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For art history, August 21 and 22 are the dates that will live in infamy, not December 7th (all apologies to FDR). In some strange nexus of negative karma stretching over nearly a century, three of the greatest art heists of all time took place on these dates: the theft of the Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (shown above) from the Louvre in Paris, France, on August 21, 1911; the theft of Goya’s Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London, England, on August 21, 1961; and the theft of Edvard Munch’s The Scream (shown above) and Madonna from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, on August 22, 2004. Each story ends happily with the works returned safe and sound, but the stories behind each still bewilder and amaze. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Days of Infamy: August 21 and 22 and Major Art Heists."

When the Whitney Museum of American Art decided to stage in 1948 their first exhibition of a living American artist, they chose someone who wasn’t even an American citizen, but only legally could become one just before his death. Painter Yasuo Kuniyoshi came to America as a teenager and immersed himself in American culture and art while rising to the top of his profession, all while facing discrimination based on his Japanese heritage. The exhibition The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniyoshi, which runs through August 30, 2015, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, unveils an amazing story of an artist who lived between two worlds — East and West — while bridging them in his art that not only synthesized different traditions, but also mirrored the joys and cruelties of them. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Between Two Worlds: The Unveiling of Yasuo Kuniyoshi."

When you get down to the bare facts, there’s no genre of art older than that of the nude. The bare human figure—male and female, but more often female—commands attention as much as it makes us turn away in modesty or, worse, shame. The duality of that “truth” of the nude as well as our reaction to it is the slippery subject of Being Nude: The Skin of Images by Jean-Luc Nancy and Federico Ferrari (translated by Anne O’Byrne and Carlie Anglemire). Nancy and Ferrari argue for “something true right at the skin, skin as truth” as the exposing of flesh “reveals is that there is nothing to be revealed, or that there is nothing other than revelation itself, the revealing and what can be revealed, both at once.” At times a hard philosophical road to slog, Being Nude gives you a multidimensional, multimedia, multigenerational musing on the nude that may not lay all the facts perfectly bare, but will leave you looking at and thinking about the nude in a different way than ever before. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "The Naked Truth About the Nude in Art."

“Regrets, I’ve had a few,” Frank Sinatra warbled in “My Way,” before adding wistfully, “But, then again, too few to mention.” Sinatra sang that song at the end of a long, successful career as a titan turning back and surveying the long road behind him and the shorter one ahead. A similar kind of retrospection turns the Museum of Modern Art in New York City’s new exhibition Jasper Johns: Regrets, which runs through September 1, 2014, into a survey of art history in the making. Not only is the show about canonical artist Jasper Johns’ latest additions to art history, but also about the history of making art, of taking different raw materials and media and entering the process of creating art. For a relatively small show on a tightly targeted subject, Jasper Johns: Regrets hits the mark beautifully and raises a triumphant flag signaling that art and art history aren’t dead just yet. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Jasper Johns and Art History in the Making."

“I could erase an entire life,” thinks a pensive Adolf Hitler as he stares into his mirror in one of the many striking images from the career of artist Raymond Pettibon. In our time, when words mean little and images deceive, Pettibon creates art that rewrites the meaning of words and images erased by modern society by uniting them in fascinating ways that all share a common, simmering anger. How words and pictures have been rent asunder, and how art can undo that divorce, is the subject of a major monograph on the artist titled Raymond Pettibon. A child of the late ‘60s, Pettibon found his groove in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, but his art and his message feel just as relevant and important today. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Raymond Pettibon Puts Words, Pictures, and Anger Back Together."

On the morning of March 18, 1990, two thieves dressed as Boston police walked into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and 81 minutes later walked out with an estimated $500 million USD worth of fine art, including Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galileeand Vermeer’s The Concert (shown above; detail). Ever since that infamous day, empty frames occupy the missing artwork’s former locations on the walls of the Gardner Museum. Those frames might be filled once again, however, if a new announcement by the F.B.I. that they’re close to cracking the case is true. Timed on the 23^rd anniversary of the crime, the F.B.I.’s claim raises hopes that the greatest art theft and one of the most followed and well-documented art crime investigations might finally be solved. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Has the Greatest Art Theft Ever Finally BeenSolved?"

[Image: Jan Vermeer. The Concert (detail), 1665-1666.]

Your college art history textbook probably tore Pablo Picasso’s oeuvre into more digestible bits such as “Blue Period” and “Rose Period.” A new exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City adds a new “period” to the list—Picasso’s lifelong “Black and White Period.” In Picasso Black and White, which runs through January 23, 2013, we see how Picasso often stripped his art of color entirely to focus primarily on getting the message across through line and symbol. Ironically, the “realest Picasso” may not be the artist working in blue or rose or the man living a long, colorful existence, but rather the creator of colorless, powerful scenes and sculptures. By the time you get to the end of the exhibition, you’ll know the answer to the question, “What’s black and white and Picasso all over?” Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "What’s Black and White and Picasso All Over?"




[Many thanks to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City for providing me with the image above and other press materials related to Picasso Black and White, which runs through January 23, 2013.]