The Object

He was the ideal man. Handsome, strapping, with unreal proportions. But ancient statues like the Doryphoros originally looked much different, a revelation that is slowly upending long-held assumptions about race and art in the classical world. And not a moment too soon to confront the dangerous claims of white supremacists. You can see a 3D model of the Doryphoros statue here: skfb.ly/6KZOH. You can read more about it here: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/3520/the-doryphoros-italy. And read more here about the scholars cited in this episode, who are confronting the abuse of antiquity by hate groups: https://bit.ly/2YRG5GZ

Kehinde Wiley, long before he painted President Obama's official portrait, went to Brazil. There, he was inspired by a monument to the great aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, whose incredible, tragic life is as forgotten in the United States as it is celebrated almost everywhere else. You can see the monument here: https://biblioteca.ibge.gov.br/visualizacao/fotografias/GEBIS%20-%20RJ/rj39822.jpg And you can see the painting discussed in this episode here: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/107241/santos-dumont-the-father-of-aviation-ii-kehinde-wiley

When World War II began, nothing seemed capable of slowing the Nazis. Except a very fast, very unusual Czech automobile called the Tatra. A poignant story of poetic justice, grace in wartime, and the utopian future that wasn't.

Long ago, when everyone but your dog was a potential assassin, you needed to protect yourself by any means necessary. Starting with poison-proof silverware. A surprising story of art, myth, and the dangerous world that was.

In the 1920s, the sculptural image of Shiva Nataraja--the Hindu god Shiva as the cosmic dancer, ensuring the cycle of life--suddenly becomes a museum must-have. As India strives for independence, the image comes to symbolize something of the nascent nation itself.

An assistant curator decides to x-ray a 3,000-year-old mummy case, to learn if anything’s in there, and sees more than he bargained for. The international mystery would change his life — and the fate of the mummy.

When the frontier closed, the fate of Native Americans seemed sealed. But George Morrison, born into poverty near a reservation on Lake Superior, was as determined to be an artist as he was to avoid stereotypes.

Miriam McHugh Taney was a professional encyclopedia, lecturing on everything from the Italian Renaissance to early American furniture — a rare authority for a woman in the 1930s. But the real purpose of her museum talks went beyond knowledge.

There were wolves and caribou on the Minnesota frontier when John Scott Bradstreet arrived with his white suits and Far East fantasies of furniture, determined to elevate this outpost with fine interior design. A globalist mission on a collision course with history.

After founding General Mills, the food and flour giant, James Ford Bell turned to preserving the America he knew and loved. A vision that was fast disappearing in the stampede of mass immigration — and may never have existed at all.

She was wealthy, single, and always in the right place at the right time. But when Lily Place was in Egypt during the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, her art collecting suddenly put her at the epicenter of a curious and powerful trend that was about to shape world history one last time.