Long-Lost 17th-Century Altarpiece Paintings Recovered After Nearly 100 Years

Spanish police have recovered two long-lost 17th-century altarpiece paintings by Baroque painter Lucas Valdés, which disappeared after being shown at the 1929 Ibero-American Exhibition of Seville. The works, depicting Old Testament scenes, were identified in an auction house catalog in September 2025, authenticated by the Spanish Historical Heritage Brigade, and returned to the Hospital of the Venerable Priests in Seville on May 20, 2026, after a mediation process with the consignors.

Egypt Unveils a Hidden Tomb of 3,500-Year-Old Coffins at Luxor’s Abu el-Naga

An Egyptian archaeological mission excavating at the Abu El-Naga necropolis near Luxor has uncovered a cache of ten well-preserved painted wooden coffins hidden in the courtyard shaft of the tomb of Baki. The coffins span multiple periods, including the 18th Dynasty, the Ramesside period, and the Late Period, with inscriptions naming individuals such as Merit, a chantress of the god Amun, and Padi-Amun, a priest in the Temple of Amun. The team also discovered the tomb of a purification priest named A-Shafi-Nakhtu, decorated with funerary scenes, and a burial site containing over 30 mummified cats from the Ptolemaic Period. The discoveries were announced by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, with the excavation season beginning in November 2025.

Israel Advances Bill Granting Sweeping Civilian Authority over West Bank Archaeological Sites

Israel advanced a bill on Tuesday that would grant sweeping civilian authority over antiquities and archaeology in the occupied West Bank, replacing the current military-run system. The Likud-backed legislation would create a "Judea and Samaria Heritage Authority" under the Israeli heritage minister, empowered to purchase and expropriate land, oversee excavations, and manage heritage sites across Areas B and C of the West Bank. The bill passed its first of three votes (23-14) and would be led by Amichai Eliyahu, a far-right politician who advocates for annexation. Human rights groups and the Israeli NGO Emek Shaveh warned the move amounts to de facto annexation and a violation of Palestinian rights.

Punching the light: Sydney’s 90s raves – in pictures

Simon Burstall, at age 17, began photographing Sydney's underground rave scene in the 1990s, using borrowed school cameras and sneaking out in the family car to capture the burgeoning subculture. His images from that era were later compiled into the photobook '93: Punching the Light, published by Damiani in 2019.

Nature is healing? Seagull lays eggs in the Giardini during Venice Biennale preview

During the VIP preview of the Venice Biennale, a seagull laid three eggs near the entrance of the Polish Pavilion in the Giardini. Pavilion staff built a protective barrier around the nest and warned visitors to avoid the protective bird, which one Italian collector called "the main attraction."

US exhibition unearths the Etruscans and their enduring cultural influence

The Legion of Honor in San Francisco will present "The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy" from 2 May to 20 September, featuring nearly 200 objects including jewellery, sculptures, and vessels from the ancient Etruscan civilisation. The exhibition highlights recent archaeological discoveries, such as the Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis—the longest surviving Etruscan text—and grave objects from the Regolini-Galassi Tomb, many making their US debut. Curator Renée Dreyfus aims to correct negative portrayals of the Etruscans by Greeks and Romans and showcase their cultural achievements.

Broome County Public Library brings back Da Vinci Festival Student Art Show

The Da Vinci Festival Student Art Show has returned to the Broome County Public Library in New York after a nearly ten-year hiatus. Organized by Chenango Valley art teacher Matthew Wilson, the exhibit features artwork from students in kindergarten through 12th grade across 18 schools in seven districts. The festival had not been held since 2017 due to a coordinator stepping down and subsequent delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The trolls come indoors as a Danish recycling artist stages his first museum exhibit

Danish recycling artist Thomas Dambo, known for creating nearly 200 wooden troll sculptures hidden in natural settings across 19 countries, is opening his first museum exhibition. Titled “The Garbage Man,” the show at the Arken Museum of Contemporary Art near Copenhagen features a new collection of fairy tale-inspired trolls that take over the museum and build a giant human figure out of trash. The exhibition opens Sunday and runs until November 29, marking a shift from Dambo's usual outdoor treasure-hunt installations to an indoor, narrative-driven experience.

Heritage Fine Arts Guild’s “Best of Heritage” returns to Bemis Public Library

The Heritage Fine Arts Guild is bringing back its annual "Best of Heritage" art show to the Bemis Public Library in Littleton, Colorado, from June 1 to June 30. The exhibition features nearly 50 paintings by 24 guild artists, centered on the theme "Our Vision: Our Joy," chosen collectively by members to reflect finding joy in community, art, and life. A juried awards reception will be held on June 10, with juror Mary Williams, a Colorado-based artist and curator for the Healing Arts Program at several local hospitals, selecting top prizes and offering critiques to participating artists.

