Art News. Vasari Codex

trending_up market schedule Jun 17, 2025 visibility 19 link 16 artists, 9 galleries

big questions art basel

Art Basel, the flagship art fair, returns to Basel, Switzerland from June 17 to 22 amid a period of market contraction and geopolitical instability. The article explores key questions surrounding the fair, including whether the proliferation of new Art Basel editions in Paris and Doha is diluting interest in the original Swiss event. Gallerists and collectors weigh in, noting that while Paris is rising in importance, Basel retains unmatched prestige and draws a genuinely engaged international audience. The piece also highlights the fair's new "Premiere" section, which spotlights mid-career and established artists, featuring London gallery Edel Assanti's debut presentation of American artist Lonnie Holley.

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article policy schedule Jun 16, 2025 visibility 22 link 20 artists

new york mayoral candidates arts 2025

On June 24, New Yorkers will vote in the Democratic primary for mayor, with candidates including embattled incumbent Eric Adams, former governor Andrew Cuomo, and Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, who is gaining support from artists and art dealers. The article outlines the arts-related positions of several candidates: City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams restored $53 million in cultural funding after proposed cuts; Eric Adams has an uneven record, having proposed cuts but later launching the 'NYC Create in Place' pilot program; and Andrew Cuomo's arts stance is mentioned but not detailed.

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rate_review review schedule Jun 16, 2025 visibility 25 link 14 artists

cubism at the met modern art that looks tragically antique

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's current "Cubism" exhibition showcases masterpieces from the Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, featuring works by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, and Fernand Léger. The show spans six galleries and presents some of the finest examples of Cubist art, including iconic pieces like Braque's *The Castle of La Roche-Guyon* (1909) and Picasso's *The Oil Mill* (1909). The exhibition is essentially a curated display of Lauder's promised gift to the Met, highlighting the "Four Horsemen" of Cubism while omitting the broader context of the movement's other pioneers, such as the Salon Cubists.

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article news schedule Jun 13, 2025 visibility 21 link 8 artists

canyon museum durational immersive art new york

New York City will gain a major new cultural venue in 2026 called Canyon, a 18,000-square-foot hub on the Lower East Side dedicated to durational, time-based art forms such as video, sound, and performance. Founded by philanthropist and collector Robert Rosenkranz, the space is designed by New Affiliates Architecture and will feature state-of-the-art galleries, a 300-seat performance hall, and a skylit piazza with food and beverage options. Joe Thompson, founding director of MASS MoCA, will serve as the venue's director. Canyon has already appointed conservator Cass Fino-Radin as director of art and technology and curator Sam Ozer as curator-at-large, with partners including Rhizome, Electronic Arts Intermix, and the Archive of Contemporary Music. Its inaugural exhibitions will include a major retrospective of Japanese new media artist Ryoji Ikeda and a show titled "Worldbuilding" curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

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article culture schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 19 link 8 artists

westmoreland frick collection restaurant review

The Frick Collection in New York has opened its first-ever restaurant, Westmoreland, named after founder Henry Clay Frick's private train car. Located on the museum's newly renovated second floor, the 50-seat dining room features interiors by Bryan O'Sullivan Studio, a mural by artist Darren Waterston, and a menu of comforting, unadventurous fare like caesar salad, club sandwich, and avocado toast. The kitchen is led by Skyllar Hughes, a veteran of Danny Meyer's Ci Siamo, and operated by Union Square Events. Only museum ticket holders can dine, and reservations must be made in person.

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person people schedule Jun 5, 2025 visibility 19 link 10 artists

robert de niro presents catherine murphy with the robert de niro sr prize 3236

Academy Award-winning actor Robert De Niro hosted a reception on February 25, 2014, honoring painter Catherine Murphy as the third recipient of the Robert De Niro Sr. Prize, a $25,000 annual award for mid-career American painters. The event took place at De Niro's Greenwich Hotel in New York, with previous winners Stanley Whitney (2012) and Joyce Pensato (2013) in attendance, along with jury members including Lindsay Pollock, Susan Davidson, Peter Plagens, and Robert Storr.

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article policy schedule Jun 5, 2025 visibility 14 link 5 artists

more italians take avantage of art for taxes scheme

The Italian government has successfully revived a program allowing citizens to use cultural treasures, fine art, antique books, and villas to satisfy tax bills. Culture and Tourism Minister Dario Franceschini named a panel to tally the value of works offered for income and inheritance taxes, aiming to reinvigorate a scheme established in 1982 that previously attracted little interest. The program mirrors similar initiatives in other EU countries, notably Britain, where a comparable plan drew works worth $80.4 million in 2012–13.

