design stephen alesch robin standefer

Design duo Stephen Alesch and Robin Standefer, co-founders of the architecture and design studio Roman and Williams, reflect on how their Montauk home, Sea Ranch, has become the creative heart of their practice. Purchased in 2006 as a rustic mid-Atlantic Colonial cottage, the property has evolved from a weekend retreat into a laboratory for furniture prototypes, ceramic experiments, and design ideas that later appear in high-profile projects worldwide—from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s British Galleries to London’s Maison Estelle. The couple, who met on a film set in 1994, also run the SoHo shop Roman and Williams Guild and a furnishings collection, balancing the intensity of New York with the shaping and forming they do by the ocean.

toby milstein schulman art collection new york young collectors

Toby Milstein Schulman, a 32-year-old New York-based consultant and advisory board member of RxArt, discusses her art collection in an interview. She recounts her first purchase of Tracey Emin's 'Be Brave,' a rookie mistake bidding on a work attributed 'after Keith Haring' at a charity auction, and highlights pieces by Camille Henrot and Louise Bourgeois in her home. She names Mickalene Thomas, Hilary Pecis, and Shara Hughes as three artists she is excited about, all involved with RxArt projects.

2025 06 03 painter chase hall studio interview

American painter Chase Hall opens his first exhibition since becoming a parent, titled “Momma’s Baby, Daddy’s Maybe,” at Galerie Eva Presenhuber in Vienna (through July 19). The show features his signature acrylic works on raw canvas with coffee stains, exploring American archetypes like cowboys, tennis players, and musicians. In a new CULTURED column called Studio Frequencies, Hall shares insights into his creative process, studio rituals, and the tools he relies on, including a hand-held staple remover from Japan and an espresso machine. He discusses working with one assistant, Kelsey, and the influence of his wife Lauren Rodriguez Hall as his first critic.

bottega veneta julianne moore tyler the creator

Bottega Veneta has launched a new campaign titled "Craft is Our Language" to celebrate 50 years of its signature Intrecciato weave. The campaign, photographed by Jack Davison and choreographed by Lenio Kaklea, features a diverse group of talents including actor Julianne Moore, writer Zadie Smith, producer Jack Antonoff, tennis star Lorenzo Musetti, actor Lauren Hutton, former design director Edward Buchanan, sculptor Barbara Chase-Riboud, actor Terrance Lau, and performer Thanaerng. It includes short films and a forthcoming book inspired by Bruno Munari's 1963 publication, cataloguing 50 gestures that embody the brand's craftsmanship.

Art Toronto gets sales boost from baseball World Series

Art Toronto, Canada's largest art fair, took place from October 23-26 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, coinciding with the first two games of the MLB World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers at the adjacent Rogers Centre. Despite concerns that the baseball championship might divert attention and sales, the fair saw increased attendance and a boost in purchases in the C$50,000 to C$100,000 range, according to director Mia Nielsen. Gallerists reported a positive mood, with the National Gallery of Canada even acquiring a work from Central Art Garage. The synergy between the events energized the city, though it worsened Toronto's notorious traffic.

Bringing Natalie Home: An Exhibit of Natalie Van Vleck’s Art at Flanders Nature Center

An exhibition titled "Bringing Natalie Home" has opened at the Flanders Nature Center in Connecticut, showcasing the artwork of Natalie Van Vleck for the first time in the newly renovated Van Vleck Gallery. The gallery is located inside the historic saltbox house that Van Vleck urged her parents to purchase in 1926, where she later built her art studio in 1928. The comprehensive exhibit, which began on February 7, 2025, will display her work throughout the year after decades in storage.

Stirling Art Collection awarded National Significance status

The University of Stirling's Art Collection has been designated a Collection of National Significance by Museums Galleries Scotland, joining four other collections receiving the honor on International Museums Day. The collection comprises over 800 prints, paintings, and sculptures, many displayed across the campus, particularly in the A-listed Pathfoot Building. Founded on a policy set by Principal Dr Tom Cottrell in 1967 to allocate 1% of building costs for art, the collection has grown through purchases and donations, including 14 works by Scottish Colourist J.D. Fergusson gifted by Margaret Morris. The collection team runs exhibitions, workshops, and an Artist in Residence programme to integrate art into university life.

