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Art History

Double Self-Portrait by John Singer Sargent, 1902

John Singer Sargent ‘Abhorred’ Making His Lavish Portraits, So He Took Up Charcoal to Get the Job Done

Sargent made his portraits in charcoal—a medium that allowed completion in less than three hours rather than the weeks it took for his full-length oils

El Tendedero/The Clothesline Project, an installation by Mónica Mayer in which women were invited to vent their frustrations about their city on a piece of pink paper

#5WomenArtists Campaign Tackles Gender Inequity for the Fifth Year in a Row

Though women make up nearly half of visual artists in the United States, they represent just 13 percent of artists in museum collections

Artemisia Gentileschi's newly attributed David and Goliath painting

Cool Finds

Once Attributed to a Male Artist, ‘David and Goliath’ Painting Identified as the Work of Artemisia Gentileschi

Conservation efforts uncovered the Baroque artist’s signature along the hilt of David’s sword

Tourists wait to see Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

More Than One Million People Saw the Louvre’s Blockbuster Leonardo da Vinci Exhibition

The record-breaking show attracted almost double the number of visitors as the Paris museum’s 2018 Delacroix retrospective

Shawn Walker, Neighbor at 124 W 117th St, Harlem, New York, ca. 1970-1979

Library of Congress Acquires 100,000 Images by Harlem Photographer Shawn Walker

The African American photographer was a founding member of the Kamoinge Workshop, an art collective launched during the 1960s

Pompeii's House of Lovers, first uncovered in 1933, was severely damaged in a 1980 earthquake.

Pompeii’s House of Lovers Reopens to the Public After 40 Years

The building, one of three newly restored painted houses, is named for a Latin inscription that reads, “Lovers lead, like bees, a life as sweet as honey”

An installation view of the "Fantastic Women: Surreal Worlds From Meret Oppenheim to Frida Kahlo" exhibition

Spotlighting the Forgotten Women of the Surrealist Movement

A new show reveals how Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim and other women artists probed questions of femininity, autonomy and politics

The warrior carved onto the Tulloch Stone wields a spear with a "kite-shaped blade and a doorknob-style butt," according to a new study.

Cool Finds

This Carving Is Helping Archaeologists Unravel the Secrets of Ancient Scottish Warriors

The male figure depicted on the Tulloch Stone has an “elaborate hairstyle,” “robust” torso and “pronounced” buttocks

Tempestries representing daily high temperatures in Utqiagvik, Alaska, in 1925, 2010, and 2016 (left) and Death Valley, California, in 1950 and 2016 (right)

Art Meets Science

How Knitting Enthusiasts Are Using Their Craft to Visualize Climate Change

In these crafters’ scarves and blankets, rows of color correspond with daily temperature

Ken Gonzales-Day’s photograph of the Portrait of Shonke Mon-thi^ now resides in the collections of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.

Recognition of Major Osage Leader and Warrior Opens a New Window Into History

The story of Shonke Mon-thi^, a hidden figure in American history, is now recovered at the National Portrait Gallery

Grandma Moses Goes to the Big City (1946).

Women Who Shaped History

How the U.S. Government Deployed Grandma Moses Overseas in the Cold War

In 1950, an exhibition of the famed artist’s paintings toured Europe in a promotional campaign of American culture

The tapestries depict scenes from the lives of St. Paul and St. Peter.

For One Week Only, Raphael’s Tapestries Return to the Sistine Chapel

This is the first time all 12 of the Renaissance creations have been united in their original home since the 16th century

The Scream (1893) is Edvard Munch's most renowned work.

Art Meets Science

Why Are the Vibrant Colors of ‘The Scream’ Fading?

New analysis explores why unstable synthetic pigments in the painting are changing color from yellow to white

Rembrandt's Portrait of a Woman before (left) and after (right) conservation

Pennsylvania Museum Discovers Unidentified Rembrandt Portrait in Its Collection

Conservation work revealed evidence of the artist’s hand in a painting previously attributed to a member of his studio

The blue-throated barbet, illustrated here in 1871, is native to southern Asia.

Education During Coronavirus

You Can Now Download 150,000 Free Illustrations of the Natural World

The artworks, collected by the open-access Biodiversity Heritage Library, range from animal sketches to historical diagrams and botanical studies

Bees from the nest structures: A) Head, side, top and bottom views of bees found inside the cells, B) drawing of Eufriesea surinamensis and photograph of the head of a modern bee taken by David Roubik

Panama

150-Year-Old Mummified Bee Nests Found in Panama City Cathedral

The nests, covered in gold leaf and paint, act as a time capsule for the surrounding environment circa 1870

The list includes Artemisia Gentileschi, Wilma Mankiller, Frances Glessner Lee and other Oscar-worthy women.

Based on a True Story

Nine Women Whose Remarkable Lives Deserve the Biopic Treatment

From Renaissance artists to aviation pioneers, suffragists and scientists, these women led lives destined for the silver screen

So-called Gwion figures feature prominently in some Aboriginal artworks. New research shows some of these paintings may have been completed as recently as 12,000 years ago.

Bookended by Wasp Nests, These Aboriginal Artworks May Finally Have Definitive Dates

New estimates place paintings in Australia’s Kimberley rock shelters at about 12,000 years old

Hartmann Schedel, The Nuremberg Chronicle (Anton Koberger, for Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kamermaister), 1493

Education During Coronavirus

One Hundred Museums Transformed Their Collections Into Free Coloring Pages

This year’s #ColorOurCollections campaign features everything from medical drawings to zany 1920s advertisements for butter

Churchill painted Lake Scene at Norfolk with bright colors inspired by Impressionists like Monet sometime in the 1930s.

See Winston Churchill’s Little-Known Art

Best known for serving as Britain’s prime minister during World War II, Churchill was also an amateur painter and avid writer

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