Special

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Madonna of Port Lligat by Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí’s The Madonna of Port Lligat is an image of Mary holding baby Jesus in her lap. Seems simple, but it has layers upon layers of...

Isla Phillips-Ewen 21 June 2026

Quiz

QUIZ: How Well Do You Know Georgia O’Keeffe?

Errika Gerakiti 20 June 2026

Women Artists

Clementine Hunter: Painting Black Life from Memory

Clementine Hunter taught herself to paint in her fifities and spent the rest of her life chronicling the Black Southern experience, not with slogans...

Wen Gu 19 June 2026

Contemporary Art

13 Black Folk Artists from the American South

The thirteen self-taught artists below, from Bill Traylor to Nellie Mae Rowe, Thornton Dial to Mary T. Smith, among others, created some of the most...

Adam Oestreich 19 June 2026

Harriet Powers Women Artists

Harriet Powers: A Black Female Folk Artist Who Regained Her Glory

For much of the 20th century, the work of Harriet Powers, an enslaved and later emancipated Black folk artist, was erased from the art historical...

Kristin Urban 19 June 2026

Masterpiece Stories

How the Brooklyn Books of the Dead Were Brought Back to Life

What kind of measures do you take when the stakes are real? When you have to get it right the first time? You can’t improvise. You triple-check,...

MJ Rivera 18 June 2026

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Madame X by John Singer Sargent

Dear John Singer Sargent, the world has changed substantially since the year 1856 when you were born, however, your legacy has stood enduringly. You...

James W Singer 18 June 2026

Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (detail), 1904-07, oil, silver, and gold on canvas, Neue Galerie New York Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I is Gustav Klimt’s most significant work of portraiture. The famous Lady in Gold has as many eye-catching...

Emily Snow 18 June 2026

Women Artists

Tina Modotti—A Woman of Her Time

Tina Modotti was a photographer whose path parallels the great moments of 20th-century history. Her way of making art is a testimony to the world...

Maia Heguiaphal 17 June 2026

Photography

Moving to Abstraction: Andreas Gursky’s Rhine

Andreas Gursky’s Rhine is an interesting piece that tells the transformation of a real-life picture into an abstract work of art. The move towards...

Michel Rutten 17 June 2026

Photography

Gerda Taro—The Girl with the Leica

Have you ever heard of the photographer Gerda Taro? You may know her as Robert Capa‘s girlfriend and muse, and I’m sure you have heard of Capa at...

Arianna Richetti 17 June 2026

Wang Ximeng, One Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, Song dynasty, 1113, ink and color on silk scroll, Palace Museum, Beijing, China. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: One Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains by Wang Ximeng

Wang Ximeng’s One Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains is a masterpiece of the Northern Song dynasty and of the larger history of traditional...

James W Singer 16 June 2026