History

UK exhibition uncovers holy link between Henry VIII’s rival wives Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon

Both British queens owned the same prayerbook, curators at Hever Castle in England have found

150 years of Australian art: a history of the Art Gallery of New South Wales

As the Sydney museum reopens, we look at its long history of supporting artists, and when it began to collect Indigenous art

In partnership with the Art Gallery of New South Wales

New art from the ruins of Pompeii: archaeological site launches digital fellowships

Contemporary initiative also includes new book with contributions from more than 60 artists such as Adrian Villar Rojas, Lara Favaretto and Michael Rakowitz

Museumsreview

From cosy to creepy: new displays at Bletchley Park muddle Britain's honourable Nazi-fighting history with a contested present

The museum—set inside a Buckinghamshire country house—has opened its largest ever gallery, called the Intelligence Factory, this week

Secrets of the Black Prince's tomb effigy in Canterbury Cathedral revealed by scientists

Sculpture atop the final resting place of the medieval knight and heir to Edward III has been examined by a team of researchers led by The Courtauld Institute of Art

Racenews

The Greenwood Massacre, America’s ‘single worst incident of racial violence’, is remembered 100 years on

The historic example of domestic terrorism, when white mobs killed hundreds of Black residents and destroyed businesses, finally gets due recognition

Off with her head! Infrared technology shows how a 15th-century French king used a paintbrush to replace one wife with another

Francis I of Brittany had his first wife painted over in a medieval prayer book before giving it to his new spouse, research at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum shows

Ancient ABCs: The alphabet’s ‘missing link’ discovered in Israel

Ink writing found on pottery sherds suggests the system spread into the Levant earlier than originally thought

Dr Fauci’s 3-D printed coronavirus model given to Smithsonian

The educational aide will be part of a forthcoming exhibition at the National Museum of American History

Mary Rose Museum 'appalled' by David Starkey's racist remarks as British historian steps down as trustee

Tudor specialist has been widely condemned for remarks on slavery and Black Lives Matter in YouTube interview

Podcastsgallery

Gunpowder, treason and plot: how artists have captured fireworks throughout history

In a special podcast episode we talk to Simon Werrett who has written a book on pyrotechnic arts in European history

Podcastspodcast

Special: Fireworks! Picturing pyrotechnics with professor Simon Werrett

In honour of Bonfire Night in the UK this podcast looks at how artists—from Whistler to Cai Guo-Qiang—have captured fireworks

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by Julia Michalska and David Clack

Berlin celebrates fall of the wall with art installations, projections and an app

A week-long festival for the 30th anniversary includes a banner of messages floating near the Brandenburg Gate

Chinainterview

An artist’s memories of Tiananmen Square

The Bay Area artist Stella Zhang was a senior at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing during the student-led protests. She has created a new work based on those memories—and the government’s efforts to silence them

Dead kings and queens and where to find them

A dictionary of the burial places of the English and Scottish kings and queens (and their relations)

Berlin Kulturforum surveys the long history of alchemy

Spanning 3000 years, the exhibition covers the Egyptian origins of alchemy to its influence on contemporary artists such as Koons

Purposeful destruction: Smashing art at the Tate Britain

Tate Britain traces the driving forces and ideologies behind a 500-year history of iconoclasm

Art and the appetite for destruction: Histories of British Iconoclasm on now at Tate Britain

Tate Britain examines the history of those who have targeted art, from Henry VIII to the present

Moscowarchive

From shtetl to spectacle at the Russian Jewish Museum and Centre of Tolerance

Constructivist-style bus garage transformed into high-tech Jewish museum in Moscow

Booksarchive

Books in brief: the Medieval Warrior’s (Unofficial) Manual

The perfect reference book for those of us who cannot just offhand distinguish a gambeson from a hauberk

Booksarchive

Books: Material culture and medieval "Hindu-Muslim" encounter

Objects of translation and the cultural interactions of Muslims and Hindus in the late 12th and early 13th centuries

Booksarchive

The art world’s Christmas reading

Artists, collectors, critics, museum directors and auction house executives pick their holiday books

Iranarchive

How Sami-Azar, head of Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art, has been the mediator that Iranian artists yearned for

With the view that creative outlet precedes change, Sami-Azar has begun to thaw segregationist policies that bar Iranian artists from international acclaim

Museumsarchive

Communist museum for Warsaw

It will include displays of photographs and posters, pieces of barbed wire, tools and clothes from the Gulags

Gilded Agearchive

A charmed couple: the art and life of Walter and Matilda Gay

A celebration of the Gilded Age couple famed for their taste and refinement

St Catherine's monastery: A short history, from Moses to the Arab-Israeli wars

The incredible longevity of the monastery - or mosque, for a period - can be attributed to its willingness to change with the times

Art in the media: History as a developing process

Lodz ghetto photos found in Vienna; Van Dyck reassessed; Tracey Emin in profile

Historyarchive

Letter discovery suggests inter-war bell rivalry

The letter was written by Giacomo Boni and dates from 1925