The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) held its 2026 gala, a major fundraising event attended by prominent figures from the city's art, philanthropy, and social circles. The event featured notable attendees including artist Andy Goldsworthy, museum director Thomas Campbell, and major donors like Dede Wilsey and Mayor Daniel Lurie.
Ferris State University's Kendall College of Art and Design (KCAD) alumni, faculty, and students have been recognized in the 2025 West Michigan Area Show, a juried exhibition hosted by the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. The 64th annual competition drew nearly 500 entries from 14 Michigan counties, with 64 selected for inclusion. Eleven pieces by artists with KCAD connections were featured, and three received distinguished awards from juror Hubert Massey, a Detroit-based artist and educator. Notable winners include Lee Ann Frame, who won the Ward H. and Cora E. Nay Director’s Purchase Prize and the Southwest Michigan Printmakers Excellence in Printmaking Award, and Tatsuki Hakoyama, who received The Martin Maddox Prize for Imaginative Realism. Other participants include professor emeritus Jay Constantine, alumni Beth Purdy and Jackson Wrede, and students Sydney Donath and Kaylee Dirkmaat.
Bow Arts, a UK charity founded in 1994, has acquired two buildings in east London to create permanently affordable studio spaces for artists. The purchases include a site in the Hackney Yards development, developed in partnership with housing association Notting Hill Genesis and supported by Arts Council England and the London Legacy Development Corporation, which will provide 38 studios by 2026, and the Brutalist Lakeside Centre in Thamesmead, already housing over 40 artist studios. This follows Bow Arts’ first owned building, Three Waters, acquired in 2022 on a 999-year lease with 70 studios. The charity now owns three of the 28 buildings it manages across London, with an annual turnover of £5.1 million, most of which is reinvested into the creative community.
The Fine 383/CS 383 Computational Digital Art Studio, a cross-listed course between the Fine Arts Department and the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, held an exhibition showcasing final projects by students Yujin Bae, Laith Bahodi, Niko Forsyth, Aastha Parmar, Vedaant Varshney, Jeannie Zhang, and Wilbur Zhang. The exhibition took place on April 2 in East Campus Hall, featuring original artworks created through the integration of artistic practice with computer science principles such as generative agents, advanced computer vision, and distributed computing.
Detroit's Cass Cafe, a longtime community hub and restaurant that closed three years ago, will reopen this month to host a retrospective art exhibition. The show, titled "Retrospective: A Life in Art," features works by Detroit artists Jim and Lucille Nawara and is organized in partnership with the neighboring Detroit Contemporary. Organizers describe the event as both a gallery opening and a community reunion.