R.R. Tolkien Read Songs and Poems from ‘The Lord of the Rings’

A rare recording captures the famed author’s voice

January 25, 2016

Chuck Brown, known as the grandfather of go-go, died in 2012. Now, a go-go archive is being assembled in his honor.

Librarians are calling for the preservation of Washington, D.C.’s iconic musical genre

January 22, 2016

Cool Finds

These Little-Known Photographs Put an Eerie Face on Child Labor

Unpublished photos taken by Lewis Wickes Hine make a haunting case against the conditions experienced by many working children in the early 20th century

January 21, 2016

More than 25 specialists worked on the replica cave over the course of three years.

Cool Finds

See the World Like a Paleolithic Cave Dweller With This Replica of the Lascaux Cave Paintings

Go back in time with the help of some talented French artists

January 21, 2016

Iranian men play a soccer video game at a CD shop in Tehran June 10, 2006.

Cool Finds

Inside Iran’s Budding Video Game Industry

The Iranian video game industry, shaped around piracy and economic sanctions, is slowly growing

January 21, 2016

New Research

Fairy Tales Could Be Older Than You Ever Imagined

Jack may have been climbing that beanstalk for more than 5,000 years

January 20, 2016

"Love Letter Brooklyn" was first installed in 2011.

“Love Letter Brooklyn” will soon be gone forever

January 20, 2016

Cool Finds

Seattle Is Seeking a Writer to Work on a Bridge

Free studio space in a bridge tower is up for grabs

January 20, 2016

Mahmoud Hariri, from the city of Dara'a, is building a replica of the city of Palmyra from clay and wooden skewers.

Cool Finds

Syrian Refugees Are Recreating Demolished Monuments in Miniature

These artists are recapturing the iconic landmarks destroyed by militants

January 19, 2016

One of Leonardo's notebooks (left) contains an erased figure (right). Conservators discovered the hidden sketch using multispectral imaging.

Cool Finds

How a Hidden Figure Emerged From One of Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebooks

Modern imaging reveals the approximately 500-year-old sketch

January 19, 2016

"John Dee Performing an Experiment before Elizabeth I"

Cool Finds

A Painting of John Dee, Astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, Contains a Hidden Ring of Skulls

The life and work of John Dee contained a strange mix of science and magic

January 18, 2016

Cool Finds

Here’s What Military Rations From Around the World Are Made Of

From bibimbap to beans

January 18, 2016

Henri Matisse's "Woman Sitting in an Armchair," is one of the paintings stolen by Nazis that will be returned to its rightful owner.

A task force took two years and nearly $2 million to investigate more than 1,200 pieces found in a Munich apartment

January 18, 2016

The Museum of Pinball in Banning, California, boasts a treasure trove of vintage and modern pinball machines and arcade games.

Cool Finds

Take a Turn at the Flippers This Weekend at the World’s Largest Pinball Museum

So you didn’t win the lottery: why not try your hand at a game of pinball?

January 15, 2016

A work by Pavel Ilie at the Romania Postmodernism Museum's "Before & After" exhibition.

Cool Finds

This Postmodern Art Captures a Tiny Moment of Hope During Romania’s Communist Years

Learn about Romania’s “unfrozen years” at Bucharest’s Postmodernism Museum

January 15, 2016

Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena of Chile has received architecture's most prestigious award, the Pritzker Prize.

Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena is the 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate

January 15, 2016

Google helped develop new miniature cameras to capture the Miniatur Wunderland.

Cool Finds

Get a Big View of the World’s Largest Miniature Train Set

All aboard the Cute Train to Tinytown

January 14, 2016

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