Every year, a new class of honorees is celebrated at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum: designers, digital pioneers, environmental saviors, and visionaries. Some are industry veterans. Others are just beginning to reshape the field. But as a group, they form a portrait of where American design is headed next.
Art News
Once relegated to cheap newsprint created only as casual entertainment to be consumed primarily on Sundays—or alternatively, more transgressive subject matter hidden behind the counter—cartoons and comics have now entered the hallowed halls and white cubes of the high-end art market.
Early eighteenth-century France saw the emergence of Rococo style—an offshoot of the Baroque movement. Also called late baroque, Rococo artwork, architecture, and decor maintained the exuberance and theatricality of the Baroque but diverged with its use of asymmetry, warm-toned pastels, chinoiserie, and excessive florals.
Line, gesture, and geometry coalesce in dynamic visual harmonies in painter James Kennedy’s exhibition, Spaces for the Mind and Eye, at Callan Contemporary.
The Louvre has weathered both revolutions and occupations over the centuries. Yet, the past few months have exposed a different kind of vulnerability in its leaking pipes, aging cameras, and institutional drift. The world’s most-visited museum is struggling to find steady footing in the wake of a series of mishaps and misdemeanors.
Throckmorton Fine Art will present an exhibition of 65 distinguished jade carvings spanning the 800-year period of the Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE) and Eastern Zhou (770–221 BCE) Dynasties. Mandate of Harmony: Jade Carvings from the Western Zhou to the Eastern Zhou Dynasties will be on view from March 5 through April 11, 2026.
The Joachim-Ma violin, crafted in 1714 by the great luthier Antonio Stradivari of Cremona, Italy, sold at Sotheby’s New York on February 7 for $11.3 million (est. $12-18 million). While it had been expected to top the $15.9 million paid in 2011 for the so-called “Lady Blunt” Stradivari, the record remained intact.
Charles Byrne, born in 1761 in Ulster, Ireland, was over 7 feet and 6 inches tall. By age 21, his health was deteriorating rapidly due to then unknown growth disorders which caught the attention of many in the London medical field where he resided. It was during this decline that John Hunter, surgeon and anatomist, offered to pay Charles for his body after his death. Charles feared the mistreatment of his corpse and, in an attempt to thwart would-be body snatchers, he asked his friends to procure a weighted coffin and bury him at sea.
This list presents a handful of notable, historical moments from the institution's 150-plus years of existence. From the museum’s murky accession of its first artwork in 1870 to the ground-breaking introduction of its Open Access Initiative in 2017, The Met and its artworks have reflected the cultures they came from.
The White House’s recent push to reshape President Donald Trump’s image at the National Portrait Gallery raises questions about who gets to write history and who gets to erase it. A series of interactions between the current administration and this particular Smithsonian institution during the past year has made clear the extent to which Trump is invested in curating his own national story.
