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Art & Design NPR explores the visual arts including design, photography, sculpture, and architecture. Interviews, commentary, and audio. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Art & Design

Thursday

Tiny Little Jars Contain Big, Bold Colors In The Forbes Pigment Collection

Looks like your spice rack on steroids? Nope. Although the colors are a feast for the eyes. Caitlin Cunningham Photography/Forbes Pigment Collection at the Harvard Art Museums hide caption

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Caitlin Cunningham Photography/Forbes Pigment Collection at the Harvard Art Museums

Art Where You're At

Tiny Little Jars Contain Big, Bold Colors In The Forbes Pigment Collection

Conservators, preservationists, artists, art historians and serious art fans can consult the Harvard Art Museums' collection to analyze and imitate the colors that painters used many centuries ago.

Wednesday

'Marking Time' And Making Art In Confinement

Mark Loughney, Pyrrhic Defeat: A Visual Study of Mass Incarceration, 2014-present. Graphite on paper (series of more than 600 drawings) Mark Loughney hide caption

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Mark Loughney

Fine Art

'Marking Time' And Making Art In Confinement

An exhibition at MoMa PS1 features work created by currently or formerly incarcerated artists and their family members. Curator Nicole R. Fleetwood knows what it's like to love someone on the inside.

'Marking Time' And Making Art In Confinement

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Sunday

Drawing On Greek Myths As Inspiration For Illustrating Life During The Pandemic

Medusa cutting her hair and Hercules exercising at home are two examples of Jonathan Muroya's Greek Quarantology illustration series. Jonathan Muroya hide caption

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Jonathan Muroya

The Picture Show

Drawing On Greek Myths As Inspiration For Illustrating Life During The Pandemic

Illustrator Jonathan Muroya chose characters from Greek mythology to represent different aspects of living in isolation. A King Midas whose gold is hand sanitizer, for instance, feels relatable.

Thursday

Lost Painting By Modernist Master Jacob Lawrence Found In Private Collection

The formerly missing panel is titled, There are combustibles in every State, which a spark might set fire to. --Washington, 26 December 1786, Panel 16, 1956. Anna-Marie Kellen/The Metropolitan Museum of Art hide caption

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Anna-Marie Kellen/The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Culture

Lost Painting By Modernist Master Jacob Lawrence Found In Private Collection

A visitor to the Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York — where Lawrence's series, Struggle, is currently on view — helped identify a missing painting by the Modernist master.

Wednesday

Landscape Architects Unveil Plans To Save The National Mall's Tidal Basin

Increased car and foot traffic coupled with rising sea levels have driven parts of the Tidal Basin area underwater. Sam Kittner/Tidal Basin Ideas Lab hide caption

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Sam Kittner/Tidal Basin Ideas Lab

Landscape Architects Unveil Plans To Save The National Mall's Tidal Basin

With increased car and foot traffic, the ground underneath the Tidal Basin — home to memorials to Thomas Jefferson, FDR and MLK Jr. — is sinking. As sea levels rise, the walkways flood daily.

Landscape Architects Unveil Plans To Save The National Mall's Tidal Basin

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Monday

Artist In Residence Creates Portraits Of Reform At The District Attorney's Office
Akeil Robertson/Philadelphia District Attorney's Office

Fine Art

Artist In Residence Creates Portraits Of Reform At The District Attorney's Office

"I've been an artist since I was a child," says James "Yaya" Hough. After serving 27 years in prison, he is now the first-ever artist in residence at the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office.

Artist In Residence Creates Portraits Of Reform At The District Attorney's Office

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Sunday

'The Writing On The Wall' Finds Poetry Behind Bars, Projects It Onto Buildings

"The Writing On The Wall" art installation projects writings by incarcerated people onto the sides of buildings, such as The New York State Supreme Court Building, above. Chemistry Creative hide caption

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Chemistry Creative

'The Writing On The Wall' Finds Poetry Behind Bars, Projects It Onto Buildings

"Look at all the wisdom, look at all the heart that is imprisoned in our society," says Hank Willis Thomas, cofounder of the art installation project.

