South Seas, a resort on Florida's Captiva Island, has purchased Robert Rauschenberg's 22-acre property, including his studio and beachfront, for $45 million. The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation sold the estate, citing unsustainable maintenance costs and the need to focus on its core mission, despite the property having survived Hurricane Ian.
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has sold the artist’s 22-acre Captiva Island estate to South Seas, a neighboring resort developer, for $45 million. The sale includes Rauschenberg’s former home, studio, and several cottages where he lived and worked for decades. The Foundation defended the move by citing the prohibitive costs of protecting the site against rising sea levels and hurricane damage, confirming that the prestigious Rauschenberg Residency program will now come to an end.
The International Fine Prints and Drawings Association (IFPDA) Print Fair at the Park Avenue Armory is honoring the legacy of master printer Kenneth E. Tyler. A central highlight of the event is the presentation by the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) of a new three-volume catalogue raisonné documenting Tyler Graphics from 1986 to 2001. The 94-year-old Tyler, a foundational figure in American printmaking, collaborated with titans of Modern art including Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, and Roy Lichtenstein across his storied career at Gemini GEL and Tyler Graphics.
The International Fine Prints and Drawings Association (IFPDA) Print Fair at the Park Avenue Armory is honoring the legacy of master printer Kenneth E. Tyler. A central highlight of the event is the presentation by the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) of a new three-volume catalogue raisonné documenting Tyler Graphics from 1986 to 2001. The 94-year-old Tyler, a foundational figure in American printmaking, is being celebrated for his technical innovations and his historic collaborations with titans of Modern art.
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has sold the late artist’s twenty-two-acre estate on Captiva Island, Florida, to the neighboring South Seas resort for $45 million. The sale includes ten buildings, most notably Rauschenberg’s custom-built 8,000-square-foot studio and his historic "Beach House." While the resort plans to integrate the property into its operations and host art-related programming, the foundation cited escalating maintenance costs and environmental risks from climate change as the primary reasons for the divestment.
Dealers at TEFAF Maastricht Report Robust Sales, Offering Works Ranging from Two Inches to Room-Size
Dealers at the TEFAF Maastricht art fair reported strong sales, defying concerns over global unrest and geopolitical tensions that limited some collectors' travel. The fair, featuring 277 dealers from 24 countries, saw a high caliber of international collectors engaging with works ranging from monumental 18th-century sculptures to minuscule, intricately detailed pieces. First-time exhibitors and veterans alike expressed satisfaction, with one rare books dealer calling it his best year in three decades of participation.
April in Los Angeles features a diverse array of art exhibitions, from major institutional retrospectives to politically charged group shows. Highlights include a 60-year retrospective of the influential printmaking studio Gemini G.E.L. at its own space, a survey of the Grunwald Center at the Hammer Museum, and shows celebrating LA performance art icons Bob & Bob and Rachel Rosenthal. The month also sees a newly discovered collection of matchbook miniatures by Joe Brainard and Dave Muller's work on social connection at ArtCenter.
The fifth annual High Desert Art Fair (HDAF) took place at the Pioneertown Motel in California's High Desert, featuring 20 galleries, nonprofits, studios, and publishers. Founded by Nicholas Fahey of Fahey/Klein Gallery and artist manager Candice Lawler, the fair leverages the area's existing artistic community and natural beauty to attract visitors from Los Angeles and beyond.
The Palazzo Strozzi in Florence has launched a major exhibition exploring the profound influence of the Italian Renaissance on Mark Rothko. Co-curated by the artist's son, Christopher Rothko, the show spans three historic locations: the Palazzo Strozzi, the Museo di San Marco, and the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. By placing Rothko’s abstract canvases in direct dialogue with Fra Angelico’s frescoes and Michelangelo’s architecture, the exhibition highlights how the artist’s visits to Italy in the 1950s and 60s shaped his spatial thinking and spiritual intensity.
The Camden Art Centre in London is hosting a significant survey of the late Guyanese-British artist Donald Locke, marking the final stop of a UK touring exhibition. Locke is celebrated for blending the formal language of minimalism and modernism with the potent symbols of Guyanese and Black American culture, effectively challenging the traditional art world's Eurocentric perspectives through his work in ceramics, painting, and sculpture.
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has announced the recipients of its one-time Rauschenberg Centennial Award, a $100,000 unrestricted prize honoring the artist's 100th birthday. Winners include artist Senga Nengudi, performer David Thomson, photographers Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun, and poet Patricia Spears Jones, all of whom were selected from past participants of the foundation's Captiva Residency program.
The article profiles Paul Arnhold, a New York-based glassblower and fourth-generation heir to a major Meissen porcelain collection. He discusses how his hands-on practice as a maker directly informs his eclectic approach to collecting, which spans from ancient Etruscan artifacts to contemporary paintings by artists like Salman Toor. He emphasizes collecting based on personal joy and tactile presence rather than provenance alone.
Calvin Tomkins, the longtime New Yorker staff writer renowned for his profiles of major 20th-century artists, has died at the age of 100. His career spanned more than six decades at the magazine, where he produced intimate and influential portraits of figures like Marcel Duchamp and Robert Rauschenberg, and authored several books including "Living Well Is the Best Revenge."
The 13th edition of Expo Chicago has opened at Navy Pier with a streamlined selection of 130 international exhibitors. This year’s fair features a more curated and manageable scale, drawing a significant crowd of museum directors, curators, and collectors to the Windy City. Notable presentations range from contemporary Canadian artist duos to rare historical artifacts, reflecting a high bar for quality across diverse media.
