Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Artists

A screenshot of the new V&A; digital tool, which allows viewers to explore high-resolution scans of Raphael's cartoons for his Sistine Chapel tapestry sequence. Here, Jesus speaks to Simon in The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (Luke 5: 1-11).

New Online Tool Reveals Raphael’s Sistine Chapel Cartoons in Stunning Detail

High-resolution scans from the V&A offer an unprecedented view of the Renaissance drawings, down to every last line and wrinkle

Authorities recovered a copy (right) of Salvator Mundi from a Naples man's apartment. Attributed to the school of Leonardo, the work dates to around 1508–1513.

Stolen Copy of ‘Salvator Mundi’ Found Stashed in Naples Cupboard

The museum that owns the 16th-century painting hadn’t even realized the work—attributed to the school of Leonardo—was missing

Artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons spearheaded the creation of When We Gather, a three-minute short film marking Harris' inauguration.

How Seven Women Artists Are Celebrating Kamala Harris’ Historic Inauguration

The group’s upcoming short film, titled “When We Gather,” honors the achievements of women who preceded the vice president

A rendering of by Hank Willis Thomas' The Embrace, a public memorial set to be unveiled in the Boston Commons in October 2022

Monument to Coretta Scott and MLK Is Coming to Boston, City Where They Met

Hank Willis Thomas’ sculpture of intertwined arms will memorialize the civil rights leaders and their fight for racial equality

YInMn Blue derives its name from its chemical components: yttrium, indium and manganese.

Art Meets Science

For the First Time in 200 Years, a New Blue Pigment Is Up for Sale

Researchers discovered YInMn Blue in 2009. Now, you can purchase a tiny tube of the bright blue paint for $179.40

The original cover design for Hergé's The Blue Lotus(1936) sold at auction for a record-breaking price on Thursday. The gouache and watercolor drawing was kept folded in a drawer for many years, and the lines where the work was folded are still visible.

Tintin Drawing Sold for €3.2 Million Is the World’s Most Expensive Comic Book Art

The original cover design for Hergé’s “The Blue Lotus” spent decades tucked away in a drawer

The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City, a 1931 mural by Mexican artist Diego Rivera, resides in an exhibition space in the San Francisco Art Institute. In a precarious financial position, the school has reportedly considered selling the mural for an estimated $50 million.

Why a California School’s Potential Sale of Diego Rivera Mural Is So Controversial

Local officials are seeking landmark designation for the 1931 artwork, likely blocking the San Francisco Art Institute’s plan

Every mark in Robert McCurdy’s portraits, above: Untitled (The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso), is meticulously rendered from the baby hairs that frame his subjects’ temples to the crow’s feet that border their eyes.

Why Robert McCurdy’s Photo-Realist Portraits Stop Viewers in Their Tracks

The key to these singular portraits of influential leaders of our time rests in the gaze and the exacting details of the clothing

This 1465 fresco by Domenico di Michelino depicts Dante, holding a copy of The Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to hell.

Follow Dante Into Purgatory With Online Exhibition of ‘Divine Comedy’ Drawings

The Uffizi Gallery’s digital show features 88 illustrations by 16th-century artist Federico Zuccari

None

Artisan America

Artisan America

A year-long celebration of craft in the United States

At the Totem Heritage Center in Ketchikan, Alaska, Nathan Jackson wears ceremonial blankets and a headdress made from ermine pelts, cedar, abalone shell, copper and flicker feathers.

Discover Alaska

How Native Artisans in Alaska Bring Innovation and Humor to Their Craft

In Indigenous communities along the coast, a lively artistic movement plays with tradition

Cotton coverlet quilted in Texas, 19th century.

Artisan America

The State of American Craft Has Never Been Stronger

Today’s craft renaissance is more than just an antidote to our over-automated world. It renews a way of life that made us who we are

Detail from Christ Carrying the Cross, a work newly attributed to Greek painter El Greco

Is This Religious Scene a Long-Overlooked El Greco Painting?

A team of Spanish scholars spent two years assessing the small-scale depiction of Christ carrying the cross

The costume worn by Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther during his Marvel Studios debut (2016's Captain America: Civil War), from the collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

How Black Panther Changed Comic Books (and Wakanda) Forever

The Marvel superhero pounced on the scene in the ‘60s and never looked back

Woman With Flowers, oil and collage on canvas, 1972. A celebration of black beauty, the work alludes to both African sculpture and African American quilt making.

A New Survey of David Driskell, Artist and Scholar of African American Art, Comes to Atlanta

Spirituality, culture and memory come together in collages created by the esteemed curator

The Sealaska Heritage Arts Campus, scheduled to open in downtown Juneau in 2021, will house indoor and outdoor space for artists to make monumental Northwest Coast art pieces, such as totem poles and canoes; classrooms for art programming and instruction in areas such as basketry and textile weaving and print making; and space for performances, art markets, and public gatherings.

How Juneau, Alaska, Is Becoming an Epicenter for Indigenous Art

The city is on a quest to solidify its standing as the Northwest Coast arts capital of the world

Will Cotton, Molasses Swamp II, 1999, oil on linen

Smithsonian Voices

Top Ten Favorite Holiday Movies as Seen in American Art

What is cozier than watching old holiday movies on a chilly winter’s night? Pairing them up with favorite artworks from SAAM’s collection, that’s what

Regina Valkenborgh's photograph features 2,953 arcs of light streaking across the sky, recording the sun’s rising and setting over eight years.

A Cider-Can ‘Camera’ Captured Eight Years in a Single Photograph

The ethereal snapshot, recorded by a drink can left in an observatory for almost a decade, may be the longest-exposure image ever taken

German investigators found the 20th-century painting in a trash container at the Düsseldorf Airport.

Cool Finds

$340,000 Surrealist Painting Found in Recycling Bin at German Airport

Authorities managed to recover the Yves Tanguy work—left behind by a businessman bound for Tel Aviv—before it was destroyed

Experts have identified the painting as the earliest known version of Jacob Jordaens' The Holy Family (1617–18).

Cool Finds

A 400-Year-Old Flemish Masterpiece Spent Decades Hiding in Plain Sight

Officials previously thought that the Jacob Jordaens painting, which hung in a Brussels town hall for 60 years, was a copy

Page 38 of 117