London Saw Few Auction Shakeups as Guarantees Steadied the Market

Christie’s marquee evening sales in London achieved a combined total of £197.5 million ($263.8 million), characterized by a steady, prearranged atmosphere rather than high-stakes drama. The auction house relied heavily on financial safety nets, with a 52 percent year-over-year increase in third-party guarantees ensuring the sale of 21 key lots. While the event featured a theatrical unveiling of a new rostrum designed by Sir Jony Ive, the actual bidding remained largely conservative and focused on blue-chip stability.

Ten London Art Exhibitions Not To Miss Opening in March 2026

London’s spring art season kicks off this March with a diverse array of high-profile exhibitions across the city's major institutions. Highlights include the Serpentine Galleries hosting concurrent shows by David Hockney and Cecily Brown, while the National Portrait Gallery presents the first major UK museum survey of American photographer Catherine Opie. Other notable openings include a George Stubbs focus at the National Gallery and a comprehensive look at the Baroque architecture of Sir John Vanbrugh at the Sir John Soane’s Museum.

14 best art exhibitions to see in Tokyo in 2026

Tokyo's museums have announced their 2026 exhibition schedules, featuring a diverse lineup of international and domestic shows. Highlights include 'YBA & Beyond: British Art in the 90s from the Tate Collection' at the National Art Center, a major retrospective of Hajime Sorayama at the Creative Museum Tokyo, and a solo exhibition of Lithuanian artist M. K. Čiurlionis, alongside shows by Picasso, Ron Mueck, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Minami Tada.

Frieze London 2025

Frieze London 2025 has opened with a wide-ranging program spanning contemporary art, photography, antiquities, and performance. Key highlights include the inaugural Echo Soho fair celebrating women-run galleries, the London edition of Dallas Invitational set to open at the former US embassy in 2026, and strong sales at Frieze Masters including a Triceratops skull. Christie's and Sotheby's auctions during the week showed a mixed market: Peter Doig's 'Ski Jacket' sold for £106.9m, but overall estimates and price corrections indicated caution. The fair also features Sophia Al-Maria performing stand-up as winner of the Frieze London Artist Award, a new pricing structure for greater gallery diversity, and a pop-up by The Art Newspaper and L'OFFICIEL.

Headed to Paris for Art Basel? Here are the 17 museum shows not to miss

Art Basel Paris is underway, and this article highlights 17 must-see museum shows across the city. Key exhibitions include a joint tribute to Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, and Pontus Hultén at the Grand Palais; a Rick Owens fashion retrospective at Palais Galliera; the first French monographic show of John Singer Sargent at the Musée d'Orsay, featuring his scandalous 'Portrait of Madame X'; a Bridget Riley exhibition exploring her debt to Georges Seurat; a Minimalism survey at the Bourse de Commerce; and a major Jacques-Louis David retrospective at the Louvre marking the bicentenary of his death.

Warhol, Haring, Basquiat: exhibition remembers pivotal 80s New York artists

Gallery Lévy Gorvy Dayan has opened "Downtown/Uptown: New York in the Eighties," a blockbuster exhibition featuring major works by Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Francesco Clemente, and others. Co-curated by Brett Gorvy and legendary dealer Mary Boone, the show aims to present the decade's most pivotal art for new generations, highlighting themes of celebrity, the AIDS epidemic, hyper-capitalism, and sexism through pieces like Warhol's silkscreen portraits, Basquiat's punching bag, Ross Bleckner's "27764," and Guerrilla Girls posters.

11 Must-See Museum Shows This Fall

Maxwell Rabb's article for Google News highlights 11 must-see museum exhibitions opening worldwide in fall 2025. Among the featured shows are Ayoung Kim's "Delivery Dancer" video trilogy at MoMA PS1 in New York, the largest UK survey of Kerry James Marshall's work titled "The Histories" at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and "Strange Realities: The Symbolist Imagination" at the Art Institute of Chicago, which explores the Symbolist movement across Europe. The article also mentions other major retrospectives and thematic exhibitions spanning Symbolism to Nigerian modernism.

