art
![Brian Piercy](data:image/svg+xml;utf8,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="%230A66C2"><path d="M20.447 20.452H16.89v-5.569c0-1.328-.027-3.037-1.852-3.037-1.853 0-2.136 1.445-2.136 2.939v5.667H9.351V9h3.414v1.561h.046c.477-.9 1.637-1.85 3.37-1.85 3.601 0 4.267 2.37 4.267 5.455v6.286zM5.337 7.433a1.982 1.982 0 1 1 0-3.964 1.982 1.982 0 0 1 0 3.964zm1.782 13.019H3.555V9h3.564v11.452zM22.225 0H1.771C.792 0 0 .774 0 1.729v20.542C0 23.227.792 24 1.771 24h20.451C23.2 24 24 23.227 24 22.271V1.729C24 .774 23.2 0 22.222 0h.003z"/></svg>)
For 20 years, Dutch art detective Arthur Brand has acted as an intermediary between the police and people who know where stolen artwork might be hiding. He says patience and trust are everything.
Darius Puia is a digital artist based in Germany who creates hyper‑detailed cyberpunk, sci‑fi and surreal worlds, often combining 3D and 2D to build futuristic cityscapes, dystopian architectures and enigmatic objects like torus portals. His work is driven by a love of intricate sci‑fi structure
Imagine you could talk to Hieronymus Bosch, the authors of the Book of Revelation, or of the Voynich Manuscript—a bizarre 15th century text written in an uncrackable code; that you could solve centuries-old mysteries by asking them, “what were you thinking?” You might be disappointed to hear them say, as does Luigi Serafini, author and illustrator of the Codex Seraphinianus, “At the end of the day [it’s] similar to the Rorschach inkblot test.
This piece is print #4 in our Road Trip Attractions Series - a collection inspired by the interesting and quirky establishments you'll see billboards for on a road trip out west. This print is the billboard for the House of Weird - A Museum of Oddities & Unexplainables. We'd tell you what you might see in this mysterious pit stop, but it's just something you'd have to see to believe!
archived 21 Nov 2025 11:02:52 UTC
I was sixteen when my mother gifted me a painting by Ernie Barnes. I’d seen one Barnes painting at that point on the cover of Marvin Gaye’s 1976 album, I Want You, on the brown carpeted floor of my Auntie Sue’s apartment. Then I saw it five days a week for at least a decade during […]
Mysterious late-night visits, an undercover hunt for Hitler's horses, and a Picasso on the couch are business as usual for the Dutch sleuth.
The 'Social Register' was a who’s who of America’s rich and powerful—the heirs of robber barons, scions of political dynasties, and descendants of 'Mayflower' passengers. It was also the perfect hit list for the country’s hardest-working art thief.
The long read: Between 2022 and 2023, as many as 170 rare and valuable editions of Russian classics were stolen from libraries across Europe. Were the thieves merely low-level opportunists, or were bigger forces at work?
What is Lapis Lazuli? What are its origins? How has it persisted throughout the history of art?
Famous Fantastic Mysteries was a U.S. pulp magazine that specialized in reprinting classic tales of science fiction, fantasy, and adventure. It debuted in 1939 under the Munsey Company, already known for popular titles like Argosy, and quickly gained a devoted audience. The magazine revived olde
Chris Ware on the New Yorker artist, who contributed dozens of covers about the wealthy Peabody family and their housemaid, Fay.
Patrick Drahi made a fortune through debt-fuelled telecommunications companies, Sam Knight writes. Now he’s bringing his methods to the art market.
The snail may leave a trail of slime behind him, but a little slime will do a man no harm... whilst if you dance with dragons, you must expect to burn. - George R. R. Martin, The Mystery Knight As any Game of Thrones fan knows, being a knight has its downsides.
A common source of confusion that I experience when posting my artwork on social media is: _why?_ Why use a plotter when you could use a printer? It's slower. Less exact. More expensive. It fails, far too often. Inkjet printers became ubiquitous in the 1980s because they solved nearly all of these problems. So why are artists obsessed with pen plotters?
Storing an art collection properly is crucial for protecting and preserving the value of your artworks.
Keep your art safe by using professional art shippers, climate-controlled storage, and the right insurance to protect your art collection.
This series covers the core parts of the art market.
Discover how art auctions work by learning how to consign art, understand pricing, navigating key terms used by auction houses.
Fine art print using water-based inks on sustainably sourced cotton mix archival paper. • Available in multiple sizes • Trimmed with a 2cm / 1" border for framing • Available framed in white, black, and oak wooden frames
It would be a worthwhile exercise for any of us to sit down and attempt to draw up a list of our 100 favorite paintings of all time. Naturally, those not professionally involved with art history may have some trouble quite hitting that number.
This dreamy print entitled "Marfa Lights" is print #3 of 11 in our series by Bryan Peterson. Peterson's whimsical style is on full display in this beautiful print that captures the small town West Texas town of Marfa on a starry desert night.
