Artist Foundations’ Net Worth Has Nearly Tripled to $9 B., Led by Cy Twombly Foundation’s $1.5 B. in Art and Assets

New research from the Aspen Institute’s Artist-Endowed Foundation Initiative (AEFI) reveals that artist-endowed foundations in the U.S. now control roughly $9 billion in assets, nearly triple the $3.5 billion reported in 2011 and up 17% from $7.7 billion in 2018. The Cy Twombly Foundation leads with $1.5 billion in art and assets, followed by foundations for Alexander Calder, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, and Robert Rauschenberg, each holding over $500 million. The data, drawn from public tax forms, shows that just five of roughly 500 foundations account for more than half the total, with most established by postwar American artists born before 1931.

new trustees at seattle art museum industry moves

This week's art industry moves include François Ghebaly now representing Paris-based painter Xie Lei, a finalist for the 2025 Prix Marcel Duchamp, whose work is on view at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris. Gray gallery in Chicago and New York has taken on pioneering abstractionist Candida Alvarez, with a solo exhibition planned for Fall 2027, while she continues to be represented by Monique Meloche Gallery. The Seattle Art Museum elected five new trustees: Joanna Beitel, Martha Draves, Margaret Morris, Jordon Voss, and returning former trustee Lyn Grinstein. The Khadhok—Tibetan Artists' Collective won the 2025 Rubin Museum Himalayan Art Prize, a $30,000 unrestricted award. Additionally, Canadian collector François Odermatt paid $19 million for Peter Doig's 1994 painting *Ski Jacket* at Christie's London, far exceeding its presale estimate.

dan colen sky high farm biennial exhibition

Artist Dan Colen and his nonprofit Sky High Farm are launching a new biennial exhibition titled “TREES NEVER END AND HOUSES NEVER END,” opening June 28 at a historic apple cold storage warehouse in Germantown, New York. The exhibition, curated by Colen, features over 50 artists including Alvaro Barrington, Nan Goldin, Roni Horn, and Rirkrit Tiravanija, and marks the farm’s relocation from its original 40-acre site in Ancramdale to a new 560-acre property in Ancram. The biennial serves as an alternative fundraising model for the organization, which grows nutritious food for communities lacking access to fresh produce and has never sold its harvest.

robert longo pace gallery review

Artist Robert Longo presents a new exhibition at Pace Gallery, featuring his signature large-scale, hyperrealistic drawings that address themes of brutality, conflict, and protest. The show is a revised version of a 2023 exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum, with works based on media images of events such as the war in Ukraine, Black Lives Matter protests, and migrant crises. The article critically examines several pieces, including "Untitled (Ferguson Police, August 13, 2014)" and "Untitled (Refugees at Mediterranean Sea, Sub-Saharan Migrants, July 25, 2017)," arguing that Longo's manipulations of source photographs result in melodramatic and dishonest representations.

saudi arabia art scene athr gallery interview

ARTnews interviews Mohammed Hafiz, co-founder of Athr Gallery in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as part of its Newsmakers series. Hafiz discusses the evolution of the Saudi art scene since Athr's founding in 2009, the gallery's expansion into multiple locations and a foundation offering grants and residencies, and the role of grassroots patrons and collectors before the Ministry of Culture's involvement in 2018. The interview, conducted at the Athr Foundation in Riyadh during the first annual Art Week Riyadh, also touches on Hafiz's personal history with art, including buying his first artwork in high school in the 1990s, and challenges misconceptions that the Saudi art scene began only recently.

year in latinx art 2025 artists museums

The article reflects on the state of Latinx art in 2025, a year marked by devastating wildfires in Los Angeles and the start of the second Trump administration, which has intensified ICE raids and targeted communities of color. Amid this crisis, artists have created poignant responses, including AMBOS's ceramics project at Frieze Los Angeles benefiting migrants awaiting asylum hearings, and Consuelo Jimenez Underwood's solo exhibition at Artpace in San Antonio, which explored borders both literal and cosmic. The piece also highlights a two-person show by Beatriz Cortez and rafa esparza at the Americas Society, titled "Earth and Cosmos," featuring works that challenge time and space.

