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Artists

Donna Mahan's "Safeguarding" was made with a castoff window from the residence.

Cool Finds

This Art Was Made from JFK’s Cape Cod Home

The Hyannis Port house was the stuff of family legend. Now it’s the source of new art

In 1971, Folkways Recordings released the album Raimon: Catalonian Protest Songs, and in the liner notes, Pete Seeger wrote: “Censors, in every corner of this world, tend to be shallow, literal-minded people. Raimon is a poet. There is no need to say more.”

This Catalan Folk Singer Refused to Bow to Oppression

The director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage recognizes the lifetime work of the singer activist Raimon

The world’s largest model world, the Unisphere was erected for the grand fair themed “peace through understanding.”

What the Unisphere Tells Us About America at the Dawn of the Space Age

A towering tribute to the future past—and one man’s ego

For Minneapolis art lovers, this huge painting needs no introduction—or title.

Cool Finds

Enormous Chicken Painting Comes Home to Roost

After years overseas, Doug Argue’s iconic portrait is back

The taggers of the future aren't carrying cans of spray paint.

Cool Finds

Street Art Will Soon Take to the Skies with Graffiti-Painting Drone Swarms

Paint-loaded quadcopters can turn any vertical space into a canvas

Fanny Cornforth posted for "Lady Lilith" and other influential Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

Cool Finds

Newly Digitized Archives Reveal the Inner Lives of Artists

The Delaware Art Museum just put 500 rare documents online

Soon, Lucy Sparrow will open a full NYC bodega filled with only felt food.

Cool Finds

These Groceries Are Made of Felt

And artist Lucy Sparrow is opening an entire bodega full of them

Woman, 1966
Oil on canvas
46 x 31 inches (116.8 x 78.7 cm)
Private Collection, Miami.

Who Is the Mysterious Subject of This Alice Neel Portrait?

A journalist has cracked the case

Munch's artistic freakout may have been inspired by mother-of-pearl clouds.

Art Meets Science

“The Scream” Might Have Been Inspired By a Rare Type of Cloud

Did mother-of-pearl clouds stoke a painter’s angst?

Stragglers—French Wounded in the Retreat of Chateau-Thierry by Claggett Wilson, ca. 1919

World War I: 100 Years Later

After Nearly a Century in Storage, These World War I Artworks Still Deliver the Vivid Shock of War

Pulled from the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Claggett Wilson’s watercolors are in a traveling show

On the Wire, by Harvey Thomas Dunn (oil on canvas, 1918)

When Artists Became Soldiers and Soldiers Became Artists

A rare opportunity to see works by the American Expeditionary Force’s World War I illustration corps, and newly found underground soldier carvings

Peter Voulkos in his Glendale Boulevard Studio in Los Angeles California

The Ceramicist Who Punched His Pots

Influenced by avant-garde poets, writers and Pablo Picasso, Peter Voulkos experimented with the increasingly unconventional

Everything's coming up Lego.

Cool Finds

Thousands of Lego Daffodils Are Blooming in Britain

The brick-built botanicals celebrate the UK’s 2017 City of Culture

One Million Internet Users Created This Piece of Art

Contributions range from the juvenile to bizarre to strangely beautiful

This elaborate dance mask (ca. 1900) with representations of a spirit, seal, fish, and bird held in a human hand, was made by a Yup’ik artist from Alaska and is part of a group of Native American artworks that will soon be integrated into the Metropolitan Museum's American Wing.

Trending Today

The Met Will Finally Integrate Some Native American Art Into Its American Wing

Until now, indigenous art has lived in its own section

A graffiti-covered complex in Queens will soon be high-rise apartments.

Trending Today

Graffiti Grudge Goes to Federal Court

5Pointz was once an international graffiti icon. Now, aerosol artists are fighting the developer who tore it down

Snow at Fukagawa by Kitagawa Utamaro (1753–1806), Japan, Edo period, ca. 1802–6

This Rare Display of a Japanese Triptych is Only Usurped by the Great Mysteries Surrounding It

Don’t miss this singular showing of Kitagawa Utamaro’s three works reunited at the Sackler Gallery

A poster by artist Edward Penfield promotes The Woman’s Land Army of America, created to encourage women to step into agricultural jobs after men were called into military service.

These Powerful Posters Persuaded Americans It Was Time to Join the Fight

The Smithsonian offers a rare opportunity to see an original iconic Uncle Sam “I Want You” poster, among others, of the World War I era

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Trending Today

There’s a New World’s Blackest Black

And it’s really black

Christo's "Floating Piers" racked up 1.2 million visitors in just over two weeks.

Cool Finds

What Kind of Art is the Most Popular?

It’s not always in museums—and historic name recognition is starting to matter less

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