London Art Exhibitions Not To Miss Opening Autumn 2025

London's major museums and galleries are preparing a packed autumn 2025 season with blockbuster exhibitions. Highlights include 'Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller’s Neo-Impressionists' at the National Gallery, 'Theatre Picasso' at Tate Modern, a Kerry James Marshall retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts, Peter Doig at the Serpentine, Gilbert & George at the Hayward, and 'Encounters: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum' at the Barbican. The Barbican show pairs historic works by Alberto Giacometti with new and existing pieces by Mona Hatoum, including several UK debuts and site-specific large-scale sculptures.

Space, stadiums, poses and prizes: the best art and architecture of autumn 2025

This article is a seasonal preview of the best art and architecture exhibitions opening in autumn 2025, primarily in London and other UK venues. It highlights major shows including Mona Hatoum's dialogue with Giacometti at the Barbican, a Picasso exhibition at Tate Modern, Kerry James Marshall's first major European retrospective at the Royal Academy, and the Turner Prize 2025 at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford. Other featured exhibitions cover Hilary Lloyd's work on Dennis Potter, Marie Antoinette's image through art and fashion at the V&A, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme's new commission at Nottingham Contemporary, and a Lee Miller retrospective at Tate Britain.

Meet 6 Visionary Women Shaping the Art World in 2025

This article profiles six visionary women shaping the art world in 2025, beginning with British designer Es Devlin, known for her immersive stagecraft and large-scale installations. It highlights her recent role as global artistic lead of the Women’s Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka, where she created a participatory sound installation. The piece also features Tokini Peterside-Schwebig, founder of ART X Lagos, West Africa's leading international art fair, which celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2025. Peterside-Schwebig is a cultural entrepreneur and collector who has expanded the fair into initiatives like ART X Live!, the Access ART X Prize, and a school program for underprivileged children.

Blum Gallery’s Sudden End Shocked the Art Industry. What Happened?

On July 1, 2025, Tim Blum, the powerhouse Los Angeles dealer behind Blum Gallery, announced the sudden closure of his gallery after a 35-year run. The closure includes his Culver City headquarters, his Tokyo space, and a planned Tribeca location that will no longer open. Blum publicly framed the decision as a voluntary "sunset" due to systemic industry issues like over-expansion and burnout, but interviews with artists and staff reveal a more chaotic reality: the closure blindsided employees and artists, many of whom learned about it from news reports or a last-minute staff meeting that excluded Tokyo staff. Sources cite weak sales at Art Basel and Art Basel Hong Kong, poor business decisions—including buying out partner Jeff Poe and renovating a costly New York space—and a lack of severance or transition time as underlying factors.

Marina Abramović and Peter Doig win £77,000 Praemium Imperiale prizes

Marina Abramović and Peter Doig have been awarded the 2025 Praemium Imperiale prizes for sculpture and painting, respectively, each receiving a 15 million yen (£77,000) honorarium. The awards, presented by the Japan Art Association under honorary patron Prince Hitachi, also recognized Belgian filmmaker Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (theatre/film), Hungarian pianist András Schiff (music), and Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto De Moura (architecture). The National Youth Theatre received the 2025 Grant for Young Artists.

‘To this day, I can’t get it out of my mind’: Tobias van Gils on missing out on Maurizio Cattelan's orchid

Tobias van Gils, founder of the Zurich-based investment firm MLT Capital, discusses his art collection in an interview with The Art Newspaper. He shares his early collecting journey, recent acquisitions like a large mountainscape by Harold Ancart, and his regret over missing out on Maurizio Cattelan's blue orchid work "Meat" (2024). Van Gils also mentions launching the MLT Art Foundation with his wife to house their collection and support art programming focused on children. He offers personal insights on his decision-making process, favorite artworks, and tips for navigating Art Basel.

