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Ask Smithsonian: What Is a Freckle?

Those adorable and charming spots splayed across the nose and cheeks might also be an indicator of sun damage

Dawe says he loved having to work with the Renwick building’s 19th-century architectural details as a backdrop.

The Renwick Reopens

Artist Gabriel Dawe Made a Rainbow Out of 60 Miles of Thread

The artwork is an optical illusion that delights the senses; as if the artist embroidered the air

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Rare Interviews With Hitler’s Inner Circle Reveal What Truly Happened on “The Day Hitler Died”

Broadcast for the first time in the U.S., these exclusive clips from a Smithsonian Channel program feature recently unearthed archival footage

Villareal’s piece, titled Volume (Renwick), holds pride of place above the museum’s historic grand stairway. It uses LEDs embedded in 320 mirrored stainless steel rods.

The Renwick Reopens

Leo Villareal’s 23,000 Points of Light Illuminate the Renwick Gallery

With tens of thousands of individual LEDS, a dangling light sculpture majestically redefines the grand staircase at the Renwick

Round Table

Why Does America Prize Creativity and Invention?

Our politics encourage it, there’s a high tolerance of failure, and we idealize the lone inventor

Bees are not so picky when they stop for a snack.

New Research

Ancient Bees Were Voracious Snackers on Their Pollen-Gathering Treks

Fossils from Germany could help researchers better understand modern bee eating habits and better protect the beloved pollinators

Actor Bryan Cranston impulsively modeled the Heisenberg hat—now a museum artifact—while nervous curators looked on.

How Crystal Meth Made it Into the Smithsonian (Along with Walter White’s Porkpie Hat)

The wildly popular television show, depicting the dark side of the American Dream, reflects on the struggles of a recession-era middle class

“The making of these trees was so much in that spirit—in terms of dodging the ease of digital and instead doing this all by hand,” says Grade.

The Renwick Reopens

This Artist Recreated a Magnificent 40-Foot-Tall Tree From the Cascade Mountains by Hand

Artist John Grade painstakingly built a 150-year-old giant hemlock out of half a million blocks of reclaimed wood

Shindig by Patrick Dougherty is on view at the newly renovated Renwick Gallery.

The Renwick Reopens

This Tilting, Twirling Artwork, Sculpted Entirely of Sticks, Is Having a Shindig

Stick man Patrick Dougherty’s sculptures evoke a playful urge to crawl inside

Stockholm-Arlanda Airport

Appreciating the Art and Architecture of the World’s Airport Towers

Smithsonian photographer Carolyn Russo traveled the world to capturing these surprisingly elegant structures

Marking the reopening of the Renwick Gallery, Donovan constructed 10 towers by stacking and gluing hundreds of thousands of index cards on top of each other.

The Renwick Reopens

What Do One Million Index Cards, Stacked Atop Each Other, Look Like? Artist Tara Donovan Does It Again

The artist’s looming installation recalls the volcanic fairy chimneys of Turkey’s Cappadocia region

The crew promised the donation of the iconic two-foot hourglass and the original audio tape of late cast member MacDonald Carey saying, “like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”

For 50 Years, Days of Our Lives Has Made History. Now, It’s a Part of the Smithsonian

The show’s iconic hourglass is among a host of donations the show’s producer and cast members made to the American History Museum

“The Chesapeake is one of my favorite waterways, partly because people outside of the area aren’t as familiar with it,” says Maya Lin, who created Folding the Chesapeake at the Renwick Gallery.

Maya Lin Used 54,000 Marbles to Model the Chesapeake Bay

The artist’s highly imaginative waterway was created using satellite imagery from NASA

Hybrid Holism, dress, July 2012. 3D-printed UV-curable polymer. In collaboration with Julia Koerner and Materialise. High Museum of Art.

The Dutch Designer Who Is Pioneering the Use of 3D Printing in Fashion

In a new exhibition, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta shows how Iris van Herpen started a high-tech movement

A detail of Jennifer Angus' work In the Midnight Garden, 2015

The Renwick Reopens

How Thousands of Dead Bugs Become a Mesmerizing Work of Extraordinary Beauty

With much love for the insect world, artist Jennifer Angus crafts an installation made entirely out of beetles, cicadas, katydids and weevils

When people come to the Smithsonian,” says lighting designer Scott Rosenfeld, (inside the gallery displaying the work of mixed media artist Gabriel Dawe) “they want to experience art. They don’t have to worry about spectrum.”

The Renwick Reopens

The Renwick’s New Lighting Saves Energy, Money, Art, and Your Eyes, All at the Same Time

There’s way more to it than just screwing in the bulb and the museum’s chief lighting designer is turning it into an artform

2015 Grand Prize Winner Atlantic Puffin with Wild Iris, by Megan Lorenz, Elliston, Newfoundland, Canada. "Perched precariously on the edge of a cliff trying desperately to overcome my fear of heights,' says Megan Lorenz, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada, "I watched this Atlantic Puffin pull a Wild Iris from the ground and walk along the cliff toward me. He stopped for a moment and I had enough time to capture him with the blue sky in the background before he dropped the Iris over the side where his mate was waiting at the burrow entrance."

A Taste of “The Best of the Best” Nature Photography

Take a trip around the world with these breathtaking images of nature

The Renwick Reopens

The Renwick’s Curator-in-Charge On What It Means to Open Ourselves to Wonder

Before the renovation, Nicholas Bell asked nine artists to tour the building and think deeply about public spaces dedicated to art

The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, after a $30 million renovation, is qualified once again to be called the "American Louvre."

The Renwick Reopens

The Renwick: Finally The Gem It Was Meant to Be

When the newly renovated museum reopens this month, one of Washington D.C.’s most storied buildings will be elegantly reborn

The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, after a $30 million renovation, is qualified once again to be called the "American Louvre."

The Renwick Reopens

The Renwick: America’s Louvre

Read everything you need to know about the National Historic Landmark building as it reopens after a $30 million renovation

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