Vasari Art Codex

article policy schedule Jan 16, 2026 visibility 12 link 9 artists

collectors donate art england taxes degas bill brandt 1234770108

Arts Council England announced the results of the 2024-25 Cultural Gifts Scheme and Acceptance in Lieu initiatives, through which 32 artworks valued at nearly $80 million entered public collections. Highlights include Edgar Degas's pastel *Danseuses roses* (ca. 1897–1901) donated to the National Gallery, paintings by Max Liebermann and Max Pechstein given to the Ashmolean Museum, a historic desk used by Prime Ministers Benjamin Disraeli and Winston Churchill acquired by the National Trust, and 77 photographs by Bill Brandt donated to Tate. The report covers transfers from April 2024 to March 2025.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Jan 13, 2026 visibility 9 link 4 artists

yoko ono art mca chicago review 1234769626

Yoko Ono's retrospective "Music of the Mind" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago showcases over 200 works, including word scores, ephemera, and performances from the 1960s and early '70s. Central to the show is Ono's aesthetic of refusal, exemplified by pieces like *Strip Tease for Three* (1966), where empty chairs await a dancer who never arrives, and *Smoke Painting* (1961), which instructs viewers to burn a canvas. The exhibition, which first appeared at Tate Modern in 2024 and travels to the Broad in Los Angeles after closing in Chicago on February 22, challenges viewers to find meaning in absence and denial.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

article news schedule Jan 12, 2026 visibility 7 link 6 artists

smithsonian drops text about trumps impeachments legendary painter beatriz gonzalez dies at 93 morning links for january 12 2025 1234769447

The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery removed wall text referencing President Donald Trump's two impeachments from its "America's Presidents" exhibition after installing a new portrait of him. The original label had noted Trump's political accomplishments and his impeachments for abuse of power and inciting insurrection, which had reportedly been a sore point for the Trump administration. Separately, Colombian painter Beatriz González died at age 93; she was known for reworking Old Master paintings in garish colors and later addressing political upheaval in her country.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Jan 10, 2026 visibility 8 link 2 artists

vermeer girl with a pearl earring loaned osaka japan 1234769354

The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague has announced that Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" will be loaned to the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan, for a temporary exhibition this fall. The loan occurs while the Dutch museum undergoes renovations in August and September. The painting was last lent to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam for its 2023 Vermeer retrospective. The Asahi Shimbun Company is underwriting the presentation and will serve as a project partner to the Mauritshuis for four years, funding a new education center slated for 2028.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

article news schedule Jan 8, 2026 visibility 14 link 2 artists

franco regime censored robert motherwell painting moma show 1234768998

Newly uncovered documents from the Museum of Modern Art’s archives confirm that the Franco regime in Spain attempted to censor Robert Motherwell’s painting *Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 35* (1954–58) before its scheduled 1958 exhibition in Madrid. The painting was part of MoMA’s traveling show “The New American Painting,” which introduced Abstract Expressionism to Europe. Spanish authorities demanded Motherwell remove the phrase “Spanish Republic” from the title, but the artist refused, leading to the work’s exclusion from the exhibition. The documents, reviewed by *El País*, also reveal that Catalan artist Antoni Tàpies boycotted state-sanctioned shows, calling the regime’s cultural propaganda “scandalous.”

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

article news schedule Jan 7, 2026 visibility 6 link 2 artists

diana thater media art preservation cmacc 1234769025

When the Eaton Fire swept through Altadena in January 2025, artist Diana Thater lost decades of raw footage, master tapes, installation manuals, and ephemera stored in her garage. Her husband, artist T. Kelly Mason, managed to save a server and several hard drives, but much of her earlier archive—never digitized—was destroyed. In the aftermath, Thater began working with the Canyon Media Art Conservation Center (CMACC), a nonprofit conservation lab opening in 2026 that specializes in time-based media art. Led by conservator Cass Fino-Radin, CMACC is helping Thater locate surviving versions of her works in museums and private collections to rebuild and preserve her archive.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

