Art
A Somber Sculpture of the First Black Actor to Play Othello
When Ira Aldridge took the London stage in 1825, he became the first black actor to portray Shakespeare's Othello.
Allison Meier
Art
Explore a Virtual Museum of Digital Water
Pippin Barr's v r 3 examines one of the biggest challenges in game design: rendering water.
Books
In Photographs of Estate Sales, Price Tags Mark the Possessions of the Dead
For a year, photographer Norm Diamond visited up to 10 estate sales a week, documenting the stranded possessions for his series What Is Left Behind.
Art
Why a Herbarium of 7.8 Million Plants Is One of New York's Most Valuable Resources
The New York Botanical Garden is home to the world's second-largest herbarium, a vital archive in an era of vanishing botanical collections.
Art
Explore a Growing Archive of American Gardens with a New Smithsonian App
Smithsonian Gardens launched a free app to share and collect American gardening stories, from 19th-century Detroit potato patches to community greenspaces in vacant lots.
News
For the First Time, Metropolitan Museum Will Display Indigenous Art in Its American Wing
With a major promised gift of 91 works of Native American art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will now include indigenous art in its galleries on American art.
Art
Library of Congress Digitizes 19th-Century Photos of Black Women Activists
The Library of Congress recently digitized rare 19th-century photographs of African American women active in suffrage, civil rights, temperance, education, reform, and journalism.
Art
An Exhibition Offers a Visual Biography of Sylvia Plath, Including Her Little-Known Art
The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery is opening a visual biography of the author Sylvia Plath, including her rarely-seen artwork.
Art
The History of Tattoos in New York, from Bowery Sensation to Banned Art
The New-York Historical Society explores three centuries of Gotham's relationship to the tattoo through vintage images, electric pens, and live demonstrations.
Books
The Playful Yet Sobering Anti-Alcohol Posters of the Soviet Union
A new book from Fuel features previously unpublished anti-alcohol posters from the 1960s to '80s in the Soviet Union.
Art
Setting the Puzzling Language of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake to Music
Over 100 contributors to the project Waywords and Meansigns are setting James Joyce's experimental 1930s book Finnegans Wake to music.
Art
Casting New York City's Oldest Tree in Luminous Glass
Artist Rachel Owens made casts of the Alley Pond Giant, the oldest living thing in New York City, and fused them with a rainbow of glass shards.