Susan Stamberg

Session drummer Dave Tull has played with the likes of Chuck Mangione, Maynard Ferguson and Barbra Streisand, but he breaks out on his own with a new album, Texting and Driving.

Brooks, 91, has made a career of poking fun at topics that normally wouldn't make you laugh. "The comedy writer is like the conscience of the king," Brooks says. "He's got to tell him the truth."

"There is nothing except the canvas, the artist, his gaze, and you," says Stephanie Barron, a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "That's it. The rest of the world just fades away."

NPR's Susan Stamberg remembers flying back from India in 1968 to a city and country that was in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is currently exhibiting the work of Brassaï, Diane Arbus and Nan Goldin, who all documented people far from the mainstream with profound intimacy.

As a major retrospective in Los Angeles shows, the modern American artist got us to take a second look at even common objects like numerals, archery targets and, yes, flags.

The producer, studio head and Oscar-winning actress would have been the envy of today's industry women. How did she get all that power a century ago? It started with her popularity as a star.

The Dutch artist painted scores of self-portraits, but they weren't exactly flattering. Casting director Margery Simkin thinks he could have played the manager of a baseball team.

A Subway employee, a cleaning woman and a 1908 child laborer are all part of a National Portrait Gallery exhibition called "The Sweat Of Their Face."

Galleries and museums often cool to artists as they get older. Those artists keep working, but they aren't shown or bought. The Carter Burden Gallery aims to change that.

Ever feel fearful? Or brave? Protective? Aggressive? The ancient Egyptians had a cat for that! Ancient Egypt was full of animal deities, but cats reigned supreme, celebrated in sculptures and stories.

It's the Friday before Thanksgiving. That means it's time for NPR's Susan Stamberg's traditional recipe that "sounds terrible but tastes terrific" — though her granddaughter begs to differ.

In the 1600s, after decades of war, the Netherlands was thriving. Artists like Johannes Vermeer celebrated the nation's wealth with images of fine clothing, glimmering pearls and imported parrots.

A new biography documents the lives and friendship of actors Henry Fonda and James Stewart.

Aline Charigot hadn't known Renoir long when she posed for his masterpiece, but he'd already fallen for her. Curator Eliza Rathbone says, "That's why she has the role that she does in the painting."

A new exhibition at New York's MoMA explores the social history of clothing items like flip-flops ("a humble masterpiece," according to one curator) and the white T-shirt.

A new book examines the lives of six different women — such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown — through the food they ate. It's called What She Ate by Laura Shapiro.

An exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum features art and artifacts from World War I. It includes paintings by combat artists and images of carvings found on the walls of underground quarries.

Founded in 1855, St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., grew from 250 patients to 8,000. A new exhibit at the National Building Museum explores the links between architecture and mental health.

Armed with cotton swabs, strong solvents and a lot of training, conservators are entrusted with restoring priceless works of art. At the National Gallery of Art we learn that varnish is enemy No. 1.