Art History

Luna Luna's creator, André Heller, stands on a merry-go-round designed by Keith Haring in June 1987.

When Keith Haring, Salvador Dalí and Jean-Michel Basquiat Created an Art Amusement Park

A resurrected version of Luna Luna, a fairground started by artist André Heller in 1987, opens in Los Angeles later this month

Installation view of the Brooklyn Museum's "Copy Machine Manifestos: Artists Who Make Zines," on view through March 2024

How Zines Brought Power to Those on the Margins of Culture

A new exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum examines zines' role in art history and community building

Alice Tate-Harte, a conservator at English Heritage, works on a 17th-century portrait of Diana Cecil.

See a 17th-Century Portrait Restored to Its Original Appearance, Minus Lip Fillers and Other Touch-Ups

Conservators removed cosmetic changes made to a painting of English aristocrat Diana Cecil, likely to match 19th-century beauty standards

The Mona Lisa Foundation's new exhibition in Turin aims to convince viewers that the Isleworth Mona Lisa (left) is an early version of the world-famous Mona Lisa (right).

Is This an Early Draft of the 'Mona Lisa'?

The "Isleworth Mona Lisa" is now on view in Turin—but many experts aren't convinced it's the work of Leonardo da Vinci

The exhibition uses the Seattle Art Museum's double-height galleries to showcase works like the 22-foot-tall sculpture Red Curly Tail  (1970).

Expansive Alexander Calder Exhibition Opens in Seattle

"Calder: In Motion" celebrates the iconic artist’s innovative mobiles, sculptures and other works

Persimmons will hang at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum for a brief three weeks.

'Zen Mona Lisa' Travels to the United States for the Very First Time

Titled "Six Persimmons," the famous 13th-century work hasn't left Japan for hundreds of years

Cimabue's Christ Mocked (circa 1280)

This Forgotten Masterpiece Was Hanging Above an Elderly French Woman's Hot Plate. Now, It's Heading to the Louvre

The French government gave the museum 30 months to raise the funds to purchase the Cimabue painting

A drawing of a musical lion from 14th-century France

Why Is Medieval Art So Weird?

Titled "Weird Medieval Guys," a new book examines illustrations of armless frogs, human-sized snails and more

“The World Made Wondrous: The Dutch Collector’s Cabinet and the Politics of Possession” takes a 17th-century Dutch cabinet as its starting point, tracing the threads of Dutch colonization through each object on view.

How Cabinets of Curiosities Laid the Foundation for Modern Museums

An exhibition at LACMA examines the legacy of Dutch colonization through a fictive 17th-century collector's room of wonders

Pablo Picasso’s Femme à la montre (or Woman with a Watch) sold for a whopping $139.4 million at Sotheby’s in New York this month.

'Femme à la Montre' Becomes Second Most Expensive Picasso Ever Sold

The 1932 painting of the artist's mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, fetched $139 at auction

Two Just Stop Oil protesters after smashing the glass protecting Rokeby Venus at London’s National Gallery 

Climate Activists Hammer at Glass Protecting Velázquez's 'Rokeby Venus'

Organized by Just Stop Oil, the incident was just the latest of many protests targeting famous artworks

The $45 million building will feature a performance venue and events space.

Andy Warhol Museum Announces $45 Million Expansion

The new building will feature a performance venue inspired by "A Bird," a watercolor by the famed Pop artist

Detail of the rediscovered "fiend" in Joshua Reynolds' painting The Death of Cardinal Beaufort (1789)

Hidden Demon Revealed in the Shadows of a Joshua Reynolds Painting

Conservators have restored the malignant spirit, which generated controversy among 18th-century audiences

The charcoal drawings in a secret room under the Medici Chapels Museum in Florence

Did Michelangelo Sketch These Drawings in a Secret Room Below a Florence Chapel?

For the first time, visitors will get to see the intricate sketches that some scholars attribute to the artist

Jean Fouquet's Melun Diptych features two panels, Étienne Chevalier with Saint Stephen on the left, and Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels on the right.

Mysterious Stone in 15th-Century Painting Could Be a Prehistoric Tool

Jean Fouquet's "Melun Diptych" is likely the earliest artistic representation of an Acheulean hand ax

Vienna-born artist Johann Franz Nepomuk Lauterer, who lived between 1700 and 1733, created Landscape of Italian Character along with a companion painting.

Painting Stolen by American Soldier During World War II Returned to Germany

FBI agents and art recovery lawyers helped retrieve the piece by Austrian artist Johann Franz Nepomuk Lauterer

John Akomfrah at his London studio, 2016

Artist John Akomfrah Is Having a Moment

The works of the recently knighted filmmaker address contemporary issues in two different Smithsonian museums

The city of Calais commissioned French sculptor Auguste Rodin to create Les Bourgeois de Calais in 1884.

Rodin Sculpture Has Been Missing From Scottish Museum Collection for Nearly 75 Years

The piece is a plaster version of one of the figures from the French sculptor's "Les Bourgeois de Calais"

Arthur Brand, dubbed the "Indiana Jones" of the art world, has helped recover six stolen historical Dutch artworks from the comfort of his Amsterdam flat.

Mysterious Man Returns Six Stolen Paintings to Art Detective's Doorstep

The puzzling incident comes just weeks after an anonymous tipster delivered a stolen van Gogh to Arthur Brand's flat in Amsterdam

William Matthew Prior, a white abolitionist, painted both Nancy Lawson and her husband, William, as well as a few other African Americans. “Skin may differ, but affection dwells in white and black just the same,” he wrote.

These Portraits Made a Bold Statement in 19th-Century America

A new exhibition exploring artistic representation of Black subjects includes a work that subverted cultural expectations

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