Art & Design NPR explores the visual arts including design, photography, sculpture, and architecture. Interviews, commentary, and audio. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Art & Design

Early opera recordings on wax cylinders 1900–1904, recorded by Lionel Mapleson. Robert Kato Lionel/New York Public Library hide caption

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Robert Kato Lionel/New York Public Library

Mystery recordings will now be heard for the first time in about 100 years

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Visitor experiencing Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room—My Heart Is Dancing into the Universe (2018), part of the 2022 exhibition One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Matailong Du/Courtesy Ota Fine Arts and Victoria Miro, London/Venice. © YAYOI KUSAMA. hide caption

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Matailong Du/Courtesy Ota Fine Arts and Victoria Miro, London/Venice. © YAYOI KUSAMA.

Dots all, folks—at the Hirshhorn, artist Yayoi Kusama immerses viewers in infinity

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Several pyramids in the morning light in the royal burial grounds in Meroe, Sudan. Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York hide caption

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Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York

LaTasha Barnes is a tradition-bearer of Black social dances, including the Lindy Hop. Cassidy Araiza for NPR hide caption

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Cassidy Araiza for NPR

Rapper Andrew Hean, whose family owned a donut shop in California, is pictured in a silkscreen print on a donut box by artist Phung Huynh. Self Help Graphics & Art hide caption

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Self Help Graphics & Art

Pink donut boxes are canvas for artist portraying kids of Cambodian-American refugees

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Twenty-year-old Rusul Ahmed has painted several of the murals in Mosul. She says after the dark period of ISIS, the colorful murals make people happy. Jason Beaubien/NPR hide caption

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Jason Beaubien/NPR

In Iraq's Mosul, art springs up from ruins almost 5 years after the ouster of ISIS

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Some of the vendors at the Broadway Makers Marketplace, which carries their handmade goods Michael T. Clarkston /Broadway Makers Marketplace hide caption

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Michael T. Clarkston /Broadway Makers Marketplace

At the Broadway Makers Marketplace, theater fans find both crafts and community

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Statues wrapped in protective materials stand in Lviv's old quarter in western Ukraine. Officials are taking precautions to protect statues from being destroyed in Russian attacks. Claire Harbage/NPR hide caption

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Claire Harbage/NPR

Ukraine scrambles to protect artifacts and monuments from Russian attack

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Diébédo Francis Kéré, this year's Pritzker Architecture Prize winner. Lars Borges/The Pritzker Architecture Prize hide caption

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Lars Borges/The Pritzker Architecture Prize

For the first time in its history, architecture's top award goes to a Black architect

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Installation view of Joseph Wright of Derby's An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, in "Science and the Sublime: A Masterpiece by Joseph Wright of Derby." The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens hide caption

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The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

A mad scientist and his bird in a bubble: The story behind a peculiar painting

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Valeriya Kamelkova, artist and sculptor, illustrates the Russian flag and a pool of blood. Valeriya Kamelkova hide caption

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Valeriya Kamelkova

These Ukrainian artists capture the country's spirit and the war's toll

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The Kennedy Center joins other U.S. sites illuminating their buildings in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Margaret Wroblewski/The Kennedy Center hide caption

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Margaret Wroblewski/The Kennedy Center
Alaina Murphy/Blind Landing

Dragon blood tree at Diksam Plateau, on Yemen's Socotra Island. It's one of the sites included on the 2022 Watch from the World Monuments Fund. Chris Miller/World Monuments Fund hide caption

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Chris Miller/World Monuments Fund

Models walk the runway at the Tom Ford spring/summer 2022 fashion show at Lincoln Center during New York Fashion Week on Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP hide caption

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Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP

From Tumblrcore to 2014core, the nostalgia loop is getting smaller and faster

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Visitors queue up to enter the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. The museum announced in August 2021 it would return the valuable "Painting With Houses" artwork by Wassily Kandinsky to the heirs of a Jewish family that originally owned it, ending years of legal wrangling over the work that was sold at auction in 1940. Peter Dejong/AP file photo hide caption

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Peter Dejong/AP file photo
Photo Illustration by Becky Harlan/NPR