Big royal statues from the Kingdom of Dahomey, in present-day Benin, are pictured in 2018 at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris. Gerard Julien/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Art & Design NPR explores the visual arts including design, photography, sculpture, and architecture. Interviews, commentary, and audio. Subscribe to the RSS feed.
Art & Design
Ray and Charles sit in their living room in 1958. An intimate alcove was tucked into the larger, high-ceilinged room. Julius Shulman/J. Paul Getty Trust hide caption
Charles And Ray Eames Made Life Better By Design; Their Home Was No Exception
Contestants Kerstin Nordstrom and Wynter Chatman appear on Ask Me Another at the Bell House in Brooklyn, New York. Mike Katzif/NPR hide caption
A set of pink seesaws allowed people to share some fun along the U.S.-Mexico border wall this week. Here, a woman helps her little girls ride the seesaw that was installed near Ciudad de Juarez, Mexico. Christian Chavez/AP hide caption
This costume, with corn husks and feathers and paper flowers, is worn by a member of a dance group that gathers in cemeteries and other places to mark Day of the Dead festivities (called Xantolo, the word written above the mask). The idea of combining a skeletal mask with European fashion was devised by the Mexican artist Jose Guadalupe Posada, who lived in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Phyllis Galembo hide caption
Zara's parent company Inditex announced new sustainability goals this month. But can a fast-fashion brand built on growth truly become sustainable? Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images hide caption
Artists are requesting that the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York remove their work from its biennial showcase over a museum board member's ties to the sale of law enforcement supplies including tear gas. Bebeto Matthews/AP hide caption
At Whitney Museum Biennial, 8 Artists Withdraw In Protest Of Link To Tear Gas Sales
Pelli designed the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004. Athanasios Gioumpasis/Getty Images hide caption
Musicians walk on a crosswalk painted like a piano outside the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. Increasingly, urban designers and transportation planners say this kind of art — colorful crosswalks and engaging sidewalks — leads to safer intersections, stronger neighborhoods and better public health. Brett Dahlberg/WXXI hide caption
Walking On Painted Keys: Creative Crosswalks Meet Government Resistance
Augusta Savage was an artist, educator, activist and community leader. Her work is the focus of an exhibition at the New-York Historical Society, organized by the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens. She's pictured above with her 1938 sculpture Realization. New-York Historical Society hide caption
Sculptor Augusta Savage Said Her Legacy Was The Work Of Her Students
Doug Roble on the TED stage Bret Hartman / TED hide caption
Doug Roble: What Happens When Visual Effects Aren't Limited To Just Movies?
Nir Eyal on the TED stage Russel Edwards/TED hide caption
Finn Myrstad on the TED stage Ryan Lash/Ryan Lash / TED hide caption
"I consider myself one who creates clothes, and fashions clothes, and uses it as a vehicle to fashion young minds," says clothier Dapper Dan. Jelani Day/Dapper Dan of Harlem hide caption
The Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright who developed the concept of "organic architecture," that a building should develop out of its surroundings. Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Luthier Freeman Vines sits with his hand-carved guitars in the tobacco field by his house, 2015. Tim Duffy/Courtesy of Music Maker hide caption
Six of the 50 Azalea Trail Maids gather under oak trees. The dresses come in six different colors, but only the queen of the court wears pink. Adair Freeman Rutledge hide caption
Doodle by artist George Cruikshank in Scrawl. George Cruikshank/Rizzoli hide caption
Douriean Fletcher made everything from earrings to armor for the 2018 film Black Panther. Fletcher spent time studying in South Africa, and learned that, for some, "what you wear is telling somebody who you are — whether it's the region you're from, the status you have within your family, or in your community. ... I wanted to make sure that I had applied that to my own work." Marvel Studios 2018 hide caption