article culture schedule Jan 7, 2026 visibility 11 link 4 artists

monas eyes book cover vermeer painting controversy 1234769003

Thomas Schlesser's novel *Mona's Eyes* has been named Barnes & Noble's book of the year for 2025, but its cover has sparked controversy online. The cover features Johannes Vermeer's *The Girl with the Pearl Earring*, even though the story is about a girl named Mona who visits Paris museums with her grandfather, and the painting is not held in Paris—it resides at the Mauritshuis in The Hague. A viral Reddit thread on an art history subreddit accused the publisher of "ragebait," noting the mismatch between the cover image and the book's content. Schlesser, an art historian who teaches at the École Polytechnique and runs the Hartung Bergman Foundation, defended the choice, saying he wanted an iconic work symbolizing light and darkness rather than highlighting any of the 52 artworks featured in the story.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Jan 7, 2026 visibility 14 link 42 artists

diriyah contemporary art biennale 2026 artist list 1234769006

The Diriyah Biennale Foundation has announced the artist list for the third edition of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, opening January 30 in the JAX District of Diriyah, near Riyadh. Titled “In Interludes and Transitions,” the biennale is curated by Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed and features over 65 artists, including more than 20 new commissions. Participants range from historic figures like Pacita Abad and Etel Adnan to emerging voices such as Raven Chacon and Dineo Seshee Bopape, working across painting, installation, film, sound, architecture, and publishing.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

rate_review review schedule Jan 6, 2026 visibility 7 link 4 artists, 1 gallery

jaqueline humphries aspen museum review 1234768790

Jacqueline Humphries's survey exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum features her painting installation "TSLA" (2025), a five-panel work hung on bare metal studs that bisects the gallery space. The installation plays with perception through mirrors and anamorphic imagery, including a distorted Tesla logo, and includes a hidden set of red paintings visible only as reflections. The show also presents nine smaller works generated in part by artificial intelligence, housed in a green-walled adjacent room.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Jan 3, 2026 visibility 11 link 10 artists

an indigenous takeover of the met asks who should be writing art history 1234757699

An unsanctioned augmented reality exhibition titled “Encoded” has taken over the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, featuring works by 17 North American Indigenous artists. The exhibition, organized by the nonprofit media lab Amplifier and co-curated by Tracy Rector, overlays digital artworks onto iconic paintings and sculptures, including a piece by Josué Riva that replaces Thomas Sully’s portrait of Queen Victoria with a moving image of Acosia Red Elk (Umatilla, Cayuse & Nez Perce) delivering the message “Be a Good Ancestor.” The intervention launched on Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Columbus Day, October 13, 2025, and runs through December 13, without the Met’s permission.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

article news schedule Jan 2, 2026 visibility 4 link 4 artists

uk museums increasingly turning to public to make decisions trump auctions off jesus christ painting for 2 75 m morning links for january 2 2026 1234768600

British museums are increasingly turning to citizens' assemblies to guide policy, priorities, and funding decisions, with the National Gallery launching its NG Citizens panel following similar initiatives at Birmingham Museums Trust, the Imperial War Museum, and the Migration Museum. Separately, Donald Trump hosted a New Year's Eve gala at Mar-a-Lago where a live-painted portrait of Jesus Christ by artist Vanessa Horabuena sold for $2.75 million, with proceeds split between St. Jude's Children's Hospital and the local sheriff's department. The article also reports a £30 million donation to the Royal Academy of Music's museum, the discovery of a 9,500-year-old cremation pyre in Malawi, a list of major 2026 exhibitions, the death of artist Janet Fish, and research by Daisy Fancourt linking arts engagement to better health outcomes.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Dec 31, 2025 visibility 13 link 13 artists

tony shafrazi independent art fair return 1234751032

Tony Shafrazi, the legendary and controversial New York art dealer, is returning to the art fair circuit for the first time since 2012 with a booth at the Independent 20th Century fair in New York. He is presenting works by Armenian sculptor Zadik Zadikian, whose installation of gold bricks Shafrazi first exhibited in Tehran in 1978 before they were lost in the Iranian Revolution, alongside paintings by Brandon Deener. Shafrazi, now in his 80s, closed his New York gallery in 2011 and was banned from Art Basel in 2012 for breaking the fair's rules.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Dec 23, 2025 visibility 9 link 8 artists

jack whitten 2025 artnews awards historical artist 1234762878

Jack Whitten is the recipient of the 2025 ARTnews Award for his retrospective "Jack Whitten: The Messenger" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, running from March 23 to August 2, 2025. Curated by Michelle Kuo with Helena Klevorn, Dana Liljegren, and David Sledge, the exhibition features 175 works spanning Whitten's six-decade career, highlighting his innovative use of acrylic paint, his custom squeegee-like tool called the Developer, and his mosaic-like paintings made from dried acrylic chips. The show includes early works from the civil rights era, mid-career homages to Black thinkers like W.E.B. Du Bois and Ralph Ellison, and a monumental abstraction memorializing 9/11.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

article news schedule Dec 18, 2025 visibility 8 link 12 artists

top ukrainian art historian believes italian museum holds 14 fake russian and ukrainian modernist works 1234767043