Summer 2025 preview: On display at museums

CBS News Sunday Morning anchor Jane Pauley previews major museum exhibitions opening in summer 2025. The article highlights Amy Sherald's mid-career survey "American Sublime" at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, featuring her iconic portrait of Michelle Obama and exploring her signature grisaille technique and confident Black subjects. Other featured shows include "Van Gogh: The Roulin Family Portraits" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; "Monet's Floating Worlds at Giverny" at the Portland Art Museum; "KAWS: FAMILY" at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville; and "Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me" at The Broad in Los Angeles.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 to Lenny Henry: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead

The Guardian's weekly entertainment guide highlights two major art exhibitions opening in May 2025: 'Aleksandra Kasuba' at Tate St Ives (2 May to 4 October) and 'Zurbarán' at the National Gallery, London (2 May to 23 August). The Kasuba show is the first UK presentation of the Lithuanian American artist's proto-immersive 'spatial environments,' featuring early paintings, mosaics, and installations focused on utopian social harmony. The Zurbarán exhibition presents a blockbuster survey of the 17th-century Spanish Baroque master, known for his intense religious subjects and dramatic chiaroscuro.

Simply divine: the extraordinary supernatural visions of Francisco de Zurbarán

Francisco de Zurbarán, one of the three great Spanish 17th-century painters alongside Velázquez and Murillo, is finally receiving his first solo exhibition in the UK at the National Gallery in London. The show highlights his distinctive style of religious painting, characterized by stark chiaroscuro, sculptural realism, and a meditative stillness that makes the immaterial seem tangible. Works such as his crucified Christ and The Apparition of Saint Peter to Saint Peter Nolasco exemplify his ability to depict visions and inner spirituality, often commissioned by powerful religious foundations in Seville during the Counter-Reformation.

Can a Play Capture an Artist as Enigmatic as Henry Darger?

Can a Play Capture an Artist as Enigmatic as Henry Darger?

A new play, *Bughouse*, is attempting to portray the life of reclusive artist Henry Darger on stage at New York's Vineyard Theater. The one-man show, starring John Kelly, draws from Darger's own lengthy autobiography to depict his traumatic childhood, institutionalization, and decades of solitary life in Chicago, where he secretly created his vast, fantastical artwork and writings.

Buffalo AKG Art Museum Director Janne Sirén to Depart After 13 Years

Janne Sirén, director of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in Upstate New York, will step down in October after 13 years. His tenure included a major $230 million expansion in 2023 that doubled the museum's square footage and drew a record 340,000 visitors in the following year. However, his departure follows local media reports that he used a museum loan to help finance his $710,000 home, with the Erie County Comptroller’s Office alleging he failed to repay it and that the loan may violate state nonprofit laws. The museum defended the loan as common in executive recruitment and stated it operates in full compliance with the law.

Top 200 Collector Mitchell Rales Gifts $116 M. to National Gallery if Art for Lending Program

Top 200 art collector and National Gallery of Art trustee Mitchell Rales has donated $116 million to permanently endow the museum's 'Across the Nation' lending program. The initiative loans artworks from the National Gallery's collection to regional museums across the United States, covering all associated costs.

Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter to Co-Headline ‘Immersive Experience’ at Art Basel

Thomas Bangalter, formerly of the electronic music duo Daft Punk, is scheduled to co-headline an immersive experience called 'WAREHOUSE ARTEFACTS' at the Art Basel fair in Basel, Switzerland. The event, produced by Nordstern Basel nightclub in cooperation with Art Basel and Fondation Beyeler, will also feature house music producer Rampa and conceptual artist Julian Charrière.

Erewhon, Grocery Store Known for $20-Plus Smoothies, to Set Up Shop in LACMA’s New Building

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has announced a partnership with the high-end grocery chain Erewhon to open a café within its new Peter Zumthor-designed building, the David Geffen Galleries. Scheduled to open to the public on May 4, the outpost will be located in the W.M. Keck Plaza and will offer the brand's signature organic snacks and viral $20-plus smoothies. The collaboration is currently framed as a seasonal residency lasting through the summer.

Andrew Lloyd Webber Is Writing a Musical About the Heist that Made ‘Mona Lisa’ Famous

Renowned composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has announced he is developing a new musical centered on the 1911 theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The production will dramatize the true story of Vincenzo Peruggia, a Louvre employee who stole the masterpiece and hid it for two years before it was recovered in Italy. Lloyd Webber revealed the project following the Broadway opening of Cats: The Jellicle Ball, noting that he is beginning the writing process immediately.

