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Painting

Camilo José Vergara began photographing art in poor urban areas in the 1970s. He soon realized that one of the most prevalent figures in the artworks was Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. by Mural

Photographer Camilo José Vergara captures varying portrayals of the civil rights leader in urban areas across the United States

In his last ten weeks of life, Vincent Van Gogh experienced a period of unprecedented productivity. A new book compiles paintings produced during that time.

The Woman Who Brought Van Gogh to the World

Art lovers have Vincent van Gogh’s sister-in-law to credit for introducing the impressionist’s work to the world

"We had 12,000 to 15,000 paintings here," says Georges Nader Jr., with a Paul Tanis work at the remains of his family's house and museum near Port-au-Prince.

In Haiti, the Art of Resilience

Within weeks of January’s devastating earthquake, Haiti’s surviving painters and sculptors were taking solace from their work

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About This Painting

Field Beach, c. 1850s, Mary Blood Mellen.

Women Who Shaped History

The Grand Women Artists of the Hudson River School

Unknown and forgotten to history, these painters of America’s great landscapes are finally getting their due in a new exhibition

Well before his discovery of penicillin, Alexander Fleming was a member of the Chelsea Arts Club. Less well known is that he also painted with living organisms.

Painting With Penicillin: Alexander Fleming’s Germ Art

The scientist created works of art using microbes, but did his artwork help lead him to his greatest discovery?

Movie Starlet and Reporters, Norman Rockwell, 1936.

Norman Rockwell’s Storytelling Lessons

George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg found inspiration for their films in the work of one of America’s most cherished illustrators

Worry over the exquisite art—including an image of the protector goddess Tara—has fueled photographer Aditya Arya's efforts.

Glimpses of the Lost World of Alchi

Threatened Buddhist art at a 900-year-old monastery high in the Indian Himalayas sheds light on a fabled civilization

In 1972, with assistance from an art teacher, 11 men formed a cooperative called Papunya Tula Artists. By 1974 the group had grown to 40.

Contemporary Aboriginal Art

Rare artworks from an unsurpassed collection evoke the inner lives and secret rites of Australia’s indigenous people

Norman Rockwell recruited Stockbridge neighbors, including state trooper Richard Clemens and 8-year-old Eddie Locke, to model for The Runaway.

Norman Rockwell’s Neighborhood

A new book offers a revealing look at how the artist created his homey illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post

After Xiangmei Gu takes off the backing, she saves the brittle fragments in her record books, which date back two decades and line the shelves in her office.

Restoring Artwork to its Former Glory

With a steady hand, Xiangmei Gu wields paintbrushes and tweezers as the Smithsonian’s only conservator of Chinese paintings

Amy Herman at the Metropolitan Museum with Sargent's Madame X asks her class of cops, "How would you describe this woman in one sentence?"

Teaching Cops to See

At New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Amy Herman schools police in the fine art of deductive observation

Katz (today, in SoHo) pursued figurative painting even in the 1950s, when Abstract Expressionism was at its height.

Alex Katz Is Cooler Than Ever

At 82, the pathbreaking painter known for stylized figurative works has never been in more demand

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Forensic Astronomer Tackles Three More Munch Paintings

Baseball at Night by Russian-born Morris Kantor depicts a dusty contest in West Nyack, New York, that might induce nostalgia in some viewers today.

1934: The Art of the New Deal

An exhibition of Depression-era paintings by federally-funded artists provides a hopeful view of life during economic travails

Old Pennsylvania Farm in Winter, Arthur E. Cederquist, 1934.

What’s the Deal about New Deal Art?

As the first of the New Deal acts that funded public art projects with federal money, the PWAP produced more than 15,000 works of art in just six months

Rare Halo Display: A Portrait of Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver Portrait Unveiled

At the National Portrait Gallery, artist David Lenz pays tribute to a champion for the intellectually disabled

The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo.

The Measure of Genius: Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel at 500

Half a millennium later, the story of the painting of the Sistine Chapel is as fascinating as Michelangelo’s masterpiece itself

The Feast of Esther, painted by Lievens c. 1625, was identified for years in 20th-century art texts as an early Rembrandt. Like Rembrandt, Lievens used contrasts of light and shadow to add drama.

Jan Lievens: Out of Rembrandt’s Shadow

A new exhibition re-establishes Lievens’ reputation as an old master, after centuries of being eclipsed by his friend and rival

Van Gogh painted his iconic The Starry Night in 1889, while in an asylum in Saint-Rémy. "One of the most beautiful things by the painters of this century," he had written to Theo in April 1885, "has been the painting of Darkness that is still COLOR."

Van Gogh’s Night Visions

For Vincent Van Gogh, fantasy and reality merged after dark in some of his most enduring paintings, as a new exhibition reminds us

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