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.

olney gleason jackson pollock and lee krasner

Olney Gleason, a new gallery founded by former Kasmin senior staff Nick Olney and Eric Gleason, has been appointed as the exclusive representative for the estates of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner through the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. The gallery, which opened earlier this year, succeeds Kasmin in handling the artists' work; Kasmin had represented Pollock since 2024 and Krasner since 2017. Olney and Gleason previously organized multiple Krasner exhibitions at Kasmin and supported major museum shows, including a 2019 Krasner retrospective at the Barbican Centre and a 2024 Pollock exhibition at the Picasso Museum in Paris.

mildred thompson retrospective ica miami

The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Miami has opened "Mildred Thompson: Frequencies," the first comprehensive retrospective of the late artist Mildred Thompson (1936–2003). Spanning five decades, the exhibition brings together 49 works—including wood assemblages, monochromatic prints, and oversized triptychs—sourced from the artist's estate and Galerie Lelong & Co. It traces Thompson's career as she moved between the United States and Germany, highlighting her stylistic evolution and her deep engagement with abstraction, science, and spirituality. The show follows earlier focused presentations like "Against the Grain" (2018) at the New Orleans Museum of Art and the 2017 "Magnetic Fields" exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

paint drippings art industry news apr 28

This week's art industry roundup covers major developments across art fairs, auction houses, galleries, and museums. At Expo Chicago, emerging artist Auudi Dorsey sold her painting *Rumble* (2025) for $14,000 on opening day at Palo Gallery, while the fair featured 170 exhibitors including 20 from South Korea amid tariff concerns. Vienna Contemporary appointed Abaseh Mirvali as artistic advisor for 2025-2026. Sotheby's was selected by Barbara Gladstone's estate trustees to sell her collection, starting with a May 15 single-owner sale of 12 works estimated at over $12 million. Nine artworks from the Anne and Sid Bass collection head to Christie's New York, and Sotheby's secured a $70 million Alberto Giacometti sculpture for its May 13 evening sale. Philipp Kaiser departed Marian Goodman Gallery after six years. Customs backlogs from President Trump's import policy changes are causing shipping headaches, with DHL halting business-to-consumer shipments over $800 to the U.S. Air de Paris withdrew from Art Basel. Mexico City gallery OMR hired Agustina Ferreyra as director. Angelica Jopling is expanding her London gallery Incubator to New York. Alexander Gray Associates now represents Donald Moffett. In museums, the National Endowment for the Humanities, following DOGE staff cuts, is offering grants up to $600,000 for statues for Trump's National Garden of American Heroes. CCS Bard appointed Lauren Cornell as artistic director and Mariano Lopez Seoane as graduate program director. The New York Academy of Art named Paul R. Provost president. The Artists' Legacy Foundation appointed Daisy Murray Holman executive director. The Speed Art Museum named Diallo Simon-Ponte assistant curator. The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow appointed Daria Kotova director. The Nasher Sculpture Center named Carlos Basualdo director. The Cultural Infrastructure Index reported a 17% drop in completed cultural projects in 2024.

Art Movements: Michelle Millar Fisher Heads to Cooper Hewitt

Michelle Millar Fisher, formerly curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has been appointed chief curator at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in Manhattan. She succeeds Matilda McQuaid, who is retiring after 24 years. Separately, the Getty Foundation awarded $1.8 million in grants to eight institutions through its Black Visual Arts Archive initiative, supporting the processing of historical records related to Black art. Other notable appointments include Jamie Blosser as curator of the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Graham C. Boettcher as director and CEO of the Norman Rockwell Museum, and Susan Fisher Sterling's retirement from the National Museum of Women in Arts. Artist Nora Turato also unveiled a humorous billboard near the High Line reading 'GIVE US MOM!!!'.

Marica Vilcek, Art Historian Whose Foundation Upheld the Work of Immigrants, Dies at 89

Marica Vilcek, art historian and co-founder of the Vilcek Foundation, has died at 89 in New York. She and her husband Jan, both immigrants from Czechoslovakia, established the foundation in 2000 to provide grants and prizes, primarily to immigrant artists, curators, and scientists, celebrating their contributions to American society.

black arts institutions funding nea cuts

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has announced funding cuts to arts organizations across the U.S. as part of broader government spending reductions under the Trump administration. These cuts disproportionately affect Black-led art institutions, including the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA), Museum Hue, and the Billie Holiday Theatre, which rely heavily on federal grants for programming and operations. While some organizations received final payments or avoided returning funds, they face an uncertain future as critical funding streams are terminated or made ineligible for renewal.