Italian Winemaker Ornellaia Reveals Marina Abramović’s Designs for Its 2023 Vintages

Marina Abramović has collaborated with the Italian winemaker Ornellaia to design labels for its 2023 vintage as part of the annual Vendemmia d’Artista project. The designs range from self-portrait drawings and photographs featuring grapes to a conceptual 9-liter bottle that instructs the drinker to listen to Nino Rota’s theme from La Dolce Vita while consuming the wine. A selection of these limited-edition bottles will be auctioned at Bonhams in June to raise funds for the Guggenheim Museum.

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Joseph Beuys remains one of the most polarizing figures in 20th-century art, a former Nazi soldier who reinvented himself as a shamanic healer and a founding member of the Green Party. A new monographic study by art historian Daniel Spaulding, 'Joseph Beuys and History', re-evaluates the artist's legacy by confronting his refusal to apologize for his wartime past and his use of ambiguous materials like fat and felt. Spaulding argues that Beuys’s work should be read through the lens of 'bad faith,' where his utopian slogans masked a deep, unresolved engagement with the horrors of the Holocaust.

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Germany has established a new governmental body, the Coordination Council for Returns of Cultural Property and Human Remains from Colonial Contexts, to streamline the restitution of artifacts and remains acquired during the colonial era. The council, comprised of federal, state, and municipal leaders, aims to fulfill long-standing pledges to repatriate objects that were unfairly taken from former colonies, addressing a process that has frequently stalled in recent years.

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Novelist Ben Lerner reflects on Rose Salane’s installation '60 Detected Rings (1991–2021)' as part of a new series exploring impactful artworks. The piece consists of rings recovered by a metal detectorist over three decades in Atlantic City, which Salane subsequently analyzed through laboratory 'melt value' reports and psychic readings. Lerner describes the work as a profound exercise in 'revaluation,' where discarded objects are transformed into auratic relics through scientific and spiritual inquiry.

Newly Authenticated Modigliani Heads to Sale at Art Basel Hong Kong via Pace with a $13.3 M. Price Tag

A newly authenticated painting by Amedeo Modigliani, "Jeune femme brune" (1917–18), is being offered for sale by Pace gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong with a price tag of €11.5 million ($13.3 million). The work, the highest-priced piece at the fair, was only recently included in art historian Marc Restellini's forthcoming Modigliani catalogue raisonné after decades of authentication disputes and legal battles.

South Carolina’s International African American Museum Officially Acquires Earliest Known Daguerreotypes of Enslaved Americans

South Carolina’s International African American Museum Officially Acquires Earliest Known Daguerreotypes of Enslaved Americans

The International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, has officially acquired the "1850 Daguerreotypes," the earliest known photographs of enslaved Americans. The set of 15 images, taken by J.T. Zealy, depicts seven enslaved individuals—Alfred, Delia, Drana, Fassena, Jack, Jem, and Renty—and had been held by Harvard University until a recent legal settlement. Harvard had owned the daguerreotypes since they were commissioned in 1850 by natural historian Louis Agassiz.

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Geoffrey Kelly, the FBI’s lead investigator on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist for over two decades, has released a new book titled 'Thirteen Perfect Fugitives'. Published ahead of the 36th anniversary of the 1990 theft, the book provides an insider’s perspective on the investigation into the world’s largest art heist, where 13 works valued at over $1 billion were stolen. Kelly, who retired in 2024, details the FBI's findings regarding the individuals involved and the ongoing, unsuccessful efforts to recover the missing masterpieces.

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Jonas Wood has unveiled a new series of paintings at Gagosian in Beverly Hills that transforms global tennis courts into geometric abstractions. Derived from years of photographing tournament broadcasts and Nintendo games, the works strip away players and equipment to focus on the flat bands of color, white lines, and nets that define the sport's architecture. The collection represents a systematic exploration of the ATP and WTA tours, utilizing the tennis court as a formal vehicle for color theory and composition.