Akron Art Museum transforms church’s stained glass windows into exhibit

The Akron Art Museum is presenting "Transfiguration: Rachel Libeskind and the Tiffany Window," an exhibition centered on a 137-square-foot stained glass window crafted by Frederick Wilson of Tiffany Studios in 1917. The window, originally installed at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, was rescued after a 2018 fire destroyed the church. Developer Tony Troppe purchased the property in 2022, and Whitney Stained Glass Studio restored the panels. New York-based artist Rachel Libeskind created accompanying works that reframe the window as art rather than a devotional object, with the show running through July 5.

An Expert’s Guide To Navigating The Art World

An art consultant with experience directing galleries in New York and Seattle, working with Nick Knight at SHOWstudio, and presenting The Art Show on Sky Arts shares insights on navigating the art world. The consultant discusses how to discover emerging artists through galleries, Instagram, graduate shows, and word of mouth, and emphasizes the importance of building relationships with galleries versus working with a consultant. Key galleries mentioned include Lisson Gallery, Josh Lilley, Seventeen Gallery, Esther Shipper, Hauser & Wirth, Cooke Latham, and Robertson Ares Gallery.

Museum Moves 1 – 7 May 2026

Tate has appointed Daisy Desrosiers as its Britton Family Curator at Large, North America, based in the US, focusing on developing North American art in Tate’s collection through research and acquisitions. Meanwhile, Lycia Lobo, chief operating officer at the Design Museum, has been confirmed as chair of the board of trustees of Chiswick House & Gardens Trust. Several new exhibitions are opening across UK museums, including 'Colour' at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery in Exeter, 'Aleksandra Kasuba: Shelters for the Senses' at Tate St Ives, 'Wildlife Photographer of the Year' at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, and 'Helios' by Luke Jerram at National Museum Cardiff. Additionally, the Museum of Archaeology at Palace Green Library has received a £217,844 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund for gallery redevelopment.

Venice, the island of San Giacomo becomes the new home of the Sandretto Foundation

Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo opens a new headquarters on the island of San Giacomo in the northern lagoon of Venice on May 7, 2026. The project combines contemporary art, historic rehabilitation, environmental sustainability, and research, featuring exhibitions, permanent installations, and public programs. The island was purchased in 2018 by Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Agostino Re Rebaudengo from Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and transformed into a center for cultural production and ecological experimentation, with free admission and universal accessibility.

At the 2026 Met Gala, Black stars and socialites turned the human form into art

The 2026 Met Gala, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art under the theme 'Costume Art,' featured Black celebrities and socialites interpreting the human form as art on the red carpet. Notable attendees included Beyoncé in a skeletal silver gown by Olivier Rousteing, Colman Domingo inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rihanna in a custom Maison Margiela 'living sculpture' by Glenn Martens, and Venus Williams co-chairing the event while wearing a look referencing her own portrait by Robert Pruitt. Others like SZA, Tschabalala Self, and Cardi B offered surreal or literal nods to art history and body imagery.

The All-Women Exhibition Putting Penzance On The Art Map This Summer

An all-women exhibition titled 'Making Her Mark: A Celebration of Women in Art' has opened at Penlee House Gallery & Museum in Penzance, Cornwall, as the first stop on a three-part UK tour. The show features over 60 works by female artists from the 19th century to the present day, including Tracey Emin, Barbara Hepworth, Elizabeth Forbes, and Laura Knight. It is a collaboration between Penlee House, Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum, and Kirkcaldy Galleries, curated jointly by the three venues with local leadership from Penlee House deputy director Katie Herbert. The exhibition is part of Art Fund's £5.36 million Going Places programme and will travel to Worcester and Kirkcaldy in 2026 and 2027.

