Masterpiece Stories

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge, The Dance, 1890, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: At the Moulin Rouge, The Dance by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Tonight the Moulin Rouge is bursting at the seams. Men in dark coats and distinguished women dance and converse on the buzzing floor. Each has a...

Ruxi Rusu 16 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Le Quai Malaquais et l’Institut by Camille Pissarro

An Impressionist masterpiece—looted by the Nazis, hidden for decades in a vault in a Swiss bank, subject of a controversial restitution, and linked...

Javier Abel Miguel 16 June 2025

Gerda Wegener A Summer Day Lili Elbe Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: A Summer Day by Gerda Wegener

This Pride Month, we invite you to explore a compelling work by Gerda Wegener, an artist whose dazzling contributions to the early 20th-century art...

Alessia Caldana 15 June 2025

Thomas Eakins, Wrestlers, 1899, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Wrestlers by Thomas Eakins

Thomas Eakins was one of the greatest Realist painters of 19th-century America. Wrestlers explores the interesting dynamic between sports and...

James W Singer 15 June 2025

Pop art

Masterpiece Story: Ladies and Gentlemen by Andy Warhol

The Gilded Grape, a club situated in the no man’s land of Eighth Avenue and West 45th Street in New York City, was a hub of drag queens and Black...

Magda Michalska 15 June 2025

Pop art

Masterpiece Story: Once Upon a Time by Keith Haring

Keith Haring’s Once Upon a Time mural is a 4-walled orgiastic display of penises, eager orifices, splashing ejaculate, and extended tongues tangled...

Theodore Carter 15 June 2025

David Hockney, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)', 1972, private collection. British Art quiz Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) by David Hockney

David Hockney is an English artist born in 1937. He was a leading force in the 1960s Pop Art movement and a great innovator, considered, to this...

Ruxi Rusu 15 June 2025

Plate with Arabic Inscription, ca 975-1000, painted and glazed earthenware, Musée du Louvre, Paris, France. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Plate with Arabic Inscription

Plate with Arabic Inscription is a masterpiece of 10th-century Islamic art. It combines minimalism, abstraction, and morality into a beautiful and...

James W Singer 13 June 2025

Nike of Samothrace, ca 200-175 BCE, Parian and Lartian marble, Paleopoli, Samothrace, Greece, Musée du Louvre, Paris, France. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Nike of Samothrace

Nike of Samothrace is the masterpiece of an unknown Hellenistic artist. While the artist’s story may be unknown, the statue’s story is as complex...

James W Singer 11 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

The Boxer at Rest—Defeated Hellenistic Athlete

Coming face-to-face with a piece of art you’ve loved for years is a thrilling, exciting and oftentimes overwhelming experience. Such was the case...

Nadine Waldmann 11 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Laocoön and His Sons

Laocoön and His Sons was one of the most influential sculptures during the Renaissance. The contorted bodies of the figures, their faces full of...

Anastasia Manioudaki 11 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Woman with a Parrot by Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet, the enfant terrible of French 19th-century art, did everything he could to save himself in the memory of the contemporary art...

Zuzanna Stańska 10 June 2025