Even In 'The War To End All Wars,' There Was Art Coming From The Trenches
One hundred years ago, the U.S. entered the first global war — an ugly, dirty, agonizing conflict that cost millions of lives and changed the world. Now, the National Air and Space Museum in...
View ArticleWe Are What We Wear: Exhibition Examines Clothing That Changed The World
From baseball caps to saris to the little black dress, there's a social history woven into the clothing we wear. A new exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) explores that history. "...
View ArticleGuess Who Renoir Was In Love With In 'Luncheon Of The Boating Party'
In 1880, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, age 41, wrote to a friend that he was in a riverside town near Paris painting oarsmen. He'd been "itching" to do it for a long time: "I'm not getting any younger," he...
View ArticleDutch Artists Painted Their Patriotism With Pearls And ... Parrots?
Johannes Vermeer's Young Woman Seated at a Virginal doesn't quite look like a Vermeer painting. The titular young woman is klutzy at her keyboard, and graceless. She's also sitting in a dark room —...
View ArticleMama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish Takes Heat From One Of The Family's Own
For the past almost-50 years, I've been sharing an old family Thanksgiving recipe with NPR listeners. Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish comes from my late mother-in-law Marjorie Stamberg, who served it...
View ArticleNo Kitten Around: Museum Exhibit Celebrates 'Divine Felines'
Independent, graceful, agile, adorable when they're small — if cats are where it's at for you, the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery of Asian Art has you covered. Their new exhibition is called Divine...
View ArticleThis New York Gallery Has An Unusual Age Limit: No Artists Younger Than 60
Some artists in New York may be wishing to get older faster. A gallery there caters to artists age 60 and older. No kids allowed. Some 200 artists have exhibited at the Carter Burden Gallery since it...
View ArticleFrom Sandwich Shops To Cotton Mills, Art That Honors The American Worker
A lot of very hard work is going on at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. A muscled guy in an undershirt tightens a big bolt with his wrench; a farm worker bends almost in half, filling...
View Article'He's Not A Leading Man': A Casting Director On Rembrandt's Self-Portraits
Margery Simkin is a casting director. Her job is to look at thousands of faces, and her gut reaction — how she feels about what she sees — can lead to movie and TV roles. But for this story, she isn't...
View ArticleHow Movie Darling Mary Pickford Became The Most Powerful Woman In Hollywood
One hundred years ago, the most powerful woman in Hollywood was a producer, a studio head and a major force onscreen. Mary Pickford was a founder of the Motion Picture Academy and much admired for her...
View ArticleThe Flag Still Flies For Jasper Johns
A guide at the Jasper Johns exhibition at The Broad museum in Los Angeles smiles. Then she urges: "Go look at that one." Brianna MacGillivray points at "Flags," from 1965. The painting is enigmatic,...
View Article3 Photographers Who Captured The Undersides Of Life
We snap a selfie with the tap of a finger. We're used to preserving smiling moments. At the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, there's an exhibit right now which goes to darker places with a...
View ArticleWhat's It Like To Pose For David Hockney? We Asked The People In His Portraits
Rufus Hale was just 11 years old when artist David Hockney painted his portrait. Rufus' mother was making a movie about the prolific, octogenarian artist, and brought her son with her to work one day....
View ArticleMel Brooks Says It's His Job To 'Make Terrible Things Entertaining'
I fell in love recently — with Mel Brooks. It was my almost-next-to-last day in Los Angeles, and I'd gone with my producer, Danny Hajek, to interview the great...
View ArticleFilmmaker Jean Renoir Inherited An Artist's Eye For Images
It's not often that a parent and child become masters of two different art forms, but an exhibition at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia proves it's possible: Renoir: Father and Son explores the...
View ArticleGiacometti's Sculptures Bare The Scars Of Our Daily Struggles
Alberto Giacometti is considered one of the greatest artists of the 20th century — but he was consumed by self-doubt. He painted, drew and sculpted, and his sculptures made him famous. After the...
View ArticleGet Pumped: 100+ Fabulous Pairs Of Shoes Are On View In New York
What do you get for the man who has everything? Stuart Weitzman's wife was fed up with buying gifts for her shoe designer husband. "After two or three ties and shirts that I ended up never wearing, my...
View ArticleA Jackson Pollock Painting Gets A Touch-Up — And The Public's Invited To Watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoFhYcqZk1Y Jackson Pollock's painting Number 1, 1949, is a swirl of multi-colored, spaghettied paint, dripped, flung and slung across a 5-by-8-foot canvas. It's a...
View ArticleHard At Work At 84, Artist Sam Gilliam Has 'Never Felt Better'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjHpTmzGg4o Sam Gilliam found inspiration for his signature artworks in an unlikely place — a clothesline. In a Washington, D.C., studio that was once a drive-through...
View ArticleAt The End Of His Career, This 19th Century Artist Painted As He Pleased
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot painted thousands of landscapes — he did them well, and he did well by them. By the 1850s he was regarded as "a seriously successful, nationally renowned landscape painter,"...
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