PHOTOS: Artistic liberties on display at the Met Gala

The 2026 Met Gala, held on May 4 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, featured celebrities including Beyoncé, Naomi Osaka, and Emma Chamberlain in elaborate, art-inspired ensembles under the dress code 'Fashion is art.' Beyoncé wore a custom Olivier Rousteing sculptural skeleton dress, Osaka stunned in a Robert Wun white sculptural dress with red feathers, and Chamberlain arrived in a hand-painted Mugler gown. Co-chairs Anna Wintour, Nicole Kidman, and Venus Williams also attended, with Williams wearing a gown referencing a Robert Pruitt portrait of herself. The event raised funds for the Costume Institute's exhibition 'Costume Art.'

Inside the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s 2026 Gala

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.

Boston had Isabella Stewart Gardner, and Fitchburg had Eleanor Norcross

The Fitchburg Art Museum is celebrating its 100th anniversary with the exhibition “Kaleidoscope: 100 Years of Collecting for our Community.” The show honors the legacy of founder Eleanor Norcross, a Victorian-era artist and collector who studied under William Merritt Chase and exhibited in Parisian salons. Although Norcross died in 1923 before the museum opened, her estate and personal collection of paintings and decorative arts provided the foundation for the institution, which officially opened in 1929.

National Gallery | London, Highlights, History, Collection, & Facts

The National Gallery in London, established in 1824, continues to evolve as the primary repository for Great Britain’s national collection of European paintings. Originally founded with the purchase of 38 works from John Julius Angerstein, the museum now houses over 2,600 masterpieces, including significant Italian Renaissance, Dutch, and French Impressionist works. Recent developments include a 2025 announcement that the institution will expand its remit to collect 20th-century art, supported by a new wing planned for the 2030s.

Lawrence Weiner | A Means To An End (Hand Signed) (2006) | Available for Sale

A hand-signed original exhibition poster by the late conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner, titled "A Means to an End" (2006), has been made available for purchase through ArtWise in Brooklyn. Created for Weiner’s solo exhibition at Le Musée de Sérignan, the color offset lithograph features the artist's signature in black pen and exemplifies his career-long investigation into language as a sculptural medium. The work is priced at $700 and includes a certificate of authenticity from the gallery.

America’s First National Art Museum Honors the Country’s 250th

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art has announced a comprehensive suite of exhibitions and programs to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026. The programming centers on the museum's unique history as America’s first national art museum, founded through the 1906 bequest of Charles Lang Freer. Key highlights include the exhibition "A Museum in the Making," which examines the institution's Detroit origins, and three major shows dedicated to the collections of American women philanthropists featuring Indian paintings, Chinese textiles, and Japanese lacquerware.

These are the 30 best museum exhibits in NYC right now

New York City’s cultural landscape is undergoing a significant transformation with the reopening of the New Museum in its expanded 60,000-square-foot building designed by OMA. The inaugural exhibition, "New Humans: Memories of the Future," features over 200 contributors exploring the intersection of technology and humanity. Simultaneously, major institutions are launching landmark shows, including a massive Raphael retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the 2026 Whitney Biennial, which focuses on artificial intelligence and climate grief.

Today in History March 17 | Opening of the National Gallery of Art

On March 17, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt officially dedicated the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The museum was established through the massive bequest of industrialist Andrew Mellon, who donated his world-class art collection, the funds for the building's construction, and a significant endowment. The opening marked a milestone in American cultural history, providing the public with access to a premier national collection of Old Master paintings.

Museum acquisitions round-up: a 17ft sculpture by Anselm Kiefer, a $1.7m dinosaur skull, and a 17th-century genre painting

Three major museums have announced significant new acquisitions for their permanent collections. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem received a monumental 2014 sculpture by Anselm Kiefer, titled *Die Erdzeitalter (Ages of the World)*, donated by collector Martin Z. Margulies. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., acquired a $1.7 million Pachycephalosaurus dinosaur skull, donated by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy. Meanwhile, the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem purchased an early 16th-century genre painting by Maarten van Heemskerck.

Museum Of Contemporary Art, Chicago — Yoko Ono: A Force Of Nature

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago is presenting "Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind," a major retrospective of the artist's work that runs from October 18, 2025, to February 22, 2026. The exhibition features over 200 works spanning Ono's career, including interactive installations like "Wish Trees" and "Mend Piece," as well as iconic performances such as "Cut Piece." The show, which originated at the Tate Modern in London and will travel to The Broad in Los Angeles, highlights Ono's role in the Fluxus movement and her pioneering use of instruction-based art, film, and mixed media. The article also notes Ono's connection to Chicago through her permanent public sculpture "Sky Landing" in Jackson Park.

