frick john singer sargent painting

The Frick Collection in New York, which recently reopened after a major expansion, does not own a single painting by John Singer Sargent, despite founder Henry Clay Frick's admiration for the artist. Sargent declined Frick's request for a portrait commission late in his career, and after Frick's death, his daughter Helen Clay Frick turned down an opportunity to purchase Sargent's iconic portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw in 1922 because the museum's trustees were undecided about the institution's future. The painting now resides at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. However, the Frick will receive a study for Sargent's famous 'Madame X' as part of a promised gift from collectors Elizabeth and Jean-Marie Eveillard.

arrival ditches the art fair frenzy for the berkshires

Three art-world professionals—adviser Sarah Galender Meyer, gallerist Yng-Ru Chen, and artist Crystalle Lacouture—have launched Arrival Art Fair, a biannual, invitation-only event in North Adams, Massachusetts, at the Tourists hotel. The fair features 36 exhibitors selected by curators with regional ties, including galleries such as Jane Lombard, Sears Peyton Gallery, Jessica Silverman, Abattoir Gallery, and Wolfgang Gallery. Programming includes outdoor sculpture, museum talks, and an acquisition prize from the Williams College Museum of Art, with booth fees supplemented by philanthropic support to keep the fair free for visitors.

20 Must-See Monographic Museum Exhibitions Feature Artists Allan Rohan Crite, Wifredo Lam, Suzanne Jackson, Woody De Othello, Theaster Gates & More

Fall 2025 brings a wave of major monographic museum exhibitions worldwide, featuring artists such as Allan Rohan Crite, Wifredo Lam, Suzanne Jackson, Woody De Othello, and Theaster Gates. Highlights include the first mainstream museum shows for Crite in his hometown of Boston, the first solo museum exhibition for Gates in Chicago, and the first U.S. retrospective for Lam at MoMA. Other notable shows include surveys of Robert Colescott, Coco Fusco, Richard Hunt, Jacob Lawrence, and Cauleen Smith, spanning institutions from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town.

oliver jeffers praise shadows

Artist and children's book illustrator Oliver Jeffers held a dip performance two days before the opening of his solo show at Praise Shadows gallery in Boston, where he destroyed a portrait of Japanese artist and cancer survivor Yuri Shimojo by submerging it in enamel paint. The invite-only audience watched in silence as the image disappeared, a ritual Jeffers describes as both a death and a birth, exploring themes of memory, loss, and hidden variables. His exhibition also features his "Disaster Paintings," which treat serious subjects like climate change and violence with absurdist humor.

12 art exhibits to explore this fall

Greater Boston's fall art exhibitions feature a range of shows that reflect on social issues and artistic traditions. Notable exhibits include Jean Shin's "Fabricated Imaginaries: Crafting Art" at the Rose Art Museum, which explores textile consumption and Asian stereotypes; "Sketch, Shade, Smudge: Drawing from Gray to Black" at Harvard Art Museums, showcasing monochromatic works; "Andrew Gn: Fashioning the World" at the Peabody Essex Museum, highlighting the designer's blend of Eastern and Western aesthetics; and "List Projects 33: Every Ocean Hughes" at MIT List Visual Arts Center, examining the process of dying through video installation.

Discover Highlights from the 2025 Aspen Art Fair

The 2025 Aspen Art Fair returns to the Hotel Jerome for its second edition, running through August 2, with over 40 exhibitors from more than 15 countries. The fair has more than doubled in size from its inaugural year, now featuring 44 galleries, curated projects, conversations, and cultural programming. Highlights include a solo exhibition by Marc Dennis at Harper’s, featuring works inspired by the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, and Marjorie Strider’s Pop Art relief paintings at Galerie Gmurzynska. The fair is part of Aspen Art Week, which also includes the Aspen Art Museum’s ArtCrush Gala and Auction, Anderson Ranch Arts Center conversations, and public art projects.

New gallery Slip House to open in 1,000sqft, three-story former carriage house during Frieze Week.

Slip House, a new gallery co-founded by Ingrid Lundgren and Marissa Dembkoski, will open to the public on May 9, 2025, during Frieze Week. Located in a 1,000-square-foot, three-story former carriage house at 246 East 5th Street in New York's East Village, the gallery's inaugural exhibition features a multigenerational roster of artists, including historic works by Jack Whitten and Claude Viallat alongside contemporary pieces by Anne Hayden Stevens, Lizzy Gabay, Max Guy, and others. Former Sprüth Magers Director Jessica Draper co-curates the debut presentation. The space includes a second-floor fireplace and kitchen, and a third-floor live/work area that will host a rotating artist residency, with co-founder Dembkoski living onsite during the first year.