Antonio Homem, the longtime associate and eventual director of the Sonnabend Gallery, has died at 86. Homem began working with legendary gallerist Ileana Sonnabend in Paris in 1968, helped her open the New York gallery in 1971, and became the primary steward of the Sonnabend collection after her death in 2007, overseeing its transition into a foundation and a new public museum in Mantova, Italy.
The Trisha Brown Dance Company is reviving Robert Rauschenberg's first choreographed dance, 'Pelican,' for the first time in 60 years. The single-night performance will take place at the vintage Xanadu roller rink in Brooklyn as part of a 'Pelican Gala,' which also features two long-unseen dances by Trisha Brown. The event coincides with the centennial of Rauschenberg's birth.
The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas has launched "Rauschenberg Sculpture," a major exhibition marking the first museum presentation dedicated exclusively to Robert Rauschenberg’s three-dimensional works in three decades. Organized by senior curator Dr. Catherine Craft in collaboration with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the show features over two dozen works spanning the 1950s to the 1990s, including his iconic "Combines," rotating Plexiglas "Revolvers," and experimental clay and metal assemblages.
The Parrish Art Museum is hosting a special panel discussion on April 18 to coincide with Earth Day and the centennial of Robert Rauschenberg. The event features Helen Hsu from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and various contemporary artists featured in the museum's current exhibition, "Regeneration: Long Island’s History of Ecological Art and Care." The conversation will explore Rauschenberg’s environmental legacy—including his design of the first Earth Day poster in 1970—alongside modern artistic approaches to ecological activism.
The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is hosting a major retrospective titled "Robert Rauschenberg: Spreading Viaducts," which places a significant focus on the artist's formative years in his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas. The exhibition explores how the industrial landscape and unique coastal environment of the Gulf Coast influenced Rauschenberg’s revolutionary approach to materials and his development of the "Combine" paintings.
The article examines the largely overlooked curatorial work of poet Frank O'Hara during his tenure at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It details his role in organizing significant exhibitions, championing emerging artists like Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, and his influential collaborations with artists such as Larry Rivers.
Major museums across the United States are preparing to launch a diverse array of exhibitions for the spring season. Highlights include a comprehensive Marcel Duchamp retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, an exploration of Etruscan civilization at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, and a major fashion-focused exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum.
M+ museum in Hong Kong has announced a major exhibition titled "Robert Rauschenberg and Asia," scheduled to run from November 2022, 2025, through April 26, 2026. Curated by Russell Storer, the show explores the American master's deep engagement with the region, featuring his own works alongside pieces by Asian contemporary artists like Huang Yong Ping and Sui Jianguo.
A rare, typewritten lyric sheet for Bob Dylan’s song “I’m Not There” has resurfaced after being hidden for nearly 60 years inside a first-edition book of poetry by Allen Ginsberg. The document, which was discovered by a book dealer handling the estate of Sally Grossman, is set to be auctioned by Omega Auctions with an estimate of £20,000–£40,000. Other high-profile collectibles hitting the block include Stephen Curry’s game-worn sneakers at Sotheby’s and a signed Albert Einstein etching.
South African artist Cinga Samson makes his New York debut at White Cube with "Ukuphuthelwa," an exhibition of haunting, large-scale oil paintings. The works feature figures with distinctive white pupils engaged in enigmatic rituals within dark, crepuscular landscapes. Drawing from the isiXhosa concept of spiritual alertness during sleeplessness, Samson’s compositions blend the palpable with the unearthly, often depicting scenes that feel choreographed yet remain stubbornly illegible to the Western gaze.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acquisition of a newly identified Mannerist painting, Rosso Fiorentino's "Madonna and Child with Saint John the Evangelist" (1512–13), has sparked a viral, irreverent reaction on social media. Commenters on the museum's Instagram post have described the muscular infant Jesus using contemporary slang like "baddie," "yasssified," and "caked up," drawing parallels to modern beauty trends.
The Vatican has announced a star-studded lineup of musicians and artists for its pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, titled "The Ear Is the Eye of the Soul." Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers in collaboration with Soundwalk Collective, the exhibition features commissioned sound works from figures including Brian Eno, FKA Twigs, Patti Smith, and the late Alexander Kluge. The project is inspired by the 12th-century mystic Saint Hildegard of Bingen and will be staged across two historic Venetian locations: the Mystical Garden of the Discalced Carmelites and the Complesso di Santa Maria Ausiliatrice.
British painter Hurvin Anderson's exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario features his lush, layered paintings that explore themes of home, belonging, and cultural memory. The show includes his "Ball Watching" series, which reworks a 1983 photograph taken in Birmingham's Handsworth Park, transforming a personal snapshot into a meditation on place and identity.
Jack Kerouac's original 120-foot scroll manuscript for 'On the Road' sold for $12.1 million at Christie's, setting a record for a literary manuscript. The scroll, part of the late Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay's collection, was purchased by country singer-songwriter Zach Bryan, who plans to create a Jack Kerouac Center in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Historic Architecture Emerges from Stone in Matthew Simmonds Ethereal Sculptures
Sculptor Matthew Simmonds meticulously carves miniature, hyper-realistic architectural interiors—including gothic cathedral arches, vaulted ceilings, and stairwells—directly into hunks of Carrara marble and limestone. His recent works, often based on real sites like Bamberg Cathedral or Tuscan cities, reveal ornate, smooth interiors that contrast with the stone's raw exterior, and he is currently using a quieter period to experiment with how light and space within the sculptures can express a sacred quality.
A local resident has criticized the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality and local media for their delayed response to the deteriorating state of the historic NMB Metropolitan Art Museum. The critique highlights significant factual errors in recent reporting regarding the museum's history, specifically correcting the timeline of its construction phases which date back to 1927, rather than the 70-year history recently cited by officials.