Smithsonian

The refrigerators of the 1920s were deadly. Their motorized compressors easily malfunctioned, allowing the refrigerants—that is, toxic gases—to escape and sicken or kill whole families in their sleep. Albert Einstein and his colleague Leo Szilard, physicists at the University of Berlin, took the matter in hand in 1926 and invented a pump to replace the refrigerator’s motorized compressor.

Free Circus Arts Programming, Final Days To Visit the Castle and Arts & Industries Building and New Exhibitions Opening This Fall Media website: si.edu/newsdesk September is a month of both farewells and fresh experiences, and as summer gives way to fall, the Smithsonian invites visitors to take advantage of a month filled with special events, major exhibition closings and new openings across its museums.

Richly Illustrated, “Hirshhorn Museum: The Art Handbook” Is a Portable Introduction to Modern and Contemporary Art Through Key Works in the National Collection The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has published Hirshhorn Museum: The Art Handbook, a vividly illustrated portable paperback guide to the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn, the national museum of modern and contemporary art.

Curator (20th-Century Art) August 27, 2026 Yayoi Kusama, Forlorn Spot, 1953, watercolor, pastel, ink on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John A. Benton and The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, 2019.32.4 This post was originally published in December 2019.

As part of its semiquincentennial programming, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival launched “Rhythms, Roots, Recipes: Community Stories of Food and Music” in August, a five-part series that brings together cooking demonstrations, live music and storytelling to explore traditions that animate families and communities across the United States.

Co-Acquisition Will Be Celebrated Sept. 10 With Artist Talk In a milestone collaboration between two American centers of modern and contemporary art scholarship, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and The Gund at Kenyon College announce the joint acquisition of two watershed artworks by Joan Jonas: “Mirror Pieces Installation II” (1969/2014) and “Wind” (1968). These are the first works by the pioneering American artist to enter both collections.

“Bisa Butler: Tender Monuments” Traces Artist’s Creative Practice Across Three Decades Bisa Butler, “Coco with Morning Glories, After Coco,”1993, by Dana Lixenberg (detail), 2024, cotton, silk, lace, netting, tulle, sequins, glitter, beads, glass gems, metal beads, silk and polyester woven fabric, and velvet, quilted and appliquéd, 84 x 55 inches, Melody Ehsani.

The Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum will welcome visitors 21 years and older for its annual “A Night at the Museum” event Thursday, Sept. 17, from 7 to 10 p.m. The event celebrates the museum’s 59th anniversary with after-hours access, live performances and light appetizers. The event is free, but registration is recommended. This year, “A Night at the Museum” invites visitors to celebrate 59 years of keeping and sharing community stories while making new memories together.

Today's release features a gallery of galaxies, presented in a four-by-four grid. Starting in the first row, at our upper left, is NGC 1672. At its center are two thick, spiraling, dark purple arms that bridge a brilliant white and neon pink core. Those bridging arms create a bar, which channels gas to the core, making NGC 1672 a barred spiral galaxy, like our own Milky Way. Longer, wispier arms also spiral out from the core, dotted with gleaming white and pink stars.

Bisa Butler is a singular voice among a cadre of contemporary artists who engage figural representation to examine the beauty and complexity of Black experience. Marking the largest survey to date of the artist’s large-scale quilts, “Bisa Butler: Tender Monuments” explores Butler’s distinctive, multifaceted practice.