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Art

Pindakaasvloer, Wim T. Schippers, 1962. Realized in 2026 at the Depot location of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Why Did This Dutch Museum Cover the Floor With an 800-Pound Installation of Creamy Peanut Butter?

“Pindakaasvloer,” or “peanut butter floor,” highlights the absurd sense of humor that artist Wim T. Schippers captured in his artwork before he died last month

The 1611 oil painting Air

Scientists Just Learned That This Bat Eats Birds Midflight. A Renaissance Painter May Have Known About It Hundreds of Years Ago

Last fall, scientists reported the first known recordings of greater noctule bats hunting and feasting on songbirds during night flights. But a 17th-century artwork by Jan Brueghel the Elder seems to depict the species flying with feathered prey in its mouth

A Rothko painting beside a mural by Fra Angelico at the Museum of San Marco

Puzzled by Mark Rothko’s Captivating Color Field Paintings? Look to the Renaissance Masters Who Inspired Him

During trips to Europe, the American painter developed a fascination with how 15th- and 16th-century artists and architects had designed their work to evoke specific feelings

The country’s oldest specialty smallpox hospital in New York City

America's 250th Anniversary

The Oldest Black Church in the U.S., the Wright Brothers’ Home and a New York Hospital Are Among the American Heritage Sites in Urgent Need of Preservation

For its “Irreplaceable America” list in honor of the 250th birthday of the United States, the World Monuments Fund chose endangered historic sites of innovation, creativity and spirituality to publicize and support

The Creature Shop is located in Queens, inside the former Standard Motors building, a two-block-long behemoth with high ceilings and freight elevators capable of accommodating even the biggest birds. 

A Peek Inside Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, Where ‘Sesame Street’ Characters and Other Whimsical Puppets Are Designed

Every weekend, the magical workshop opens its doors for the public to see how legendary film and television characters are made

Detail of Rembrandt's Let the Little Children Come Unto Me

Rembrandt Began a Biblical Painting. Another Artist Finished It ‘Rather Crudely.’ Now, Restorations Have Revealed the Long-Lost Original

An art dealer stumbled across “Let the Little Children Come Unto Me” at a German auction house in 2014. Experts have now carefully removed layers of overpaint from the forgotten masterpiece

The project is set to take about five years.

The Hall of Raphael Frescoes in the Pope’s Residence at the Vatican Is Getting a Much-Needed Restoration With the Help of Lasers

Conservators will spend the next five years cleaning and retouching the Renaissance frescoes, which date back to the early 16th century

Scientists collected samples from 11 caves in Spain and Portugal.

In a Scientific First, Researchers Recovered Ancient DNA That Humans Left Behind on Rock Art and Cave Walls

DNA preservation on cave walls is highly variable, but scientists say their work is an important step on the path toward gaining a deeper understanding of our creative ancestors

Guests examine artwork at Museo Picasso Málaga.

A Stolen Picasso Just Turned Up During a Drug Raid Near Paris, Reportedly Taken From a Storage Facility

The painting has been authenticated but not revealed. Reports suggest it is one of Picasso’s portraits of Marie-Thérèse Walter

With a full-size basketball court, and conspicuously without any presidential paper documents, the center, in many ways, is a departure from presidential institutions that came before.

Here’s How the Obama Presidential Center Is Different From Other Presidents’ Museums

More than a library and archives, the new Chicago institution is a place for the community to gather, talk and play together

Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott on display ahead of a Christie's auction in 2019

Who Were the Couples That Posed for David Hockney’s Famed Double Portraits?

One of his subjects was a cousin I never knew. I wanted to learn more about the large-scale portraits that helped define the English artist’s legacy

The capsule is cylinder-shaped to minimize edges, through which water could seep.

America's 250th Anniversary

For Its Birthday, the U.S. Will Give Americans of the Future a 900-Pound Time Capsule Filled With Art, Natural Treasures and a Clever Copy of the Declaration of Independence

The capsule was created and filled at the direction of Congress, through the America250 commission. It will be interred beneath an original sculpture on July 4

A rendering of Oscar Tuazon’s Eternal Flame for Scott Burton 

With a Beam of Light, the New York City AIDS Memorial Honors the Nearly Forgotten Legacy of This Great American Sculptor

A new sculpture draws on materials and ideas from Scott Burton’s artwork, which offered comfort in urban spaces. His final public series was a set of benches and lights on piers in Brooklyn

Nymphéas, Claude Monet, 1907 

When Claude Monet Planted Water Lilies, Inspiration Struck. An Upcoming Auction Will Test How Much Collectors Prize the Floral Masterpieces

The marquee painting from Monet’s “Nymphéas” series is expected to fetch more than $40 million at auction later this month

FCB Cadell painted Interior: The Lady in Black in the 1920s.

Cool Finds

With A.I.’s Help, a Family Realized Their Mysterious Thrift-Store Find Is a Portrait by a Great Scottish Painter

The oil painting, the work of “Scottish Colorist” FCB Cadell, just sold at auction for more than $250,000

Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards, Bonifacio Bembo

See Visions of the Past and Future in This New York City Exhibition on the Renaissance Roots of Tarot Cards

The Morgan Library & Museum traces the history of beautifully illustrated tarot cards from their origins as a card game to modern occult fascination

The drawings were done by Stephen Verona, and John Lennon helped color them in.

Rediscovered Drawings John Lennon Helped Create for the Beatles Became One of Rock ’n’ Roll’s First Music Videos

An English collector who acquired ten of the drawings at an auction loaned them to the Liverpool Beatles Museum for a temporary exhibition

An artistic rendering of Labrujasuchus expectatus

Meet the ‘Witch Croc,’ a Strange Ancient Crocodile Relative With Two Legs and No Teeth That Roamed New Mexico During the Triassic

The reptile, a dinosaur look-alike called a shuvosaur, represents a long-awaited discovery that helps paleontologists fill a gap in the fossil record

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What Key West’s Art Scene Reveals About America’s Creative Spirit

At the edge of the United States, a sun-drenched island has been quietly fueling one of the country’s most distinctive creative scenes

O’Keeffe’s New Mexico studio Ghost Ranch. Opposite, a 1918 photo portrait by future husband Alfred Stieglitz.

America at 250: The Revolutionary Spark

Georgia O’Keeffe Ignored Advice to Mimic Great European Masters. Her Goal Instead Was to Be a Great American Painter

The genius of her work was in painting things as she saw them through her own eyes. So when she surrounded herself with beauty, her work reflected it

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