One of the most widely praised and influential of all modern sculptors, Alexander Calder became world-famous primarily for creating kinetic sculptures, sculptures in which a key element of the composition is movement itself. Innovative and prolific, Calder has been celebrated as a visionary, a pioneering talent, and a key contributor…

In 1888, Toyohiko Kagawa was born in Kobe, Japan. His childhood was marred by suffering and grief. When he got older, Kagawa became a Christian, and dedicated himself to serving the poor in the neighborhood where he lived. Kagawa then spent two years in the United States, studying at Princeton…

Emblematic of the art of ancient Egypt are the splendid treasures of the Tomb of Tutankhamun, the Great Sphinx of Giza, the Nubian Monuments of Abu Simbel, the huge stone sculptures which arise as if from the desert itself, some of them wearing human faces, at once serene and uncanny…

In 1967, when my father, Frederick (“Rick”) Hart took a job as a clerk in the mail room at Washington National Cathedral, he did so primarily for the purpose of pestering the Cathedral’s master stone carver, Roger Morigi. Back then, Rick was an aspiring sculptor. He wanted Morigi to take…

“I had learned a great deal about my tribal customs from my father and my mother, and the more I learned the more I wanted to put it down on canvas. That’s pretty much how it started.” — Allan Houser Allan Houser was born Allan Capron Haozous. His family name…

PARIS, 1871 — In the aftermath of the Prussian invasion of France, and the collapse of the Second Empire, two rival governments arise. One of them is the Paris Commune. Its headquarters: the city streets, the blazing foundry of radical democracy. …

Francisco Zúñiga’s father was a sculptor, the creator of hundreds of religious sculptures. Like many of his siblings, Zúñiga took classes in drawing, and around the age of sixteen, he began training as a sculptor in his father’s workshop. Zúñiga grew up in San José, Costa Rica. As he got…

On December 12, 1952, disaster struck Chalk River Laboratories in Canada. A problem with the experimental NRX reactor caused a partial meltdown. The reactor had been seriously damaged by a hydrogen explosion, and thousands upon thousands of gallons of radioactive water were flooding into the reactor building’s basement. A major…

In 1965, my father, Frederick Hart, worked at the Gayety Theater in Washington, D.C., a famous burlesque theater. As a struggling artist, at the age of twenty-two, he performed fire tricks on stage. And then, while performing a fire-eating trick, my father burned his mouth severely. …