Konstantin Akinsha, a prominent curator and art historian of Russian and Ukrainian art, has identified 14 artworks in the collection of the Palazzo de Nordis museum in Cividale del Friuli, Italy, as likely forgeries. In a Substack post and interview with ARTnews, Akinsha scrutinized the De Martiis Collection, donated in 2015 by the late collector Giancarlo De Martiis, which includes works attributed to Russian and Ukrainian modernist painters. He points to suspicious provenances involving Jean Chauvelin, a disgraced French art dealer, and Boris Gribanov, a convicted forger. A specific still life attributed to Olga Rozanova (1915-17) is nearly identical to a 1999 painting by contemporary Russian artist Andrei Saratov, who confirmed he did not paint the museum's version. Elisabetta Gottardo, the municipal head of culture, acknowledged Akinsha's authority and pledged further investigation.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Dec 17, 2025 visibility 8 link 1 artist

sothebys 2025 sales results analysis 1234767117

Sotheby's is projecting $7.0 billion in consolidated 2025 sales, a 17% increase over the previous year and the strongest result in the company's history. Auction sales rose 26% to $5.7 billion, driven by high-quality consignments including the Leonard A. Lauder Collection and a $236.4 million Klimt painting. Luxury sales climbed 22% to $2.7 billion, while RM Sotheby's surpassed $1 billion for the first time. The opening of Sotheby's new global headquarters at the Breuer Building was a commercial centerpiece, generating $1.17 billion in its inaugural week. The company also expanded rapidly in the Middle East, staging the first international auction in Saudi Arabia and launching Collectors' Week in Abu Dhabi.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Dec 16, 2025 visibility 10 link 4 artists

art institute chicagos acquisitions 2025 1234766979

The Art Institute of Chicago announced its top acquisitions from over 1,000 works added to its collections in 2025. Highlights include Kay WalkingStick’s two-panel painting *The Silence of Glacier* (2013), which overlays Northern Cheyenne beadwork onto a Glacier National Park landscape; Christian Schad’s *Portrait of Composer Josef Matthias Hauer* (1927); Frans Francken II’s *Esther Before Ahasuerus* (1622); a rare 17th-century Indian textile titled *A Nayaka Nobleman with Courtiers and Courtesans*; an untitled photograph from Francesca Woodman’s “Caryatid” series (1980); and the *Ovejo Armchair* (1972) by Jaime Gutiérrez Lega.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Dec 15, 2025 visibility 9 link 5 artists, 1 gallery

walton ford gagosian tutto cheetah marchesa luisa casati 1234738380

Walton Ford's new series of paintings, on view at Gagosian in New York through April 19, centers on the Marchesa Luisa Casati and her two cheetahs. The works depict the Milanese heiress and Futurist muse in early 20th-century Venice, but the animals—not the glamorous woman—command the focal point. Ford, known for subverting natural history illustration, uses watercolor to balance trompe-l'oeil realism with painterly abandon, developing the characters across multiple canvases with Italian titles referencing literature by Casati's lover, poet Gabriele D'Annunzio.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 12 link 6 artists

paris modern art museum donation henri matisse 1234766196

Barbara Dauphin Duthuit, the wife of Henri Matisse's grandson, has donated 61 works by Matisse to the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. The gift includes seven paintings, numerous drawings, etchings, lithographs, and illustrated books, most of which feature portraits of the artist's eldest daughter, Marguerite (1894–1982). Many of these works were on view in France for the first time during the museum's recent exhibition “Matisse and Marguerite: Through Her Father’s Eyes.” The donation spans from Marguerite's childhood to 1945, including pieces that reference her convalescence from diphtheria and her survival of Gestapo torture during World War II.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

article news schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 6 link 6 artists

vancouver art gallery and modern art museum in paris receive major gift rare illuminated jewish prayer book heads to auction and more morning links for december 11 2025 1234766179

