Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Museums

The headlining image for the upcoming exhibition, "Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi"

Get a Taste for Mushroom Art at This New, Fungus-Forward Exhibition

“Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi” celebrates shrooms like you’ve never seen them before

Employees are contributing to the initiative by supplying reusable cups, plates and utensils for meetings, as well as bringing used plastic packaging materials from home.

Art Meets Science

A Hawaii Museum Has Eliminated the Sale of All Single-Use Plastics

The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu hopes to set a positive example in the fight for a more sustainable future

John Kinard, the first African American to head a Smithsonian museum, took the helm of the Anacostia Neighborhood Museum in 1967. The museum was housed in a former theater on Nichols Street in a Southeast neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

Fifty Years Ago, the Idea of a Museum for the People Came of Age

A Smithsonian symposium asked experts to weigh in on the strength of the community museum and chart its way forward

The 1966 Honda CB77, or Super Hawk, that Robert Pirsig rode on his 1968 trip from Minnesota to California that inspired the book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

The Cycle From ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ Comes to the Smithsonian

The 1966 Honda Super Hawk featured in Robert Pirsig’s book on values was recently acquired by the National Museum of American History

Minoan single-use cup alongside a paper cup from Air India

Cool Finds

For Easy Clean-Up After Parties, Minoans Used Disposable Cups

A 3,500-year-old single-use vessel is part of a new display at the British Museum that explores our long-standing relationship with trash

Fuggerei, built for the poorest residents of the city, dates back to 1519.

After Almost 500 Years, the World’s Oldest Social Housing Complex Is Still Going Strong

The rent of less than one Euro per year at the Fuggerei, located in Augsburg, Germany, hasn’t changed either

The new attraction is the Dominican Republic's Living Museum of the Sea.

Trending Today

New ‘Living Museum of the Sea’ Established in Dominican Republic Waters

Based around an existing shipwreck, the museum will allow divers to explore cannons, anchors and coral reefs

The Wedding Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1566

Art Meets Science

Detroit Exhibit Celebrates Bruegel’s ‘The Wedding Dance’ and Its Controversial Codpieces

The painting’s frank depiction of drunk frivolity—and male anatomy—didn’t sit well with some viewers

The Elgin cast, seen on right, reveals sculptural details lost today.

New Research

3-D Imaging Reveals Toll of Parthenon Marbles’ Deterioration

A new study of 19th-century plaster casts of the controversial sculptures highlight details lost over the past 200 years

An unknown photographer took this image of enslaved individuals on a cotton plantation around 1850.

This May Be the Earliest Known Image of Enslaved Individuals With Cotton

A remarkable daguerreotype was recently acquired by the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City

Among the items stolen from Berlin's Stasi Museum are a pair of earrings, a ring laden with pearls and gems, a gold watch, and a gold timepiece.

Days After the Brazen Green Vault Heist, Another German Museum Is Targeted by Thieves

Burglars stole jewelry and historic artifacts from the Stasi Museum in Berlin

“The guide I have spoken of is the only one we have had yet who knew anything,” Twain reported in the Venice chapter of the book.

The Museum Tour Guide Who Shaped Mark Twain’s Views on Race

While traveling in Venice for what would be his best-selling memoir, the author’s encounter with an African-American art expert forever changed his writing

The scan captures every detail that made the bust so iconic, including Nefertiti’s delicate neck, painted headdress, high cheekbones and sharp eyeliner.

3-D Scans of the Bust of Nefertiti Are Now Available Online

A German museum released the digital data to artist Cosmo Wenman after a hoax heist and lengthy legal battle

Paired Images of Melting Glaciers and Flooding Wetlands Tell the Story of Global Climate Change

Photographer Tina Freeman’s exhibition ‘Lamentations’ at the New Orleans Museum of Art juxtaposes two different environments

Mother and daughter listen to an audio tour at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Baltimore Museum of Art Will Collect Works Exclusively by Women in 2020

“To rectify centuries of imbalance, you have to do something radical,” says museum director Christopher Bedford

One of the wrecks discovered off the coast of Vaxholm

Cool Finds

This Wreck May Be the Sister Ship of Sweden’s Ill-Fated ‘Vasa’ Warship

Divers discovered the wreckage of two 17th-century warships off the coast of an island near Stockholm

Roma or Sinti girl imprisoned in Auschwitz, as seen in pictures taken by the SS for their files

London Library Spotlights Nazi Persecution of the Roma and Sinti

The Roma and Sinti’s wartime suffering “isn’t necessarily a subject that people know that much about,” says the curator of a new London show

A retrospective centered on artist Judy Chicago is one of the many Feminist Art Coalition exhibitions slated for fall 2020.

Fifty U.S. Museums Champion Feminist Art Ahead of 2020 Election

Curators are banding together to organize feminism-inspired exhibitions and events in fall 2020

The creepiest doll in all the land

A Minnesota Museum’s Creepy Doll Contest Is Here to Haunt Your Dreams

“The doll I disdain handling is the one with human hair,” says curator Dan Nowakowski

If participants successfully complete the program, the district attorney’s office declines to prosecute their case, and the arrest record is sealed

Low-Level Offenders in NYC Can Now Take an Art Class Instead of Appearing in Court

“It’s about holding people accountable, but doing it in ways that promote human dignity,” Brooklyn’s district attorney said

Page 54 of 89