Market value and establishing authenticity depend on uncovering an artwork’s past, which requires skilled provenance research.
Galleries are crucial touchpoints for discovering new artists and artworks. Here’s what you need to know about how to approach them.
Coming to Pueblo, CO, this fall, the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of North America will be the first and only museum of its kind in the continent.
Jennifer Dunn, the artist behind the Instagram account Mossy Hollow, characterizes her work as "Watercolor meme art," a distinctive blend of pop culture referen
To celebrate Rafael Araujo's talent and vision, I have curated a selection of his most stunning illustrations, showcasing the elegance and intricacy of his work.
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/c0/7e/c07e6c42-244c-4bc4-880f-9129e1a30b8a/opener_-_ghzs_dallaragione_002.jpg)
Renaissance paintings, medieval archives, cloistered orchards—how one Italian scientist is uncovering secrets that could help combat a growing agricultural crisis
Walter Schnackenberg was born in 1880 in Lauterberg, Germany, and became a prominent painter and illustrator. At the age of 19, he moved to Munich to study art, first under Heinrich Knirr and then Franz von Stuck, both influential figures in the German art scene. His early work earned him recogn
From flipping to white glove sales, here are terms to know before you attend an auction.
During the Renaissance period, hands were as important a focus of attention as the face was, because they were the only other visible area of the body. Hence, representation of the position of the hands became a decorative element that was almost as important ...
Welcome to the "Auntieverse" — a surreal tribute to "auntie culture" by artist Niceaunties, inspired by the spirit of the women who care for each other and their families. From sushi-bedecked cars with legs to hot tub baths full of ramen, Niceaunties shares a visual feast that fuses AI and imagination and celebrates the eccentric, vibrant world of aunties with reverence and awe. (Slides created with AI including Midjourney and DALL·E 3 for text-to-image creation; magnific.ai and Topaz Labs for upscaling the images; Pikalabs and Runwayml for animation.)
Valery Slauk, a celebrated Belarusian artist, specializes in book art and easel graphics, particularly employing the etching technique. His work delves into Slavic mythology, crafting captivating worlds that blend literary inspiration with boundless imagination. With a deft balance between reali
German-American artist Henry Jerome Schile was born in Oberharmersbach, Baden-Württemberg, in 1829. He emigrated to the US in 1851 and worked in New York in the middle of the 19th century. h/t: vintag.es Henry Schile’s work is described by Harry T. Peters in America on Stone as: “Though of
After 34 years, not one of the 13 works stolen during the largest art theft in history has surfaced but the puzzling peculiarities of the case still draw interest.
Consuming culture gives us the emotional knowledge that can make us better people.
Discover the secrets behind Edward Hopper’s most iconic and enigmatic works. See how his marriage to artist Josephine Hopper shaped his art.
Sophie Walter, Assistant Curator at London Fire Brigade Museum, on the small, beautiful and potentially fatal Glass Fire Grenade When they were first introduced in the nineteenth century, Glass Fire Grenades were produced as decorative glass bottles with a bulbous...
Europe at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth: what a time and place to be alive.
The dealer has been so successful selling art to masters of the universe that he has become one of them.
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/0a/a5/0aa55529-602e-4c8a-94e8-f5472db88eda/constable.jpeg)
A new show at London's Courtauld Gallery will explore the value of counterfeit art
For more than thirty years, Ed Binkley has been producing stunning fantasy artwork. His exceptional creations have been showcased in a multitude of publications and he has partnered with esteemed entities such as Lucasfilm, ImagineFX, Wizards of the Coast, and Artifacts Puzzles, among others.
Advice from the world's greatest art thief
After a painting by the Dutch artist sold at auction, a movie producer claimed to be the owner. It later vanished from sight, with a trail leading to Caribbean tax havens and a jailed Chinese billionaire.
Tomb raiders, crooked art dealers, and museum curators fed billionaire Michael Steinhardt’s addiction to antiquities. Many also happened to be stolen.
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/32/44/3244088a-8423-43a8-a381-14d6ef7d3f8e/lede.png)
Intricate designs painted by biscuit artist Ella Hawkins are part of a lengthy baking tradition
After his brother’s death, Patrick Bringley took a job at the grandest place he could find.
The goal is not to expose the “slipups” of the masters but to understand the human brain.
The long read: In 2016, artist César Aréchiga talked one of Mexico’s most dangerous maximum security prisons into letting him run art classes for its inmates, many of them violent gang members. Could he really change their lives?
Wolfgang and Helene Beltracchi’s forgeries infiltrated museums, auction houses and private collections. A decade after their conviction, psychoanalyst Jeannette Fischer asks: Why did they do it?
:extract_focal()/https%3A%2F%2Fd3h6k4kfl8m9p0.cloudfront.net%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F03%2F03115742%2FAvett-Pair.png)
For lots of rock-poster collectors, even those who like to think they’re in the know, a common question is, “Who’s Luke Martin?”