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article culture schedule Jun 4, 2025 visibility 17 link 11 artists

renaissance artists raphael and durer were kind of obsessed with each other

The article explores the artistic friendship between Renaissance masters Raphael and Albrecht Dürer, who never met but exchanged letters and artworks across 600 miles. Initiated when both were at the height of their careers, the correspondence began with Dürer sending Raphael a gouache self-portrait, to which Raphael responded with drawings, including "Two male nude studies" (1515) and "Three Standing Men" (1514-16). The friendship lasted only five years, ending with Raphael's death in 1520 at age 37. The exchange is documented by Giorgio Vasari in "The Lives of the Artists," and one surviving drawing bears an inscription by Dürer acknowledging Raphael's gift.

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article culture schedule Jun 4, 2025 visibility 16 link 6 artists

three things hokusai great wave

Katsushika Hokusai's iconic woodblock print "The Great Wave" (officially *Under the Wave off Kanagawa*) is examined through three lesser-known facts. The article notes that the print, created between 1830 and 1832, is surprisingly small—less than 15 inches wide—and that its vivid blue pigment, Prussian blue, was a recent European import that revolutionized Japanese ukiyo-e prints. It also highlights Hokusai's practice of adopting over 30 different names throughout his career, which now helps scholars periodize his work.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 3, 2025 visibility 13 link 3 artists

rijksmuseum condom erotic print

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has announced that a rare condom dating from 1830 will go on display in its print room as part of an exhibition on 19th-century sex work and sexuality. The nearly 200-year-old condom, likely made from a sheep's appendix and featuring an erotic image of a nun and three clergymen with the inscription "Voilà mon choix" ("This is my choice"), is one of only two such surviving objects and was purchased by the museum at auction six months ago.

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article policy schedule May 30, 2025 visibility 15 link 4 artists

national portrait gallery director fired trump

President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he had fired Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., citing her as a "highly partisan person" and a "strong supporter of DEI." Sajet had led the museum since 2013, and her termination follows a series of executive orders targeting the Smithsonian Institution, including one in March that criticized "anti-American ideology" at its museums. The museum currently features the exhibition "America’s Presidents," which includes a portrait of Trump with a caption referencing his impeachments and the January 6 Capitol attack. The National Portrait Gallery did not respond to requests for comment, and no replacement has been named.

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article culture schedule May 30, 2025 visibility 19 link 8 artists

the phoenician scheme wes anderson renoir art collecting

Wes Anderson's new film *The Phoenician Scheme* features a protagonist, Zsa-Zsa Korda (played by Benicio del Toro), who is a jet-setting high roller with a vast but neglected art collection housed in a 16th-century palazzo. The collection includes authentic masterpieces such as an 1889 Renoir portrait once owned by Greta Garbo, a 1942 Magritte, and a 17th-century van Schooten still life, alongside replicas like a Peter Paul Rubens. The film, now playing in New York and Los Angeles, uses these artworks as props and backdrops, reflecting the protagonist's indifference to his possessions amid his shady business schemes and fractured family relationships.

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trending_up market schedule May 30, 2025 visibility 13 link 12 artists

georges lemmen record auction

Belgian Neo-Impressionist Georges Lemmen's painting *Jeune femme faisant du crochet (Julie Lemmen)* (1890) sold for $698,500 at Sotheby's New York on May 14, shattering its $50,000–$70,000 estimate and more than doubling the artist's previous auction record. The Pointillist portrait of the artist's sister, Julie Fréderique Lemmen, had been in a private Florida collection since 1960 and was consigned through Sotheby's online portal. The sale drew over a dozen bidders, including a museum, two dealers, and five private collectors, and was backed by an irrevocable bid.

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article culture schedule May 30, 2025 visibility 19 link 8 artists

5 rediscoveries transforming black art narratives

Artnet News highlights five recent rediscoveries and reinterpretations that are reshaping narratives around Black artists and sitters in art history. These include Gustav Klimt's long-lost portrait of Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona, an Osu prince exhibited in a racist "human zoo" in Vienna, which resurfaced in 2023 and was shown at TEFAF Maastricht with a $16.4 million price tag. Also featured are Edvard Munch's dual portrayals of Sultan Abdul Karim—one intimate, one stereotyped—on view at the National Portrait Gallery in London, and new research identifying James Cumberlidge, a Black servant in a Jean-Baptiste van Loo portrait, correcting a historical misattribution.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 29, 2025 visibility 16 link 12 artists

berruguete restoration altarpiece

The Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao has completed a restoration of Pedro Berruguete's *The Annunciation* (1485–1490), a painting that once formed part of an altarpiece likely for a church in Palencia, Spain. The work, on a five-year loan from the Arburu collection, had suffered from cracks, dirt, and oxidized varnish over centuries. Two specialists—Elisa Mora Sánchez for the paint layer and Mayte Camino Martín for the gilding—cleaned, repaired, and re-gilded the panel, revealing Berruguete's blend of Italian Renaissance, Flemish, and Castilian Gothic influences.