Rose Art Museum Expands Collection with Sam Hunter Committee Acquisitions of Works By Dhambit Munuŋgurr and Yu-Wen Wu

The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University has acquired works by artists Dhambit Munuŋgurr and Yu-Wen Wu for its permanent collection, selected by the Sam Hunter Emerging Artist Fund Committee. Munuŋgurr's piece, Bäru (2024), is a larrakitj memorial pole reimagined with white clay and ultramarine, while Wu's Recitations (2024) is a wall installation made from Taiwanese tea, gold, and red thread. Both works will debut in the exhibition Fabricated Imaginaries: Crafting Art opening August 20, 2025.

NEW contemporary art gallery to open in New York City’s Lower East Side.

Artist and curator Adam Heft Berninger is opening a new contemporary art gallery called Heft in New York City's Lower East Side on April 23, 2025. The gallery evolves from Berninger's curatorial project Tender into a permanent space, debuting with the group exhibition "Truth or" featuring generative art pioneers including Mario Klingemann, Katie Morris, Michael Mandiberg, and a collaboration between Edward Burtynsky and Alkan Avcıoğlu. The show runs through May 10, 2025, and includes works by Kevin Abosch, Gretchen Andrew, and others.

4 Details to Understand Martin Schongauer’s 'Madonna of the Rose Bower' Currently at the Louvre

4 détails pour comprendre « La Vierge au buisson de roses » de Martin Schongauer actuellement au Louvre

The Musée du Louvre is hosting a major exhibition dedicated to the Rhenish master Martin Schongauer, featuring his 1473 masterpiece, 'Madonna of the Rose Bower.' On loan from the Dominican Church in Colmar, the painting is a rare survivor of Schongauer’s small extant painted corpus and is making a significant journey to Paris despite its extreme fragility. The work is celebrated for its intricate detail and grace, qualities that earned the artist the nickname 'Handsome Martin' and influenced successors like Albrecht Dürer.

From royal visitors to extortionate eBay sales: new book offers rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of Vermeer blockbuster

The Rijksmuseum's 2023 Vermeer exhibition, widely considered the most successful show of the century, drew 650,000 visitors and assembled 28 of the artist's 37 known paintings. A new book, *Closer to Vermeer: New Research on the Painter and his Art*, reveals behind-the-scenes details: the initial plan for a broader thematic show was abandoned in favor of a focused Vermeer-only presentation; nine paintings could not be borrowed, including *The Concert* (stolen in 1990) and *The Astronomer* (on loan to Louvre Abu Dhabi); the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum refused to lend *Girl with a Wine Glass*, even rejecting an offer of buses for schoolchildren. The book also discloses that the Dutch king and queen visited multiple times during regular hours, that a quarter of visitors felt context was missing, and that over 3,500 complaints were filed about photography. The most expensive resold ticket on eBay reached $2,724.

As the Met’s Gorgeous New John Singer Sargent Exhibition Proves, There’s Much More to Madame X Than That Scandalous Strap

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has opened a major new exhibition, "Sargent and Paris," organized with the Musée d'Orsay, focusing on John Singer Sargent's formative decade in the French capital. The show culminates with his iconic portrait *Madame X* (1883–84), which caused a scandal at the 1884 Paris Salon when its jeweled strap appeared to slip off the subject's shoulder. Curator Stephanie L. Herdrich spent six years developing the exhibition, which includes approximately 100 works and aims to provide a more nuanced retelling of the painting's creation and impact. The exhibition runs from April 27 to August 3 at the Met before traveling to the Musée d'Orsay, marking the first monographic show of Sargent's work in France and the first time *Madame X* has been exhibited there in over 40 years.

On View in the RSM Art Gallery: The Gleanings by Joetta Maue

RSM Gallery is presenting "The Gleanings," a solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Joetta Maue featuring photography, installation, and embroidery. The show runs from October 16 to November 25, 2025, with an artist talk and opening reception on October 16 and a Reading Room Event on November 4 where visitors are invited to share books and excerpts. Maue's work explores the sublime within everyday life, focusing on overlooked fragments, ephemeral light, and the traces of the body across space and time, with embroideries that transcribe her research notations and a large wall installation titled "Sojourn" mapping geographies of artist residencies.