Auctions of the week: ancient art, design and antiques

A busy week of auctions is scheduled for May 21-27, 2026, spanning Milan, New York, and other global hubs. Italian auction houses including FarsettiArte, Wannenes, Gonnelli, Finarte, Capitolium AuctionHouse, Pananti, Aste Bolaffi, Il Ponte, Maison Bibelot, Babuino Fine Art Auctions, and Pandolfini will offer paintings, drawings, sculptures, antiques, design, jewelry, and vintage fashion. International houses Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonhams - Cornette de Saint-Cyr, and Dorotheum also hold sales in New York, Zurich, Paris, and Vienna, covering post-war and contemporary art, handbags, fine wine, and antiques.

Szentendre’s Old Artists’ Colony Marks 100 Years with Major Exhibition

A major exhibition titled "Artists’ Colony 100" has opened at MűvészetMalom in Szentendre, Hungary, to mark the centenary of the Old Artists’ Colony founded in 1926. The show features hundreds of works by nearly a hundred artists, from founding members such as József Bánáti Sverák, Miklós Bánovszky, and Béla Onódi to contemporary figures including József Baksai and Imre Szakács. It includes iconic pieces, rare works, and recent discoveries, organized thematically with a focus on the garden motif that has long inspired colony artists.

11 artists explore nature and art in next Tahawus Gallery exhibit

The Tahawus Gallery will host an upcoming exhibition featuring 11 artists whose works explore the intersection of nature and art. The show brings together a diverse group of creators to examine themes of landscape, ecology, and the natural world through various media.

International Museum Day: Museum of Art and Photography showcases botany, history and social media

The Museum of Art and Photography (MAP) in Bangalore, India, celebrated International Museum Day by presenting a special showcase that weaves together themes of botany, history, and social media. The exhibition highlights how plant life has been depicted in art across centuries, from historical botanical illustrations to contemporary digital works, and explores the intersection of nature, culture, and online platforms.

In “El Arte de la Resistencia,” migrant children share their experiences through art

An art exhibition titled "El Arte de la Resistencia" opened in Tucson, featuring artwork created by migrant children who have participated in La Ristra's art therapy program. The show includes life-size paintings, such as a boy's self-portrait with an excavator in his belly symbolizing his deported father's work, and a colorful cactus painted by another child. The exhibition, held in a small gallery near Fourth Avenue and Seventh Street, runs until May 17, 2026, with original pieces for sale to benefit the young artists and prints sold to raise funds for La Ristra, a nonprofit providing emotional support to migrant families.

The Navy and the painters: a splendid exhibition of maritime paintings at the Navy Museum - photos

The Navy Museum in Paris is hosting a major exhibition titled "The Navy and the Painters" from May 13 to August 2, 2026, featuring nearly 150 paintings spanning the 17th to 20th centuries. The show traces the evolution of maritime art and the French Navy's history, with works by artists such as Manet, Signac, and Le Lorrain, alongside a special section on the Navy's Official Painters (POM) with 84 contemporary works.

Discover contemporary works across styles and generations by 23 artists at this exhibition in New Delhi

An exhibition titled "The Contemporary Lore: Sojourn of Styles and Generations Unfurled" has opened in New Delhi, featuring works by 23 artists across different career stages and artistic styles. Curated by Kiran K. Mohan with a critical essay by art historian Johny ML, the show includes paintings, sculptures, and mixed media by artists such as Anil Gaekwad, Ashok Bhowmick, Harshwardhan Devtale, and others. The display is deliberately non-chronological, aiming to foster dialogue between seasoned practitioners and emerging voices.

Saudi pavilion at Venice Biennale turns fractured heritage into monumental art installation

Saudi Arabia has unveiled a large-scale installation by artist Dana Awartani at the 61st Venice Biennale, held at the Arsenale. Titled "May your tears never dry, you who weep over stones," the work covers the entire floor of the Saudi national pavilion and incorporates over 29,000 sunbaked clay bricks and mosaic patterns inspired by Islamic geometric art. The installation references 23 heritage sites across the Arab world that have been damaged or destroyed by conflict, and was produced over nearly 30,000 artisan hours with 32 craftspeople at a studio outside Riyadh. Curated by Antonia Carver with assistant curator Hafsa Alkhudairi, the piece emphasizes traditional craftsmanship and collective skill-sharing.

Healing through art : Stories of First Nations people who have experienced incarceration

The Torch, a First Peoples-led arts organization in Victoria, Australia, runs a program supporting Indigenous artists who have experienced incarceration. Its annual exhibition, Confined 17, features nearly 500 artworks by 424 First Nations artists at the Glen Eira City Council gallery in Naarm. The organization provides art materials, cultural connection, and economic support, with artists receiving 100% of their income from sales. Participants like Tegan, a Palawa woman, describe improvising with food dye in prison to create watercolor-style works, while CEO Susannah Day and founder Kent Morris emphasize the program's role in reducing reincarceration rates.

Arts Council News – Fine Art Exhibition Awards

A circle of Cuban art at Westchester Regional Library

The Westchester Regional Library in Miami is hosting "Circular Reflections," an exhibition featuring over 80 contemporary Cuban artists, each working within a 21-inch circular format. Organized in collaboration with the Miami-Dade Public Library System, the show opened on April 3 and runs through June 25. Curated by Miami-based artist and independent curator Miguel Rodez, the project began nearly a decade ago and has evolved into a traveling, ongoing documentation of Cuban visual culture. Artists like Ismael Gómez Peralta discuss how the circular constraint challenged traditional rectangular composition, pushing them to rethink spatial organization while maintaining their individual visual languages.

