Art

This 1588 portrait of Elizabeth I shows the queen after English troops successfully staved off an invasion by the Spanish Armada. It will be on view as part of a Sotheby's exhibition on British queens.

Iconic Portraits and Tiaras Tell the Stories of Britain's Indomitable Queens

As Elizabeth II celebrates 70 years on the throne, Sotheby’s takes a look back at royal history

Emily Erdos, Harvard, Massachusetts, United States  A map is supposed to symbolize travel, discovery, and possibility, almost all of which COVID-19 has suppressed. I don’t know what comes next, or which metaphorical life turn to take during this time of perpetual uncertainty. As a friend once wrote to me, a map has a quality of authority: Follow the directions, stick to the rules, don’t digress, and you will get to where you want to go. In this time, we all tried to follow the rules, to follow the map, and yet we still got (or are getting) lost in a new normal.  But maps can encapsulate virtual as well as physical realities. They can symbolize home as much as “awayness.” For me, home is a place, but it’s also people. During the pandemic, those people have been spread across the globe, and my only connection to them is through a screen. So my map is a series of mini, virtual, people-centered maps. Knowing that the person behind each map has their own world and journey gives me comfort. Even more so knowing that those journeys, though currently only virtually connected, will physically intersect again someday.

This Pandemic Mapping Project Shows How Covid-19 Transformed Our Worlds

Hundreds of homemade maps reveal how people from around the globe found their ways through crisis

Francis Hines, Untitled, 1983, hardpoint pastel on Arches paper mounted on wood with synthetic fabric wraps

A Connecticut Mechanic Found Artwork Worth Millions in a Dumpster

Jared Whipple discovered the life's work of Francis Hines, a largely forgotten Abstract Expressionist artist

Pablo Picasso, The Blue Room, 1901, oil on canvas

What Secrets Lie Beneath the Surface of Picasso's Blue Period Paintings?

An exhibition at the Phillips Collection reveals hidden compositions beneath three of the Cubist's canvases

Detail of a carpet of flowers and colored sawdust in Antigua, Guatemala

This Guatemalan City Rolls Out Colorful Sawdust Carpets for Holy Week

The longstanding tradition brings a dazzling display to the streets of Antigua each spring

The four-day Smithsonian Craft Show opens April 20 at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., offering the works of 120 artists (above: an array of offerings).

Nine Artists on What It Means to Create

Forty years of bringing critical attention to the nation's best-known makers in the arts is celebrated at this year's Smithsonian Craft Show

The owners of Yves Klein's invisible art were encouraged to burn their receipts. The artist, meanwhile, threw half of the profits from the sale—paid in solid gold—into the Seine.

Anonymous Buyer Pays Over $1 Million for a Piece of Invisible Art

The receipt for one of Yves Klein's "Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility" was described by Sotheby's as an early NFT

A zoomed-in view of Edgar Degas' Ukrainian Dancers, previously known as Russian Dancers

Museum Renames Degas' 'Russian Dancers' in Nod to Ukraine

The change arrives amid a push for cultural institutions to recognize distinctions between Russian and Ukrainian culture

Burger or baked good?

'Is It Cake?' Builds on a Lengthy Tradition of Visual Deception

The ‘fool the eye’ desserts hearken back to paintings from a period in American history when there was anxiety over fakes, fraudsters and misinformation

Lois Mailou Jones, The Green Door, 1981, watercolor over graphite on wove paper

These Artworks Reimagine the Legacy of the African Diaspora

A new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. showcases 130 works by artists from 24 countries

A soup bowl monster made of yarn, created by DALL-E 2.

What Do WALL-E and Salvador Dalí Have in Common? Meet DALL-E 2

This new and improved A.I. system can produce photorealistic images of anything on demand

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum has organized the exhibition, “Sarah & Eleanor Hewitt: Designing a Modern Museum,” focusing on the lives of its founders.

The Trailblazing Sisters Who Founded the Nation's First Woman-Led Museum

A new exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, tells the story of founders Sarah and Eleanor Hewitt

The Painter (Self-portrait at Work), oil on canvas, 1946. Gilot painted the self-portrait while she and Picasso were staying in Antibes, on the French Riviera.

Françoise Gilot Was More Than Picasso's Muse

The artist famously inspired the Cubist, but a new book shows that her own paintings deserve renown

A worker prepares a hot air balloon during a festival in Ba Vi National Park, west of Hanoi, Vietnam.

Good News

Uplifting stories to brighten your day

An aerial view of San Juan, Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Explore the history, culture and natural wonders of the United States territory

Sandbags are piled high around a statue of the Duc de Richelieu in Odessa, Ukraine, on March 14, 2022.

Inside the Efforts to Preserve Ukraine's Cultural Heritage

Here's how experts and civilians alike are working to protect the country's art, artifacts and scientific specimens

"Donatello: The Renaissance" makes a case for the Renaissance sculptor as one of the leading artists of his generation.

Why Donatello Was a Father of the Renaissance

A blockbuster exhibition in Florence argues that the Italian sculptor deserves to be a household name on par with Michelangelo and Raphael

Dried cochineal insects — shown here in the center of the photo — can be processed to create several natural dyes such as carmine and cochineal extract. These products get their red hue from carminic acid, a chemical found within the insect.

Scientists Are Making Cochineal, a Red Dye From Bugs, in the Lab

Used to color foods and cosmetics, carminic acid is traditionally 'farmed' from an insect. But researchers are moving to engineer it in microbes

"The Mice at Work: Threading the Needle," The Tailor of Gloucester artwork, 1902; watercolour, ink and gouache on paper.

Leap Into the Surprising, Art-Filled Life of Beatrix Potter in a New Exhibition

The beloved author of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" also wrote diaries in code, sketched fungi and raised prize-winning sheep

A museum patron enjoys Yayoi Kusama's latest work, Infinity Mirrored Room—My Heart Is Dancing into the Universe (2018), where paper lanterns and dots endlessly multiply inside the chamber.

Art Sensation Yayoi Kusama Wraps Visitors in Polka Dots, Pumpkins and a World Without End

A new Infinity Mirror Room with its forever-repeating lights and imagery opens at the Hirshhorn with other works by the iconic artist

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