Visual arts/museums

In 1937, two Nazi art shows aimed to teach the public to despise modernist art and show them what art should be. An exhibit at New York's Neue Galerie reunites works from both landmark shows.

New York City is home to more paintings by Johannes Vermeer -- eight -- than any other city. And until mid-January, it's playing host to one more: the world-renowned Girl with a Pearl Earring. Critic Lloyd Schwartz says, since the painting's 1994 restoration, "It's even more breathtaking than I remembered."

In few operas does all the mayhem express what underlies George Benjamin's Written on Skin. The work conveys a profound awareness of human cruelty and its inextricable connection to passion and art.

Claes Oldenburg is one of the best-known American pop artists. Critic Lloyd Schwartz found himself not alone in enjoying the current Oldenburg exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, which continues through Aug. 5.

New York's Museum of Modern Art is currently hosting the first major Willem de Kooning retrospective. Critic Lloyd Schwartz says the exhibit traces the development of de Kooning's entire career, along with the little detours he took along the way.

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Musee d'Orsay in Paris have collaborated on a show called Degas and the Nude, which includes pieces from all over the world. Lloyd Schwartz says that in portraits of everyday moments, Degas made women mysterious, vulnerable and heartbreakingly human.

Jon Sarkin was working as a chiropractor when he suffered a massive stroke. Afterwards, he became an obsessive visual artist whose work was as fragmented and cluttered as his mind had become. Sarkin is the subject of a new book, Shadows Bright as Glass, by science writer Amy Nutt.

Two Titian masterpieces — Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto — are in the United States for the first time. Fresh Air's Lloyd Schwartz says art lovers will want to see them in person — particularly because there's a chance they may be permanently separated.

French artist Henri Matisse is probably best known for his decorative and colorful paintings, especially nudes and still lifes. But a show at the Museum of Modern Art, called "Matisse: Radical Invention," deals with a more experimental period in Matisse's life. Critic Lloyd Schwartz says the show allows viewers to see Matisse's growth as an artist.

Whitman founded the FBI's Art Crime Team and has tracked down more than $225 million worth of stolen art and cultural property -- including a $36 million self-portrait by Rembrandt. Whitman describes the heists in his new memoir, Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures.