Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule May 22, 2026 visibility 30 link 5 artists, 2 galleries

Why did Van Gogh sign his paintings as ‘Vincent’?

Art historian Julia Engelmayer has published a study titled 'Simply ‘Vincent’: An Overview of Van Gogh’s Signed Paintings' on the Van Gogh Museum's website, analyzing why and how Vincent van Gogh signed his works. The research reveals that only 133 of his 840 surviving paintings bear a signature (16%), an unusually low proportion for a 19th-century artist. Van Gogh signed with only his first name due to strained family relations and the difficulty non-Dutch speakers had pronouncing his surname. The study also highlights his predominant use of red signatures (on 75 works), angled signatures on over half of his signed pieces, and a distinctive horseshoe-shaped 'V' used during his Arles period.

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article news schedule May 11, 2026 visibility 59 link 22 artists, 7 galleries

Who Went to Venice Last Week? Jenny Saville, Glenn Lowry, Jewel, and Many Other Power Players

Artnet News reporter Katya Kazakina recounts her experience at the opening week of the 61st Venice Biennale, describing a whirlwind of art, parties, and chance encounters. Notable figures spotted include former MoMA director Glenn Lowry, singer-songwriter Jewel (who debuted her visual art show "Matriclysm: An Archaeology of Connections Lost"), and Japanese Nintendo heir and collector Banjo Yamauchi. High-profile events included Thaddaeus Ropac gallery's reception for Georg Baselitz's final paintings (priced up to $1.5 million) and François Pinault's annual party at Fondazione Giorgio Cini, attended by Selma Hayek, Lorna Simpson, and JR. The article also highlights the social dynamics of the biennale, where dealers, curators, and collectors network across historic palazzos and hotels.

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article news schedule Dec 15, 2025 visibility 25 link 29 artists, 3 galleries

paint drippings art industry news dec 15

This week's art industry roundup covers major auction results, gallery representation changes, museum leadership shifts, and a high-profile art theft. François-Xavier Lalanne's *Hippopotame Bar* sold for $31.4 million at Sotheby's Breuer headquarters, setting a record for both the artist and design works. A Tiffany Magnolia floor lamp also set a new auction record at Sotheby's, fetching $4.4 million. Meanwhile, a New Jersey auction house quietly sold over $100,000 of Jeffrey Epstein's belongings, including artworks, without disclosing his ownership. In the gallery world, several artists changed representation, and former Clearing director John Utterson joined Thaddaeus Ropac. Museum news includes the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art repatriating three Khmer-era sculptures to Cambodia, Maria Balshaw stepping down as Tate director, MoMA PS1 offering free admission starting January 1, and the Rijksmuseum planning a new branch in Eindhoven. Additionally, eight rare Matisse prints and five works by Candido Portinari were stolen from São Paulo's Mário de Andrade Library.

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article news schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 30 link 20 artists, 5 galleries

paint drippings art industry news jul 14

This week's art industry news includes Art Basel appointing Egyptian artist Wael Shawky as artistic director of its first Middle East fair, Art Basel Qatar, running February 5–7, 2026. A new fair called Loading… debuts in Hudson, N.Y., during Upstate Art Weekend, while Vienna Contemporary names Abaseh Mirvali as artistic director. Bonhams offers material from Roy Lichtenstein's Hamptons home, and a legendary Le Birkin handbag sells for €8.5 million at Sotheby's Paris. Galleries see Hollis Taggart adding two artists, Adam Lindemann closing Venus Over Manhattan, and Berlin's Meyer Riegger and Paris's Galerie Jocelyn Wolff opening a joint Seoul gallery. Museums include the Zayed National Museum opening in Abu Dhabi, Shamim M. Momin named director of the Bronx Museum, and the Baltimore Museum of Art acquiring 150 new works. The Art Bridges Foundation and Crystal Bridges acquire 90 Indigenous artworks, and the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt opens a temporary location. In legal news, DHS officials visited the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture in Chicago.

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article news schedule Jul 8, 2025 visibility 26 link 14 artists, 5 galleries

paint drippings art industry news jul 7

This week's art industry news covers major auction results, gallery changes, and restitution developments. At Christie's Old Masters evening sale in London, Canaletto's "The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day" set a new auction record for the artist at £31.9 million ($43.9 million), leading the sale to a total of £60.8 million. Sotheby's Old Masters evening sale brought in £14.5 million, with three new records including Diana de Rosa's "Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist" selling for £317,500. A rare early watercolor by Man Ray, "Nude Playing Musical Instrument" (1913), resurfaced after decades and will be auctioned at Dreweatts. In gallery news, Blum gallery laid off most of its staff and plans to cease brick-and-mortar operations, while Waddington Custot announced a new Paris space, and Company Gallery hired Subhas Kim Kandasamy as executive director. White Cube now represents Firenze Lai, and JD Malat Gallery launched a new initiative for UAE artists. In restitution, the Netherlands returned 119 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, transferred two Benin works to the Oba of Benin.

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article news schedule Nov 6, 2025 visibility 22 link 18 artists, 3 galleries

us pavilion venice biennale robert lazzarini proposal

The United States Pavilion at the upcoming Venice Biennale faces an uncertain future after a proposal by artist Robert Lazzarini and independent curator John Ravenal collapsed. The proposal, selected by the US State Department in early September, fell through when the University of South Florida’s Contemporary Art Museum declined to sign the contract, citing a shortened timeline and financial obligations. Ravenal attributed the breakdown to bureaucratic misalignment rather than ideological disagreement, while the State Department declined to comment. The selection process also shifted this year, with the National Endowment for the Arts excluding itself due to staffing transitions, leaving the State Department to handle it alone.

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article news schedule Jun 23, 2025 visibility 23 link 6 artists, 9 galleries

el greco paint drippings art industry news jun 20

This week's art industry roundup covers a range of developments: a new wave of younger, deliberate collectors is reshaping the art market, as reported from Art Basel; the Independent art fair will relocate to Pier 36 in New York in 2026; Riga Contemporary, a new fair, launches in Latvia; and the inaugural Arrival art fair took place in North Adams, Massachusetts. In auctions, seven never-before-seen Picasso ceramic plates sold in Geneva for nearly double their estimate, while a Giacometti sculpture made the top 10 sales list. Galleries news includes Nara Roesler now representing Asuka Anastasia Ogawa, a new gallery called Open Studio opening in New York, and Andrew Edlin Gallery relocating. In museums, a government watchdog found the Trump Administration broke the law by withholding funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and UC Irvine and the Orange County Museum of Art plan to merge. A legal battle over an El Greco painting withdrawn from Christie's auction is advancing, with the owner revealed as Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev.

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article news schedule Mar 31, 2026 visibility 51 link 10 artists, 1 gallery

Exclusive | The world's 100 most visited art museums in 2025: new venues a big hit with visitors

The Art Newspaper's 2025 survey of the world's 100 most visited art museums reveals a strong but uneven recovery from the pandemic, with total visits reaching over 200 million. New museums in the Middle East, East Asia, and major Western cities have been major hits with the public, driving significant attendance.

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article news schedule May 7, 2026 visibility 25 link 12 artists, 4 galleries

Art Movements: New Museum Names Its First Artist Studio Residents

The New Museum has named Yun Choi, Alison Kuo, and Korakrit Arunanondchai as the first artists-in-residence for its new Artist Studio, a 730-square-foot space created by the museum's OMA-designed expansion. The residencies will run from spring 2025 through winter 2027, with each artist developing new work, onsite exhibitions, and public programs. Separately, Forge Project announced its 2026 fellows—six Indigenous artists including Jay Bellis, Heidi Brandow, and Tiare Ribeaux—who will each receive $25,000 and a three-week residency. In other news, the Robert Therrien Estate has left Gagosian for David Zwirner Gallery, Laurel Nakadate won the Maud Morgan Prize, and Frieze New York revealed a staff uniform designed by artist Reika Takebayashi.

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article news schedule Jan 26, 2026 visibility 24 link 2 artists, 1 gallery

open art museum directorships in the united states list

A significant number of American art museums are currently without a permanent director, or will soon be. Recent departures include Sally Tallant from the Queens Museum to lead London's Hayward Gallery, and David Brenneman from Telfair Museums due to a medical condition. Other high-profile vacancies include the National Portrait Gallery, MOCA Los Angeles, the New Museum, the Portland Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Clark Art Institute, the Newark Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among many others across various budget sizes and regions.

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article news schedule Jun 26, 2025 visibility 30 link 21 artists, 1 gallery

popular artists march 2025

Artnet News published its quarterly analysis of the most exhibited living artists at over 250 U.S. museums in March 2025, identifying more than 3,700 artists. The top artist is photographer Cara Romero, who appears in multiple museum shows including a major retrospective at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College. Three of the six most featured artists have Native American backgrounds, reflecting a surge in exhibitions celebrating Indigenous art. The list excludes the late Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, a Native painter and curator who died in January 2025 at age 85 and would have ranked highly.

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article news schedule Jun 25, 2025 visibility 21 link 4 artists, 1 gallery

emily sargent

The article reveals that Emily Sargent (1857–1936), sister of famed portraitist John Singer Sargent, was a dedicated and original watercolorist whose extensive body of work remained hidden for decades. In 1998, a family member discovered a trunk containing 440 of her watercolors, and after nearly 25 years, the Sargent family has begun donating these works to major museums in the U.S. and U.K., including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (45 works), the Tate, London (29), the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (24), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (22), and the Brooklyn Museum (20).

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article news schedule Mar 26, 2026 visibility 35 link 8 artists

Whitney Biennial Trends, a New Baroque Art Star, and Banksy Unmasked

The Art Angle podcast, hosted by Ben Davis and Kate Brown with guest Eileen Kinsella, recapped major art stories from March 2026. The discussion centered on three key developments: the opening of the 2026 Whitney Biennial, the rising art historical prominence of 17th-century Flemish painter Michaelina Wautier, and a new investigation claiming to have definitively unmasked the identity of the anonymous street artist Banksy.

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article news schedule Mar 12, 2026 visibility 23 link 2 artists

Dresden museum wins Tefaf award for Rubens restoration

The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden has received the Tefaf Museum Restoration Fund award for its ongoing restoration of Peter Paul Rubens's 17th-century painting 'The Boar Hunt'. The project involves removing discolored 19th-century varnish and undoing damaging 19th-century stabilization attempts that caused cracks in the wooden panel, aiming to reveal the work's original dynamism and palette.

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article news schedule Oct 31, 2025 visibility 16 link 6 artists

talladega college hale woodruff murals partnership

Talladega College, a historically Black college in Alabama, has partnered with the Toledo Museum of Art, Art Bridges, and the Terra Foundation for American Art to share six monumental murals by artist Hale A. Woodruff. Painted between 1939 and 1942, the murals depict key moments in African American history, including the Amistad uprising and the Underground Railroad. Under the agreement, the Toledo Museum of Art acquired *The Underground Railroad* (1942), while Art Bridges and the Terra Foundation jointly acquired the three Amistad murals; the remaining two murals stay at the college. All six works will be periodically reunited on campus, ensuring their continued connection to the institution that commissioned them.

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article news schedule Sep 5, 2025 visibility 20 link 7 artists

us ambassador uk cezzane monet winfield house

America’s new ambassador to Britain, Warren Stephens, has transformed Winfield House, the official residence in Regent’s Park, into a private museum by installing works from his family’s art collection. The display includes several Cézannes, a Renoir, a Degas, and a centerpiece Monet painting, *Effet de soleil couchant sur la Seine à Port-Villez* (1883), hung above the drawing-room mantelpiece. Unlike most ambassadors who rely on loans from the State Department’s “Art in Embassies” program, Stephens draws directly on his own holdings, which were assembled in partnership with the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts.