'The Writing On The Wall' Finds Poetry Behind Bars, Projects It Onto Buildings

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Documenting Grief: A Mother And Son Grow Closer Despite Loss

After making a new life in the U.S., Jacob Moscovitch's mother, or Imma, raised three kids and led the household while working a part-time job. Moscovitch says his older sister Simone told him, "Imma is my superhero, no cape necessary." Here, Imma stands for a portrait in her bedroom on May 8. Jacob Moscovitch hide caption

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Jacob Moscovitch

The Picture Show

Documenting Grief: A Mother And Son Grow Closer Despite Loss

When photographer Jacob Moscovitch's grandmother died in Israel earlier this year, he and his family couldn't travel because of the pandemic. Instead, he photographed his mother's grieving process.

Thursday

Take Off Your Sweats And Step Into 'Silk And Steel' — French Fashions In WWI

French woman conductor for the Paris Trolley Company, 1917 Excelsior – L'Equipe/Roger – Violett/National WWI Museum and Memorial hide caption

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Excelsior – L'Equipe/Roger – Violett/National WWI Museum and Memorial

Art Where You're At

Take Off Your Sweats And Step Into 'Silk And Steel' — French Fashions In WWI

An exhibition at the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Mo., explores what wartime women wore — from overalls to evening gowns — and how military uniforms have affected fashion.

Wednesday

20 Artists In Inaugural Class Of Disability Futures Fellows Receive $50,000 Grants

Riva Lehrer's 2010 charcoal mixed-media collage portrait of Alison Bechdel, author of the Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip and the memoirs Fun Home and Are You My Mother? National Portrait Gallery/Disability Futures Fund hide caption

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National Portrait Gallery/Disability Futures Fund

Fine Art

20 Artists In Inaugural Class Of Disability Futures Fellows Receive $50,000 Grants

A new fund created by the Andrew W. Mellon and Ford Foundations awards unrestricted grants to fellows working in a range of disciplines including architecture, dance, multimedia and journalism.

20 Artists In Inaugural Class Of Disability Futures Fellows Receive $50,000 Grants

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Sunday

Graciela Iturbide's Photos Show The Beauty And Dreams Of Mexico And Its People

Angel Woman. Graciela Iturbide hide caption

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Graciela Iturbide

The Picture Show

Graciela Iturbide's Photos Show The Beauty And Dreams Of Mexico And Its People

As one of Latin America's most renowned photographers, Iturbide has spent half a century capturing the beauty of her homeland and calling for her country to reclaim its sense of pride and identity.

Graciela Iturbide, The Artistic Soul Of Mexico

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Friday

'We Must Keep On': Paris Fashion Week Exudes Hope In Uncertain Times

Models walk the runway during the Chanel Womenswear Spring/Summer 2021 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on Oct. 06, 2020. Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images hide caption

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Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

'We Must Keep On': Paris Fashion Week Exudes Hope In Uncertain Times

The fashion industry is reeling in the pandemic; marketing budgets have been slashed and magazines are thinner. But houses moved forward with a handful of physical runway shows and lots more online.

Tuesday

Monday

Mellon Foundation Pledges $250 Million To Rethink Nation's Monuments

Hundreds of people gather at the Robert E. Lee monument in Richmond, Va., in July. The Mellon Foundation says it will spend $250 million over five years to re-imagine commemorative spaces in the U.S. Eze Amos/Getty Images hide caption

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Eze Amos/Getty Images

Updates: The Fight Against Racial Injustice

Mellon Foundation Pledges $250 Million To Rethink Nation's Monuments

The new project will fund efforts to create new monuments, as well as contextualize or relocate existing ones, to tell a "more inclusive story of our history."

Thursday