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article policy schedule May 29, 2025 visibility 16 link 12 artists

neh stipends trump

The Trump administration is moving to eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) while simultaneously cutting its funding and reshaping its priorities. In early May, the NEH announced $9.55 million for 68 projects, a sharp drop from $26.2 million for 238 projects the previous year. The number of Summer Stipends was slashed from nearly 100 to just 18, with total funding cut by three-fourths to $144,000. Only one Media Project grant was awarded, down from ten. The administration has also sought to lay off NEH workers, cancel grants, and divert funds to a National Garden of American Heroes, a presidential pet project.

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article culture schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 21 link 13 artists

leonardo da vinci existing paintings ranked

Artnet News has published a ranking of Leonardo da Vinci's surviving paintings, focusing on completed, stand-alone works and excluding frescos like *The Last Supper* and unfinished pieces. The article evaluates paintings such as *Annunciation* (c. 1472–76), *Madonna of the Carnation* (1478–80), and *Ginevra de' Benci* (c. 1474–78), considering factors like attribution certainty, historical context, and unique traits—for instance, *Ginevra de' Benci* is the only Leonardo painting in a public collection in the Americas.

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candle obituary schedule May 14, 2025 visibility 14 link 9 artists

yasunao tone fluxus dead

Yasunao Tone, a composer, theorist, and artist associated with the Fluxus movement, has died at age 90. Artists Space, which hosted his first US retrospective in 2023, announced his passing due to age-related complications. Tone was known for experimental music that used unorthodox methods such as altering instruments with ice, scratching CDs to create white noise, and producing graphic scores that resembled abstract artworks. He co-founded Group Ongaku in 1961, collaborated with key figures like Nam June Paik, George Maciunas, and Yoko Ono, and later explored digital corruption of audio files and AI. His work influenced experimental music and sound art, with a 2023 profile in AnOther Magazine stating he "changed music forever."

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article local schedule May 12, 2025 visibility 13 link 7 artists

stavros niarchos foundation cultural center

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, a Renzo Piano-designed complex housing Greece's National Library and National Opera House, has completed construction in Athens after five years. The foundation is celebrating with a four-night free festival called "Metamorphosis" (June 23–26) featuring cultural, educational, and sporting events, including a video art survey curated by Robert Storr. The project, built on a former hippodrome site abandoned after the 2004 Olympic Games, cost nearly €600 million and was conceived by SNF co-president Andreas Dracopoulos during Greece's pre-crisis optimism.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 10, 2025 visibility 23 link 22 artists

national gallery sainsburg wing reopening gabriele finaldi

London's National Gallery has reopened its Sainsbury Wing after a three-year, $113 million renovation, timed to the museum's 200th anniversary. Director Gabriele Finaldi, who was knighted this year, oversaw the project, which was designed by architect Annabelle Selldorf and faced criticism from original architect Denise Scott Brown. The revamped wing features a light-filled foyer, 17 galleries with no prescribed route, and a rehang titled “The Wonder of Art.” The museum also acquired a mysterious painting by an unknown artist, The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret and Two Angels (1500–10), for $20 million through Sotheby's.

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article culture schedule May 5, 2025 visibility 17 link 7 artists

art bites jan van eyck oil paint

The article debunks the long-held myth that Flemish painter Jan van Eyck invented oil painting, tracing the origin of the technique back to 7th-century Afghanistan. It recounts how Giorgio Vasari's 1550 biography "Lives of the Artists" falsely credited van Eyck with the invention after a story about the artist seeking a sun-proof medium. In reality, oil-based paints were used by Buddhist artists in the Bamiyan valley caves centuries earlier, and ancient Egyptians also combined oils with pigments for cosmetics.

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article news schedule May 2, 2025 visibility 9 link 3 artists

mark rothko dutch museum scratched

A large Mark Rothko painting, *Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8*, was removed from display at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam after a young visitor scratched it during an "unguarded moment." The 1960 work, measuring over 7 by 8 feet, is one of only two Rothkos in Dutch collections. The museum has sought conservation expertise in the Netherlands and abroad, and expects the painting to be shown again after treatment. The work was on view at the museum's open storage facility, the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, while the main building undergoes renovation until at least 2030.