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article news schedule Jun 20, 2025 visibility 21 link 4 artists

climate activist hurls pink paint at picasso painting at montreal museum

On Thursday, an environmental activist from the group Last Generation Canada hurled bright pink paint at Pablo Picasso's 1901 painting *L’hetaire* at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The protester, identified as 21-year-old Marcel, was arrested and later released pending a court appearance; two accomplices who filmed the act were detained and released without charge. The group cited the record-breaking heat wave in Winnipeg and Manitoba as a motivation, arguing that art is meaningless on a dead planet.

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article news schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 14 link 3 artists

rivera kahlo estate mismanagement allegations

Hilda Trujillo Soto, former director of the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera museums in Mexico City, has publicly accused the trust overseeing these institutions of years of mismanagement. In a blog post published in early April, Soto alleged that trustees failed to address discrepancies in records, with Kahlo and Rivera works possibly missing and later appearing in private U.S. collections. She also claimed that materials from Kahlo’s personal diary and artworks catalogued in 1957, including *Frida in Flames* and *The Abortion*, have been misplaced or illegally sold. The trust, established by Rivera in 1955 and now administered by Mexico’s central bank Banxico, denied Soto’s claims, stating she never officially reported concerns during her tenure from 2009 to 2020.

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article news schedule Apr 27, 2026 source 2 sources visibility 27 link 16 artists

Giant Buddha Lands in New York

Artist Xandra Ibarra staged a nude performance titled "Nude Laughing" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, walking through the contemporary galleries to challenge viewer etiquette and spark conversations about consent, art history, and the human body. Separately, a 27-foot-tall Buddha sculpture has been installed on the High Line in New York, serving as a resurrection of the destroyed Bamiyan Buddhas and a critical piece of cultural heritage.

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article news schedule Apr 9, 2026 source 2 sources visibility 18 link 4 artists

Required Reading

This week’s roundup of essential art reading highlights a diverse range of global initiatives, from the development of a new arts center in Compton by formerly incarcerated painter Mr. Wash to a mural project for displaced children in Lebanon led by artist Abed Al Kadiri. The report also covers a guerrilla projection protest at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where activists criticized the institution for laying off staff members of color despite a massive endowment, and a poignant look at medical students graduating amidst the ongoing crisis in Gaza.

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article news schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 32 link 16 artists, 1 gallery

From hard borders to soft power: how did the art world fare in 2025?

The article surveys the art world's turbulent 2025, beginning with devastating Los Angeles wildfires that destroyed artworks and the political shockwaves of Donald Trump's re-election. Trump's administration targeted the National Portrait Gallery, whose director Kim Sajet resigned after threats of firing, while immigration crackdowns, tariffs on art imports, and attacks on diversity initiatives chilled the art community. The year also saw Venice residents protest Jeff Bezos's lavish wedding, Trump's gilded Oval Office renovations, and a major Veronese exhibition at the Prado that drew parallels between historical extravagance and decline.

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article news schedule Sep 16, 2025 visibility 28 link 28 artists, 3 galleries

These 16 Artists Are the Biggest at U.S. Museums Right Now

This article presents a quarterly analysis of which living artists are most featured in temporary exhibitions across U.S. museums during September 2025. The author ranks artists based on the number and type of shows they appear in, prioritizing career retrospectives, dedicated exhibitions, and special commissions. The list is dominated by Black and Indigenous artists whose work addresses racism, colonialism, and nature, with Jeffrey Gibson topping the chart due to his Met facade commission, Broad show, and Venice Biennale U.S. Pavilion recreation. Other prominent artists include Firelei Báez, Rashid Johnson, Anila Quayyum Agha, and Ai Weiwei, the only non-U.S.-based artist on the list.

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article news schedule Sep 29, 2021 visibility 25 link 31 artists, 1 gallery

Preview

The Art Newspaper is promoting its digital newsletter, which delivers a daily digest of essential news, views, and analysis from the international art world directly to subscribers' inboxes. The article serves as a brief call-to-action for readers to subscribe.