New York Galleries: Openings and Closings of the Week (12/15—12/21)

Artist Opportunity: Open: Odyssey, a major new biennial open exhibition launching in 2026.

Hastings Contemporary and Sussex Contemporary have announced the judging panel for The Open: Odyssey, a major new biennial open exhibition launching in 2026. The panel includes Chris Packham, Elena Crippa, Eva Langret, Fiona Banner, Isabel Rock, Kathleen Soriano, and Zoe Lyons. Submissions are open to artists connected to Sussex, with works responding to the theme of Odyssey, exploring journeys shaped by tides, time, and transformation. The exhibition will run from 28 March to 31 May 2026 at Hastings Contemporary, featuring over 100 artists and all works available for purchase.

Did Qatar’s Courbet acquisition short-circuit French export licence process?

Qatar Museums has acquired Gustave Courbet's early self-portrait *Le Désespéré* (1843-45) from a French collector for €50 million, bypassing the standard French export licence process. The Musée d'Orsay revealed the purchase at a private event in October, announcing the painting will be lent to the museum for five years before moving to Qatar's future Art Mill Museum (opening by 2030). The sale was conducted without an export certificate, with the justification that the work will remain in France for most of the time, using temporary export licences for exhibitions in Doha. Critics, including heritage campaigner Julien Lacaze, argue this exemption is being misused, as it was intended for one-off exhibitions, not recurring rotations.

MFA Boston returns work by enslaved artist David Drake to his heirs, Wifredo Lam, Ghirlandaio’s Adoration of the Magi—podcast

The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston has agreed to return two 1857 works by the enslaved potter David Drake to his descendants. One vessel will remain on loan to the museum for at least two years, while the other, known as the "Poem Jar," has been purchased back by the museum for an undisclosed sum, now carrying a certificate of ethical ownership. The episode also covers the opening of the exhibition "Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, featuring the modernist painter of African and Chinese descent, and discusses Domenico Ghirlandaio's "Adoration of the Magi" (1488) in the context of a new book on Renaissance foundlings.

Sasha Gordon Finds Beauty and Empathy in the Shadows of the Human Mind

Sasha Gordon, a rising young artist from New York's art scene, debuted her solo exhibition "Haze" at David Zwirner's 19th Street gallery in Chelsea. The show, which drew long lines and significant attention, features hyperrealistic paintings that explore identity, memory, and the subconscious through an Asian diasporic lens. Gordon, who rose to fame during the pandemic and is co-represented by David Zwirner and Matthew Brown (Zwirner's son-in-law), discusses her evolving technique and her shift away from explicitly autobiographical work toward more open-ended, timeless figures.

Memorial Art Gallery Announces Frontiers of Impressionism: Paintings from the Worcester Art Museum Opening Nov. 2

The Memorial Art Gallery (MAG) in Rochester, NY, will present "Frontiers of Impressionism: Paintings from the Worcester Art Museum" from November 2, 2025, through March 1, 2026. The exhibition features fifty-two masterworks from the Worcester Art Museum's collection, including Claude Monet's 1908 painting "Nymphéas (Water Lilies)"—the first water lily painting ever purchased by an art museum. More than thirty European and American artists are represented, such as Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, and John Singer Sargent.

A brush with… Suzanne Jackson—podcast

This podcast episode features an in-depth conversation with artist Suzanne Jackson, who discusses her multifaceted career spanning drawing, painting, poetry, dance, and theatre. Born in 1944 in St. Louis and raised in San Francisco and Fairbanks, Alaska, Jackson draws on Native American and African American traditions to explore the spiritual connection between people and nature. She reflects on influences including Barbara Chase Riboud, Elizabeth Catlett, and Torkwase Dyson, and shares insights into her studio practice and her view on art's purpose. The episode also highlights her current survey exhibition "What is Love," which travels to SFMOMA, the Walker Art Center, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston through 2027.