Fine Art

Herrera looks out from amid his sculptures at his place in El Rito, N.M.

Arts

Jesus In A Lowrider: El Rito's Santero Carves Saints In Modern Clothing

12:30pm July 20, 2015

by John Burnett

Nicholas Herrera puts his own touch on the tradition of saint carving. The santero works out of his studio in a small New Mexico town — but his edgy work can be found in museums around the country.

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Museumgoers play in the 10,000-square-foot exhibition called "The Beach" at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.

Arts

Take A Trip To D.C.'s Indoor Beach, Where It's Always 75 And Sunny

5:24pm July 09, 2015

by NPR Staff

The National Building Museum has created an unusual oasis — an ocean of 700,000 plastic balls — where D.C. locals and tourists can take refuge from the city's sweltering heat.

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Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan by Joachim Wtewael.

Arts

Do It Like A Deity: A Dutch Artist Depicts Gods Gone Wild

11:45am July 08, 2015

by Susan Stamberg

At the turn of the 16th century, Joachim Wtewael painted passionate stories from the Bible and mythology. The Dutch artist was a very strict Calvinist, but on canvas, he let loose.

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A Philadelphia mural titled You Go Girl by Jetsonorama and Ursula Rucker. This is just one of many murals that the city's Mural Arts Program helped create.

What Right Do Muralists Have To The Buildings They Paint On?

1:52pm June 29, 2015

by Paige Pfleger

Musicians have their instruments, painters have their canvases, and muralists have ... walls. But when the building a mural is on is changing, the muralist has to choose to fight — or say goodbye.

For decades, scientists have wished for a handy, controllable volcano they could keep in the lab. Now two men at Syracuse University have created just that.

Make Lava, Not War

3:12pm June 25, 2015

by Adam Cole

A sculptor and a geologist are melting hundreds of pounds of rock in a giant cauldron to create realistic lava flows. Cool! NPR reporter Adam Cole pays a visit to learn more about lava's allure.

Noah Charney is an art historian and writer, and the founder and president of The Association for Research into Crimes against Art, a non-profit research group devoted to issues of art crime.

Books
Arts

Could The Masterpiece Be A Fake? Profit, Revenge And 'The Art Of Forgery'

2:24pm June 23, 2015

The art world is "fertile ground for criminals," says art scholar Noah Charney. In his new book, The Art of Forgery, he traces a tradition of fakes and forgeries that dates back to the Renaissance.

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Arts

Immortalized As 'The Woman In Gold,' How A Young Jew Became A Secular Icon

1:34pm June 23, 2015

by Susan Stamberg

Gustav Klimt's 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was seized by the Nazis. A film now tells the story of Adele's niece, who fought to recover her family's paintings more than a half century later.

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George Caleb Bingham's The Jolly Flatboatmen (1846) became wildly popular after an East Coast art union bought it and started disseminating it as a print.

Arts

In 1846, 'The Jolly Flatboatmen' Did A Different Sort Of River Dance

7:19am June 17, 2015

by Susan Stamberg

The painting by George Caleb Bingham became popular for its depiction of the 19th-century American experience. Now, it's the star of a new show at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Boston Public Library President Amy Ryan, left, and Conservation Officer Lauren Shott hold the recovered prints by Albrecht Durer and Rembrandt van Rijn.

Lost And Found: Missing Rembrandt, Dürer Prints Turn Up At Boston Library

4:27pm June 05, 2015

by Scott Neuman

Worth a combined $630,000, they were found misfiled after an exhaustive, eight-week search of the stacks. But not before an FBI probe was launched and the library's president resigned.

Arts

An Epic Art Tale: Commissioned By Hitler, Recovered By German Police

11:14am May 30, 2015

Dutch art detective Arthur Brand helped recover the pieces — including two bronze horses that used to stand outside the Reich Chancellery and which were thought to have been destroyed in the war.

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