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article news schedule Jan 15, 2026 visibility 20 link 5 artists

museo del prado visitor numbers

Museo del Prado director Miguel Falomir announced at a press conference unveiling the museum's 2026 exhibition schedule that the institution does not need more visitors, stating it is comfortable with 3.5 million annual visitors and fears becoming "over-saturated." Falomir cited concerns about circulation around iconic works like Velázquez's *Las Meninas* and Bosch's *The Garden of Earthly Delights*, and emphasized improving visitor experience through optimizing entrances, reducing group sizes, and enforcing photography bans. The Prado, last expanded in 2007, is significantly smaller than the Louvre, which topped 2024 visitor figures with 8.7 million.

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article news schedule Dec 26, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

pointing fingers in old master paintings study

A new study published in *Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts* by French researcher Temenuzhka Dimova uses eye-tracking technology to examine how pointing fingers in Old Master paintings affect viewer attention. Conducted through the University of Vienna’s Laboratory for Cognitive Research in Art History (CReA), the study compared participants' eye movements when viewing original paintings—such as Theodor Rombouts's *The Card Players*—and digitally altered versions where the pointing gestures were removed. Results showed that viewers focused more on the faces of pointing figures and the narrative context, not just the target of the gesture, and that removing the finger fundamentally changed how the story was perceived.

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article news schedule May 2, 2025 visibility 14 link 2 artists

trump inauguration donors major art patrons warren stephens

Major art collectors Warren Stephens, Ken Griffin, Paul Singer, and Charles and Helen Schwab were among the top individual donors to President Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration fundraising committee, according to data from the Federal Election Commission and Open Secrets. Stephens, a major donor to the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art, gave $4 million, the largest individual contribution, while Griffin, Singer, and the Schwabs each donated $1 million or more. The article also details additional political donations from these collectors, including Griffin's $100 million in conservative election spending, and notes that many large corporations like Amazon and BlackRock also contributed.

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article news schedule Apr 4, 2026 source 2 sources visibility 23 link 4 artists

Natural disasters and political instability hampered U.S. museum attendance in 2025

Major U.S. museums experienced a significant decline in attendance during 2025. The downturn was primarily driven by a series of severe natural disasters, including hurricanes and wildfires, which disrupted travel and forced temporary closures, alongside periods of domestic political instability that deterred both local and international visitors.

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article news schedule Dec 15, 2025 visibility 26 link 3 artists

museum workers tate strike met union

Workers at two major museums, the Tate in the U.K. and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, are taking labor action to demand higher wages and job security. Over 150 Tate staff from the PCS Tate United union went on strike across four locations, with picketing at Tate Britain, Tate Modern, and Tate Liverpool, disrupting the opening of the exhibition "Turner and Constable: Rivals and Originals." Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 employees at the Met have petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for a union election, which would be one of the largest museum unions in the U.S.

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article news schedule Apr 14, 2026 visibility 19 link 9 artists, 1 gallery

Virginia Museum Of Contemporary Art Opening New Building In Virginia Beach

The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (Virginia MOCA) has announced plans to relocate from its longtime home to a new, state-of-the-art facility in Virginia Beach. This move marks a significant expansion for the institution, aiming to modernize its exhibition spaces and enhance its capacity for community engagement and educational programming.

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article news schedule Jan 23, 2026 visibility 21 link 5 artists

Pioneering US collector Albert Barnes turned down both of Van Gogh’s 'Starry Nights'

Albert Barnes, the pioneering US collector who built the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, twice declined the opportunity to acquire Vincent van Gogh's iconic 'Starry Night' paintings. Unpublished correspondence in the Barnes Foundation archives reveals that in 1923, agent Frank Washburn Freund offered Barnes *Starry Night over the Rhône* (1888), but Barnes did not pursue it; the painting later went to the Musée d'Orsay. In 1936, the Van Wisselingh gallery offered Barnes *Starry Night* (1889), but he again passed; it was eventually acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Despite these missed chances, Barnes was the first American to buy a Van Gogh, ultimately owning seven works by the artist, including *The Postman* and *Still Life*.

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