The Vancouver Art Gallery has received a transformative gift of 131 artworks from an anonymous Hong Kong collector, forming a living collection called Art Continuum Hong Kong (ACHK) that spans works by 78 artists from the 1950s to today. Meanwhile, Barbara Dauphin Duthuit, wife of Henri Matisse's grandson, donated 61 Matisse works to the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, including paintings, drawings, and etchings. Additionally, a rare 15th-century illuminated Jewish prayer book looted by Nazis and recently restituted is heading to auction at Sotheby's in February with an estimate of at least $5 million.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

article news schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 4 link 1 artist

swedish court acquits climate activists monet painting 1234765895

A Swedish court acquitted six climate activists from the group Återställ Våtmarker (Restore Wetlands) who smeared red paint on the protective glass of Claude Monet's painting *The Artist’s Garden at Giverny* (1900) at the National Museum of Sweden in June 2023. The painting, on loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, was unharmed; the court ruled the activists had no intent to damage the work, noting they used water-soluble paint and targeted a glass-covered piece, though some paint reached the frame.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

article news schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 7 link 4 artists

notre dame windows climate activists acquitted morning links 1234765897

A Swedish court acquitted six climate activists who smeared red paint on a Claude Monet painting at Sweden's Nationalmuseum in June 2023, ruling they had no intent to damage the artwork. Separately, Claire Tabouret's designs for new stained-glass windows at Notre-Dame de Paris go on public display at the Grand Palais, despite controversy over replacing original 19th-century windows. Other news includes Pantone defending its 2026 Color of the Year choice, Brussels closing its Centrale for Contemporary Art due to budget cuts, the San Francisco Asian Art Museum returning looted Thai sculptures, and curator Pi Li leaving Hong Kong's Tai Kwun to help found a new museum in Shenzhen.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

person people schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 9 link 6 artists

ralph lemon artnews awards 2025 lifetime achievement 1234763082

Ralph Lemon has been awarded the 2025 ARTnews Lifetime Achievement Award for his multidisciplinary practice spanning dance, drawing, painting, installation, sculpture, and writing. The article highlights his career trajectory from founding the Ralph Lemon Dance Company to disbanding it in 1995 to focus on broader artistic collaborations. Central to his work is the Geography Trilogy (1996–2004) and his long-term collaboration with Walter Carter, a former Mississippi sharecropper, whose life and family became a recurring subject. Lemon's recent exhibition "Ceremonies Out of the Air: Ralph Lemon" at MoMA PS1 (November 14, 2024–March 24, 2025), curated by Connie Butler and Thomas Lax, featured videos, found African sculptures, drawings, and a four-channel performance piece, Rant (redux), with Kevin Beasley and Okwui Okpokwasili.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 6 link 4 artists

legacies asian american artists 2025 artnews awards 80wse 1234762882

The article reviews "Legacies: Asian American Art Movements in New York City," an exhibition at 80WSE in New York, curated by Howie Chen, Jayne Cole Southard, and christina ong, running from September 11 to December 20, 2024. Billed as the first institutional survey of Asian American artists in New York City, the show features 90 artists and spans the period from 1969 to 2001, centering on three key organizations: Godzilla: Asian American Art Network, the Basement Workshop, and the Asian American Arts Centre. The exhibition highlights how many of these artists did not solely make work about their race, complicating the link between identity and art, and includes lesser-known pieces such as David Diao's 1974 painting "Odd Man Out" and a provocative 1985 photograph by Hanh Thi Pham.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 12 link 8 artists

paula modersohn becker degenerate doubles auction record 1234764548

A 1906 self-portrait by German modernist Paula Modersohn-Becker, titled *Selbstbildnis nach halblinks (Self-Portrait Looking Slightly Left)*, sold for €1.3 million ($1.5 million) at Berlin's Grisebach auction house on Thursday—more than quintupling its low estimate and more than doubling the artist's previous auction record. The work was acquired by an unnamed European private collector. The painting had previously been seized by the Nazis as "degenerate" art from the St. Annen Museum in Lübeck and was later acquired by the collector Bauer, who aimed to rehabilitate persecuted artists.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Nov 26, 2025 visibility 4 link 2 artists