Meet artist Sanya Kantarovsky as he creates an immersive world in a Venetian palazzo

Sanya Kantarovsky presents 'Basic Failure,' an exhibition of paintings, ceramics, and a glass sculpture at Palazzo Loredan in Venice, running concurrently with the Venice Art Biennale 2026. The show features haunting, figurative works that resist linear narrative, drawing on themes of religion, history, philosophy, and human emotion, with the artist describing his intuitive, fragmentary approach to composition.

AN INSIDE JOB: Clymer Museum of Art reopens after renovations with show by CWU student

The Clymer Museum of Art in Ellensburg reopened on Friday after renovations, featuring a new exhibition titled "Plastic Souls" by Margot Massey, a junior at Central Washington University pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts. The show explores themes of artificiality and performance in social media, with paintings depicting actors, cowboys, showgirls, and rodeo clowns, and will later include two life-size figurative sculptures. The museum closed in January for renovations, which expanded wall space by roughly 30% and created a new gallery near the entrance for rotating student exhibitions.

Dallas' African American Museum reopens with iconic Sepia photo exhibit

The African American Museum in Dallas reopens on May 1 after temporary renovations, featuring the exhibition "People Who Make the World Go ‘Round: The Legacy of Sepia Magazine." The show highlights influential Black icons such as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Maya Angelou, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Thurgood Marshall through photographs from the museum's archive of over 40,000 images. Sepia magazine, founded in Fort Worth in 1946, chronicled Black life and culture for nearly four decades, offering a Southern perspective that rivaled national publications like Ebony and Jet.

Soft Power: When Textiles Become Compelling Storytellers

The article reviews 'Threading Inwards,' an exhibition at the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (CHAT) in Hong Kong, curated by Wang Weiwei, Eugene Hannah Park, Kurosawa Seiha, and Wang Huan. It features 14 artists from across Asia who use textile as a medium to explore themes of spirituality, memory, and cultural heritage. Works include Han Sang A's 'Threshold' series, Hu Yinping's 'Soul Bottle' series, and pieces by Aziza Kadyri, Mooni Perry, Citra Sasmita, IV Chan, and Chen Zhe, among others.

Mary Lovelace O’Neal, Whose Paintings Were Saturated in Black, Dies at 84

Mary Lovelace O’Neal, an artist and activist known for her monumental canvases saturated in the darkest pigments she could find, has died at age 84. Her work, deeply informed by her identity as a Black woman and her involvement in the civil rights movement, gained prominence for its bold abstraction and political resonance.

The Korean Artist Park Daesung Is In the Spotlight at 81

The Korean artist Park Daesung, now nearly 81 years old, is experiencing a surge of international attention. His works have recently been featured in exhibitions across major cities including Chicago, London, Washington, and Los Angeles, and are now set to be shown at TEFAF New York.

With Free Vodka, and a Few Protests, Russia Returns to the Venice Biennale

Russia has reopened its national pavilion at the Venice Biennale for the first time since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The pavilion’s opening featured free vodka and drew a few protests, while Ukraine’s own exhibition is located nearby, highlighting the stark geopolitical tensions playing out at the prestigious art event.

U.S. and Italy Honor Alliance to Curb Art Looting, Amid Broader Tensions

Officials from the United States and Italy gathered near dozens of repatriated artifacts to celebrate their ongoing alliance against art looting, which has resulted in the return of thousands of artworks to Italy. The event highlighted collaborative efforts between the two nations to curb the illegal trafficking of cultural property, even as broader diplomatic tensions persist.

Iran’s Participation in the Venice Biennale Still Uncertain

Iran’s participation in the 61st Venice Biennale remains uncertain after a public contradiction emerged between the Biennale Foundation and Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG). The Biennale Foundation had announced that Iran would not participate in the 2026 edition, curated by Koyo Kouoh, but Aydin Mahdizadeh Tehrani, director general of visual arts at the MCIG and commissioner of the Iranian Pavilion, stated in an interview with the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) that Iran never submitted a withdrawal letter. Instead, Iran requested more time and sent a letter on May 10 asking for the pavilion to open even if ineligible for prizes. Mahdizadeh Tehrani cited the US-Israel war with Iran as causing currency fluctuations that nearly tripled projected costs, complicating prior agreements, and noted that Iran had proposed a shorter exhibition period, which the Biennale rejected.

Bulldozer Plows Across Thousand-Year-Old Indigenous Land Art During Border Wall Construction

Construction workers building the Trump administration's border wall between the US and Mexico accidentally damaged a two-hundred-foot-long Indigenous land art figure known as the Las Playas Intaglio, a colossal fish etched into the earth near Ajo, Arizona, that is thought to be over a thousand years old. Satellite imagery showed bulldozer tracks cutting a sixty-to-seventy-foot-wide path across the intaglio, and a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson confirmed the disturbance, stating the remaining portion had been secured and would be protected in place.