Art Movements: Dozens Laid Off at Artnet and Artsy

Digital art giants Artnet and Artsy have implemented significant layoffs following their recent merger under the investment firm Beowolff Capital. The cuts, which occurred on April 16, impacted dozens of employees across both organizations, including senior editorial staff such as Sarah Cascone and Eileen Kinsella. The restructuring follows a reported 12% revenue decline for Artnet in early 2025 and involves the shutdown of Artnet's German entity as the two companies consolidate into a single team led by CEO Jeffrey Yin.

Why London’s Whitechapel Gallery Hired an Economist

London's Whitechapel Gallery has appointed economist Mariana Mazzucato as its first economist-in-residence, a three-year role aimed at rethinking how museums generate revenue and demonstrate social value. The gallery faces a £880,458 deficit, a 325% increase from the previous year, due to declining exhibition income, reduced trust and foundation funding, and cuts in Arts Council England grants. Mazzucato, a professor at University College London and director of the Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose, will advocate for treating culture as a strategic public investment.

nea funding cuts

President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and arts organizations across the U.S. are already feeling the impact. After a White House budget request in May that excluded the NEA, dozens of institutions received abrupt termination notices for their grant applications, with the NEA citing a shift in policy priorities to focus on projects reflecting the nation's artistic heritage as prioritized by the President. In protest, many senior NEA staff resigned or were asked to retire, leaving the agency in disarray. The cuts are part of broader federal efforts to defund cultural agencies, including the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, which has seen a 70-80 percent staff reduction and canceled over a thousand grants. Private foundations like the Mellon Foundation and the Helen Frankenthaler and Andy Warhol Foundations have launched emergency funding programs, but the consequences for artists, educators, and community organizations are immediate and destabilizing.

warhol frankenthaler foundation fund nea

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation have announced an $800,000 fund to support 80 visual arts programs at small and mid-sized organizations across the United States. Each recipient, previously funded through the National Endowment for the Arts' Challenge America initiative, will receive $10,000 to advance projects stalled after the Trump administration suspended that federal program. The announcement comes amid broader cuts to federal arts funding, including the departure of all 10 NEA grant directors and the termination of grants for organizations like n+1, SculptureCenter, Queer Art, and A.I.R. Gallery, which received notices citing misalignment with the administration's priorities.

pope francis contemporary art obituary

Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, has died at age 88. A Jesuit priest from Argentina, he was the first pope from the Americas and the first from outside Europe since the 8th century. During his papacy, he took progressive stances on social justice, migrants, the environment, and the LGBTQ community, and also engaged deeply with contemporary art. He oversaw the Vatican Museums, ordered the return of Parthenon marble fragments to Greece, restored Raphael frescoes, and became the first pope to visit the Venice Biennale, where the Vatican had its first-ever pavilion in 2013.

Recipients of $100,000 Rauschenberg Centennial Award Named

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.

warhol foundation fall 2025 grants

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has announced its Fall 2025 grant recipients, awarding over $4 million to 57 arts organizations across 17 states, Washington, D.C., and two international locations. Grantees range from established institutions like the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and Independent Curators International to smaller artist-run spaces such as Mini Mart City Park in Seattle and Transformer in Washington, D.C. Twenty organizations are first-time recipients, including Path with Arts in Seattle and Access Gallery in Denver. Exhibition support covers solo shows for artists like Ching Ho Cheng, Gisela Colón, and Leilah Babirye, as well as group exhibitions such as “Telenovelas” at the Americas Society and the Counterpublic 2026 Triennial.

Artists Gala Porras-Kim, Jeremy Frey and Tuan Andrew Nguyen among winners of 2025 MacArthur ‘genius grants'

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced its 2025 cohort of MacArthur Fellows, awarding 27 recipients—including visual artists Gala Porras-Kim, Jeremy Frey, Matt Black, Garrett Bradley, Tonika Lewis Johnson, and Tuan Andrew Nguyen—with $800,000 each over five years. The artists span conceptual institutional critique, Indigenous basketry, documentary photography, film, and social practice, with several currently holding major solo exhibitions or biennial features.