renoir painting missing for a century sells in paris for 2 million 1234763955

A Renoir painting that had been missing for a century sold for $2 million at auction in Paris. The work, titled *L’enfant et ses jouets – Gabrielle et le fils de l’artiste, Jean* (circa 1910), depicts the artist’s young son Jean with his nursemaid Gabrielle. It had never been published or exhibited and was discovered in remarkably good condition. Auction house Joron-Derem offered the painting in its Tableaux Modernes sale at Hôtel Drouot on November 25, where an international collector secured it for a hammer price of €1.45 million ($1.68 million), with buyer’s fees bringing the total to about €1.8 million ($2 million). The painting had been gifted by Renoir to his pupil and close friend Jeanne Baudot, then passed to her adopted son Jean Griot, who kept it in his bedroom until his death in 2011.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 7 link 10 artists

museo jumex football and art exhibition 2026 world cup fifa 1234763733

Museo Jumex in Mexico City will host "Fútbol y Arte. Esa misma emoción" (Football & Art. A Shared Emotion), an exhibition timed to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Opening March 28 and running through July 26, the show features around 100 works by 60 international artists, including Marta Minujín, Graciela Iturbide, Melanie Smith, and Rafael Ortega. Curated by Guillermo Santamarina with exhibition design by Mauricio Rocha, the museum will be transformed into elements symbolic of soccer, with sections exploring gender, community, identity, and the political dimensions of the game. New commissions by Diego Berruecos, Iñaki Bonillas, and Sofía Echeverri are included, along with a sculptural installation by Tercerunquinto made from recycled Estadio Azteca seats.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Nov 24, 2025 visibility 11 link 6 artists

martin wong painting unseen art basel miami beach ppow 1234762898

A long-unseen 12-foot-wide painting by Martin Wong, titled *Tai Ping Tien Kuo (Tai Ping Kuo)* (1982), will be exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach next month courtesy of New York gallery P.P.O.W. The work, which features a rare nude portrait of the artist’s mother and stepfather, was last shown publicly in 1987 at the Asian Arts Institute in New York. It was kept in storage for decades because Wong’s mother, Florence Wong Fie, objected to its display out of modesty. The painting adopts a classical three-panel altarpiece format, blending Chinese American history with references to Western art, the Taiping Rebellion, and Wong’s own Lower East Side influences.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Nov 21, 2025 visibility 13 link 10 artists

frida kahlo painting sothebys record woman surrealism 1234762747

Frida Kahlo's 1940 self-portrait *El sueño (La cama)* sold for $54.7 million at Sotheby's New York on November 20, far exceeding its pre-sale estimate of $40–60 million. The painting, consigned by the estate of Selma Ertegun, was won by a phone bidder handled by Sotheby's senior vice president Anna Di Stasi. The sale broke Kahlo's previous auction record of $34.9 million set in 2021 for *Diego y yo*, as well as the record for a Latin American artwork and the overall record for a work by a woman artist at auction, surpassing Georgia O'Keeffe's $44.4 million *Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1*.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Nov 20, 2025 visibility 12 link 5 artists

christies 21st century evening sale women artists records 1234762523

Christie’s 21st-century evening sale on Wednesday set new auction records for women artists Firelei Báez, Joan Brown, and Olga de Amaral. Báez’s painting *Untitled (Colonization in America, Visual History Wall Map, Prepared by Civic Education Service)* (2021) sold for $1,111,250; Brown’s *After the Alcatraz Swim #2* achieved $596,900; and Amaral’s *Pueblo H* (2011) soared to $3,125,000—more than double her previous record. The sale also set records for a neon/sculptural work by Glenn Ligon and a three-dimensional work by Richard Prince.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original

article news schedule Nov 19, 2025 visibility 8 link 15 artists

anonymous was a woman 2025 grant winners 1234762080

Anonymous Was a Woman, a grant-making organization supporting woman-identifying artists, has announced 15 recipients of its $50,000 grants for 2025. The winners include Candida Alvarez, Park McArthur, Lola Flash, Kunié Sugiura, and Sonya Kelliher-Combs, among others. Founder Susan Unterberg, who initially remained anonymous, revealed herself in 2018 and named the organization after a Virginia Woolf quotation. The grants are primarily for artists over 40, and the organization has recently expanded to fund environmentally minded projects.

newspaper ARTnews open_in_new Read original