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trending_up market schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 23 link 17 artists

impressionism auction industry

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Impressionism, which began in 1874 when 31 artists including Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, and Berthe Morisot staged a groundbreaking exhibition in Paris. To commemorate the sesquicentennial, international institutions are hosting exhibitions such as the Musée d'Orsay's "Paris 1874: Inventing Impressionism," while Artnet and Morgan Stanley have collaborated to analyze auction data from 2014 to 2023, examining the market for works by approximately 120 Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. Despite perceptions that Impressionism has lost its luster, the number of lots offered at auction has remained steady, averaging 6,091 annually over the decade.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 28, 2025 visibility 16 link 3 artists

caraggio rome barberini review rare

A major exhibition titled "Caravaggio 2025" at Rome's Palazzo Barberini brings together two dozen of the artist's roughly sixty known works, drawn from Italian and international collections. The show spans Caravaggio's career from his arrival in Rome in 1595 to his death in 1610, and includes rediscovered paintings such as *Ecce Homo* (c. 1606–1607), which resurfaced at a Spanish auction in 2021, and a newly attributed portrait of Maffeo Barberini (c. 1595). Visitors can now see nearly two-thirds of Caravaggio's surviving oeuvre in a single trip to Rome, with the exhibition running through July 6.

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article news schedule Apr 27, 2025 visibility 12 link 8 artists

oasis condemns dic corp rothko seagram murals relocation

Hong Kong-based activist fund Oasis Management has publicly condemned Japanese chemical company DIC Corporation for relocating the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art to the International House of Japan (IHJ), a private members' club in Tokyo. The move includes seven of Mark Rothko's "Seagram Murals" and other valuable artworks. Oasis, a major shareholder in DIC Corp, accuses the company's chairman, Yoshihisa Kawamura, of attempting to transfer assets to an inner circle and has urged shareholders to vote against CEO Takashi Ikeda and support governance reforms.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 26, 2025 visibility 21 link 4 artists

museums of tomorrow roundtable 2025

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) will host the 2025 Museums of Tomorrow Roundtable (MTR) from May 11-17, bringing together 14 global museum leaders and technology firms including Adobe, Anthropic, Bloomberg, and Salesforce. Participants include directors such as Marion Ackermann (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz), Stephanie Rosenthal (Guggenheim Abu Dhabi), Eike Schmidt (Museo di Capodimonte), Mami Kataoka (Mori Art Museum), and others, alongside Bay Area museum heads and AI artist Refik Anadol, who will speak in a free public program at the de Young Museum. The forum aims to bridge the museum and technology communities, exploring how advanced technologies can enrich operations and visitor experiences while supporting artists working with technology.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 22, 2025 visibility 16 link 5 artists

ai weiwei rebel retrospective seattle

The Seattle Art Museum has opened “Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei,” the largest U.S. retrospective ever for the Chinese dissident artist. The exhibition features iconic works such as the neon sign *FUCK* (2020), the sculpture *Middle Finger* (2000), and the photographic series “Study of Perspective” (1995–2011), alongside pieces that remix art history—from Duchamp-inspired readymades to Lego versions of Old Masters. Curated by Ping Foong, the show spans Ai’s career, including his politically charged responses to the Sichuan earthquake and his infamous 1995 performance *Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn*.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 18, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

egon schiele secret niece revealed

A group of Egon Schiele scholars and curators recently discovered that the artist had a secret niece, Gertrude "Gerti" Peschka, born to his sister Gertrude and fellow artist Anton Peschka before their marriage. The revelation came from a previously unexamined box of documents in the archives of Rudolf Leopold at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, including letters from Schiele's mother about the pregnancy and a note from Schiele congratulating his sister. Gerti died tragically of starvation in a Nazi-run psychiatric hospital. The discovery was made by Verena Gamper, then head of the Egon Schiele Documentation Center, and has been incorporated into the exhibition "Egon Schiele: Last Years" at the Leopold Museum.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 16, 2026 visibility 20 link 1 artist

A Thomas J Price Bronze Opens Door to London’s V&A East

British artist Thomas J Price has unveiled a monumental bronze sculpture at the entrance of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s new outpost, V&A East, in Stratford, East London. The large-scale work depicts an anonymous Black figure, continuing Price's practice of utilizing the traditional language of monumental sculpture to celebrate everyday individuals who are often marginalized in public spaces.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 15, 2026 visibility 21 link 7 artists

What to See This Spring at Museums Across the U.S.

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.

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