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Museums

The Virtual Online Museum of Art (VOMA) features art by global artists, including "Pinga," a powder-coated steel sculpture by Misha Milovanovich.

Education During Coronavirus

The World’s First Entirely Virtual Art Museum Is Open for Visitors

VOMA—the Virtual Online Museum of Art—is a free and fully immersive art experience

Film Still, My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Hayao Miyazaki

Movie Museum to Open With Show Honoring Japanese Filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ inaugural exhibition debuts on April 30, 2021

The courtyard at Mexico City's Museo Nacional de Antropología could be a good model for a socially distant lobby space in future museums.

Covid-19

How Will Covid-19 Change the Way Museums Are Built?

The global pandemic will have long-lasting effects on the form and function of future museums

Curators removed the tsantsa, or shrunken heads, from display in July.

Oxford Museum Permanently Removes Controversial Display of Shrunken Heads

Citing the exhibit’s reinforcement of “racist and stereotypical thinking,” the Pitt Rivers Museum moved a total of 120 human remains into storage

Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer), 1890-1, is one of 25 in a series by Impressionist painter Claude Monet, who frequently created similar depictions of a single subject in different lights, seasons and atmospheres.

How Chicago Became a Monet Destination

A new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago explores the Impressionist painter’s connection to the Midwestern city

Patricia Marroquin Norby will serve as the museum's inaugural associate curator of Native American art.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Hires First Full-Time Curator of Native American Art

Patricia Marroquin Norby previously worked at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian–New York

The museum's CEO emeritus, John Guess Jr., stands in front of the newly installed Spirit of the Confederacy sculpture.

Why the Houston Museum of African American Culture Is Displaying a Confederate Statue

The institution describes the move, which arrives amid a reckoning on the U.S.’ history of systemic racism, as “part of healing”

Southern elephant seals normally live in the South Atlantic, often as far south as Antarctica. These are young male Southern elephant seals from the South Shetland and Anvers islands, Antarctica.

Smithsonian Voices

What a 1,000-Year-Old Seal Skull Can Tell Us About Climate Change

In a new study, scientists explain how a seal native to the South Atlantic, but found in Indiana, likely swam to the middle of North America

Head of a Bearded Man is believed to have been painted by a member of Dutch master Rembrandt's studio. Further research is necessary to determine if the work was painted by the artist himself.

Art Meets Science

Painting Deemed Fake, Consigned to Storage May Be Genuine Rembrandt

New analysis confirms the famed Dutch painter’s studio—and perhaps even the artist himself—created “Head of a Bearded Man”

Speaking with BBC News, Frans Hals specialist Anna Tummers described the painting as a "wonderful example of his loose painting style. ... It was very playful, daring and loose."

Thieves Steal 17th-Century Masterpiece for Third Time in 32 Years

Frans Hals’ “Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer” was previously purloined in 1988 and 2011

Critics argue that moving the bust does little to address more commonly cited complaints, including the repatriation of looted artifacts and a need to diversify curatorial staff.

British Museum Moves Bust of Founder, Who Profited From Slavery

The London institution, which reopened this week, is reckoning with its colonialist history in the wake of global protests against racism

El Greco, The Assumption of the Virgin, 1577–79

A History of El Greco’s Masterful—and Often Litigious—Artistic Career

A 57-work retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago charts the evolution of the 16th-century painter’s distinctive style

Commuters wearing face masks walk to work in Tokyo on April 7.

Covid-19

How a Japanese Museum Is Documenting Life During Covid-19

New exhibition features everyday objects that would have been unfamiliar before the pandemic

The Hanasaari B power plant was commissioned in 1974 as a coal-fired power plant.

Helsinki Power Plant May Be Transformed Into Arts and Culture Center

The Finnish capital plans to decommission the Hanasaari power plant by 2024. Could it be the next Tate Modern?

Catherine “Cat” Carnes, a registered nurse from Oklahoma, came to Brooklyn to volunteer after seeing “the news day after day and watching the nurses literally cry out for help in New York City.”

Covid-19

Sixteen Snapshots of Life in New York City Under Quarantine

An outdoor photography exhibition at the New-York Historical Society is helping New Yorkers process the Covid-19 pandemic

Crossroads General Store​, circa 1938

Virtual Travel

Explore Dorothea Lange’s Iconic Photos With These Online Exhibitions

Digital hubs from the Oakland Museum of California and the Museum of Modern Art showcase the American photographer’s oeuvre

The pairing of Francisco de Zurbarán’s The Martyrdom of Saint Serapion and Jan Asselijn’s The Threatened Swan in the Rijksmuseum's "Rembrandt and Velazquez" exhibition inspired MosAIc's creators.

Art Meets Science

How an Algorithm Draws Unexpected Connections Between Works of Art

Given a starting image, the artificial intelligence can identify objects that match its colors, textures and themes

Group of Jewish partisan fighters in Soviet territories

The Untold Story of Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust

A new exhibition at the Wiener Holocaust Library in London showcases accounts of resiliency and defiance

A tourist visiting the Museo Antonio Canova sat on the base of this sculpture and inadvertently broke off several of its toes.

In Pursuit of the Perfect Photo, Tourist Accidentally Breaks Sculpture’s Toes

Authorities have identified the inadvertent vandal as an Austrian man who was in northern Italy on a birthday celebration trip

Government officials have moved The Seagull and The FIshermen into storage.

Norway Tears Down Picasso Mural After Years of Debate Between Authorities, Activists

Critics say the removal constitutes a crime against Norwegian cultural heritage

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