:extract_focal()/https%3A%2F%2Fmelmagazine.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F02%2FReal_Life_Oceans-11_Romanian_Art_Thieves-1024x427.jpg)
A billionaire playboy’s alleged murder is at the center of the world’s most confounding heist job.
On his way to becoming an international icon, the subversive and secretive street artist turned the art world upside-down
A collector thought he had bought a painting by the celebrated British artist. How far would he go to prove it?
Andres Valencia’s paintings have sold for more than $125,000. And he’s 10 years old.
Auction houses and galleries are getting creative, partnering to drive demand and give their clients access to the best works.
The stolen masterpieces have never turned up—and nobody’s really looking for them
Did the artist paint a security camera (or a condom, or a portrait of rigatoni) into “The Red Studio”? An investigation at MoMA looks for clues.
You can't make this shit up
How Banksy created a private key art authentication system with forged ten pound bank notes ripped in half.
The Antico Setificio Fiorentino, which relies on looms from the 18th and 19th centuries, has been producing precious textiles since 1786.
We introduce ArtBench-10, the first class-balanced, high-quality, cleanly annotated, and standardized dataset for benchmarking artwork generation. It comprises 60,000 images of artwork from 10...
Polish illustrator and graphic designer Tomasz Majewski combines traditional techniques with digital work to produce cool pop culture creations. More: Instagram, Behance
Out of this world artworks by Michał Klimczak, a graphic designer and concept artist based in Krakow, Poland. More: Instagram, Behance
The Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography in Georgia is home to one of the world’s great collections of medieval Christian art, writes William Dunbar
Driven by buyers' need for consistency and explanation, the most popular pricing method uses a surprisingly simple formula based on size.
The colour violet was largely missing from art before the Impressionists, and is seen differently by different cultures. Why?
National Gallery of Art
Browse and download high-resolution, public domain Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations and Posters.
:extract_focal()/https%3A%2F%2Fpocket-syndicated-images.s3.amazonaws.com%2Farticles%2F6281%2F1619214715_GettyImages-182146040.jpg)
When nearly $3.5M of rare books were stolen in an audacious heist at Feltham in 2017, police wondered, what’s the story?
The Collections database consists of entries for more than 480,000 works in the Musée du Louvre and Musée National Eugène-Delacroix.
Western museums are under pressure to return looted treasure, but what of those in private collections?
What are the greatest art heists of all time? See a list of the 25 most memorable thefts from museums.
In October 2020, Miami-based art collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile spent almost $67,000 on a 10-second video artwork that he could have watched for free online. Last week, he sold it for $6.6 million.
Buy art from the world's largest community of independent artists and iconic brands. Shop for wall art, home decor, iPhone cases, and more!
How a dozen possibly fraudulent and forged Indigenous artworks left Texas and ended up on museum walls in Wyoming.
Usage of the new model, with examples and Colab Notebook.
:extract_focal()/https%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Fpocket-syndicated-images%2Farticles%2F1494%2F1567394801_f662ab38d8101e62215001a90e575959300e54b6_1000.jpg)
Forgeries have become so good – and so costly – that Sotheby’s has brought in its own in-house fraud-busting expert.
First trips to Paris all run the same risk: that of the museums consuming all of one's time in the city. What those new to Paris need is a museum-going strategy, not that one size will fit all.
:extract_focal()/http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.nautil.us%2F15684_1c596d6658b237e7a2aec3b1ed11dab3.jpg)
What is neuroscience doing to art?
Five months on we look at the steps and measurements implemented by experts to start rebuilding the fire-ravaged cathedral
A Dutch gallerist made thousands of forgeries and passed them off as the work of real artists. When he was caught, a new con began.
Two decades after Rudy Giuliani tried to rid New York City of graffiti, the art form is flourishing—with unexpected consequences.
How times have changed since our late 80s college days. Undergrads do research online, upload assignments to a server, stream music, download affirmative sexual consent contracts, and turn to Facebook when it's time to find a ride home for the holidays.
The author shows how new mathematical techniques can be used to revitalize a 650-year-old work of art.
Art historian Arthur Brand managed to track down the 1983 painting Buste de Femme (Dora Maar), which went missing from a Saudi prince’s boat in 1999.
Some scientists believe that the earliest humans were actually colorblind, and had no concept of the color blue.
The skilled climber and thief Vjeran Tomic, whom the French press referred to as Spider-Man, has described robbery as an act of imagination.
Emergence is the story of natural laws and processes, their inherent beauty, and their action to yield the universe, us and the world we live in.
The Art Institute of Chicago recently unveiled a new website design. As part of their first design upgrade in 6 years, they have placed more than 52,000 high-resolution images from their collection online, available to all comers without restr
Is the Chinese government behind one of the boldest art-crime waves in history?
I used to think Marfa was a kind of practical joke that West Texans were playing on cultural elites. It’s remote even for Texas. The nearest airports are in El Paso and Carlsbad, New Mexico, each 2…
You just can't see what it's become.