DACA Artist Uses Thread to Weave Immigration Stories

Arleene Correa Valencia, a DACA recipient and Bay Area artist, presents her debut solo exhibition "CÓDICE •• SOBREVIVIENDO A LA PERSECUCIÓN" at Fridman Gallery in Manhattan, on view through May 2. The show features large-scale acrylic and textile works on amate bark paper, including a 16-foot-long piece depicting border-crossing narratives. Valencia collaborates with her father, mother-in-law, and papermaker Jose Daniel Santos de la Puerta, and incorporates childhood letters that poignantly reflect family separation and undocumented life.

Book uncovers the life of Barnett Newman, an artist who ran for New York mayor

A new biography titled "Barnett Newman: Here" by Amy Newman (no relation) explores the life of Abstract Expressionist painter Barnett Newman, revealing his little-known 1933 run for mayor of New York City at age 28 under a platform of cultural and environmental reforms. The book details his upbringing as the son of Jewish immigrants in the Bronx, his philosophical studies, and his eventual reinvention as a painter who pioneered the 'zip' painting style with works like Onement I, while also chronicling his combative personality and lifelong battles against political machines and critics.

Titian's ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’ to get a refresh with bank conservation grant

Bank of America’s annual art conservation program has awarded grants to 18 projects this year, including the restoration of Titian’s *Bacchus and Ariadne* (1520-23) at the National Gallery in London. The painting will be removed from display next month for conservation work that involves placing it on a new fabric support and repairing paint loss. Other funded projects include Rembrandt’s *The Night Watch* at the Rijksmuseum, bronze palms at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, *Gaki Zōshi* at the Tokyo National Museum, Matisse’s *La Négresse* at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and works at the Museo de Arte de Lima and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

2026 Guggenheim Fellowships Go to Sonya Clark, John Miller, and American Artist

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has announced its 101st class of fellows, awarding 223 scholars and artists across 55 disciplines for 2026. Selected from a pool of nearly 5,000 applicants, the new cohort includes prominent visual artists such as Sonya Clark, John Miller, American Artist, and Kota Ezawa. The fellowships provide significant financial grants to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.

IMLS Spared in Legal Battle—But Threat of Budget Cuts Looms

The U.S. Department of Justice has reached a settlement with the American Library Association and the AFSCME union, effectively halting President Donald Trump’s executive attempt to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Following a series of legal defeats where courts ruled that only Congress has the authority to eliminate federal agencies, the administration withdrew its appeal and reinstated previously terminated grants. However, the threat remains as the proposed 2027 federal budget once again seeks to zero out funding for the IMLS, the NEA, and the NEH.

trump executive orders arts

President Donald Trump’s return to office has triggered a sweeping overhaul of the American cultural landscape through executive orders and the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Key actions include the dissolution of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices at the Smithsonian, the cancellation of thousands of National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants, and the removal of high-profile Biden appointees from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum board. These measures are accompanied by new tariffs and immigration policies that threaten the international art trade and cross-border collaborations.

rauschenberg centennial award senga nengudi david thomson

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has announced the recipients of its Rauschenberg Centennial Awards, granting $100,000 in unrestricted funds to five creators across four disciplines. The winners include Senga Nengudi for art, David Thomson for performance, Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun for photography, and Patricia Spears Jones for writing. Established to commemorate the late artist’s 100th birthday in 2025, the awards recognize alumni of the foundation’s Captiva Residency program who demonstrate artistic excellence and community impact.

trump freedom truck exhibition

President Donald Trump has launched the 'Freedom Truck' fleet, a series of six mobile exhibitions traveling across the United States ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary. Funded by a $14.1 million grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the project features interactive displays, AI-powered historical figures, and artifacts provided by Glenn Beck’s American Journey Experience. The tour, organized by conservative groups like PragerU and Hillsdale College, focuses on a patriotic narrative of American independence and sovereignty.

Trump Arts Impact 2025

trump arts impact

The Trump administration has initiated a sweeping overhaul of the American cultural landscape, marked by aggressive oversight of the Smithsonian Institution and the termination of numerous National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants. Key actions include the disbanding of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the removal of leadership at the National Portrait Gallery, and the implementation of content audits to remove references to Trump's impeachments and information regarding slavery from federal sites. These moves are part of a broader effort to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and enforce 'American values' in cultural programming ahead of the nation's 250th anniversary.