Meet the Art Market’s Most Bankable Artists

The article, part of the Artnet Intelligence Report 'The Year Ahead 2025,' identifies the most bankable artists across five market categories based on auction results. It highlights Jean-Siméon Chardin's *Le Melon entamé* (1760) as the top-priced European Old Masters work, Pablo Picasso's *La Statuaire* (1925) as third-highest in Impressionist and Modern, David Hockney's *A Lawn Being Sprinkled* (1967) as third-highest in Postwar, Yoshitomo Nara's *I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight* (2017) as second-highest in Contemporary, and Jonas Wood's *Still Life with Cat and Fruit* (2020) as fifth-highest in Ultra-Contemporary.

Patti Smith receives Princess of Asturias Award for Arts

Patti Smith erhält Asturien-Preis für Künste

Patti Smith, the 79-year-old American musician and author, has been awarded the Princess of Asturias Award in the Arts category. The Princess of Asturias Foundation in Oviedo, Spain, praised her as the "godmother of punk" who has transcended music to work across poetry, photography, performance art, and video installation, becoming a multidisciplinary and unconventional communicator. Smith first gained fame with her 1975 album "Horses" and remains popular with younger audiences due to her radical sincerity and continued political activism, including criticism of US President Donald Trump. She is the first winner announced this year; the prize includes €50,000 and a replica of a Joan Miró statue, to be presented by King Felipe VI and Crown Princess Leonor in late October.

Dream Win With a Catch

Traumgewinn mit Haken

A 58-year-old sales engineer from Paris has won a 1941 Pablo Picasso portrait titled "Tête de femme" through a charity raffle. The winner acquired the masterpiece, valued at approximately €1.45 million, by purchasing a single €100 ticket. Organized to benefit Alzheimer’s research, the international lottery sold 120,000 tickets across 152 countries, raising a total of €12 million.

On ARTE, the Ruffini Affair or the Autopsy of an Extraordinary Scandal in the Art World

Sur Arte, l’affaire Ruffini ou l’autopsie d’un scandale hors norme dans le monde de l’art

The documentary series "Le Peintre, la Pizza et le Corbeau" (The Painter, the Pizza and the Crow), available on ARTE, investigates a sprawling art forgery scandal centered on discreet dealer Giuliano Ruffini. Beginning in spring 2014 with an anonymous letter, the case led to a judicial inquiry by judge Aude Burési and France's Central Office for the Fight against Trafficking in Cultural Goods (OCBC). The series follows multiple suspicious artworks—including a Lucas Cranach Venus seized from an exhibition at the Hôtel de Caumont, a David and Goliath by Artemisia Gentileschi, and a Frans Hals portrait—each raising questions of authenticity. Ruffini, a former painter turned collector, remains an enigmatic figure, portrayed as both intuitive genius and possible cog in an opaque system.

Guillaume Cerutti Out as President of Paris’s Pinault Collection After 13 Months

Guillaume Cerutti has stepped down from his position as President of the Pinault Collection in Paris after only thirteen months. The institution, founded by billionaire François Pinault, has stated it has no plans to replace him or appoint an interim president, signaling a potential restructuring of its leadership.

Thomas Bayrle at dépendance

German artist Thomas Bayrle presents a solo exhibition at the Brussels-based gallery dépendance, running from March 14 through April 11, 2026. The presentation showcases a comprehensive selection of Bayrle’s work, documented through an extensive collection of 42 installation views and individual piece images that highlight his signature aesthetic of repetitive patterns and industrial motifs.

‘A Language We Share’ Traces a Photographic Lineage Between Gordon Parks and Beverly Price

‘A Language We Share’ Traces a Photographic Lineage Between Gordon Parks and Beverly Price

A new exhibition, "A Language We Share," opens this month at the Center for Art and Advocacy, placing the work of photographer Beverly Price in direct conversation with the legendary Gordon Parks. The show highlights their shared focus on social advocacy through imagery, particularly documenting the lives of children and communities in areas like Southeast Anacostia in Washington D.C., a location both photographers have captured across different eras.

Artist Outraged After His Conservationist Mural in Dallas Is Painted Over to Allow for FIFA Promo

A giant mural by conservationist artist Robert Wyland, titled *Ocean Life* (1999), was painted over in Dallas to make way for a FIFA promotional mural. The piece was number 82 of Wyland's 100 "whaling wall" murals worldwide, covering two sides of the Texas Utilities Building. Crews began painting over the larger 164-by-82-foot section last week, while a smaller panel remains visible. Wyland and the Wyland Foundation have denied giving permission, calling the city's claim a lie. The building's owner, Slate Asset Management, allowed the North Texas FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee to cover the mural. FIFA plans to unveil a new work by a local artist ahead of the 2026 World Cup, for which Dallas will host nine matches.

The Founders of Open Restitution Africa (ORA) on Their New Open Data Platform

On March 31, the research initiative Open Restitution Africa (ORA) launched the ORA Open Data Platform, a database providing information on the restitution of African artifacts and ancestral remains. Developed over six years by ORA’s all-woman, pan-African team, the site uses case histories and AI-powered tools to offer practical insights into the return process, available in French and English. It presents 25 case histories spanning 200 years, using data visualizations, essays, and interactive tools to help individuals and communities develop their own restitution strategies. ARTnews interviewed founders Chao Tayiana Maina and Molemo Moiloa about the project's origins and goals.

Abbas Akhavan Transforms the Canada Pavilion Into a Greenhouse, Daring Viewers to Leave Behind Their Preconceptions

Artist Abbas Akhavan has transformed the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale into a functioning greenhouse for his exhibition "Entre chien et loup." The pavilion now houses a 6,000-gallon pool containing giant Victoria water lilies, with modifications including grow lights, water misters, a new ventilation system, and structural reinforcements to support the 25-ton water tank. The installation evokes Victorian-era Wardian cases and London's Crystal Palace, but Akhavan emphasizes that his interest in the lilies began intuitively, not as a commentary on colonialism or empire. The project, developed with curator Kim Nguyen, involved collaboration with Kew Gardens and the Orto Botanico di Padova to cultivate the plants, and the outcome remains uncertain as the lilies may thrive or wither over the exhibition's six-month run.

Venice exhibition of site-specific films aims to capture the hyper stimulating times we are living in

The Fondazione In Between Art Film presents "Canicula," the third and final exhibition in its Trilogy of Uncertainties, opening on 6 May at the Complesso dell’Ospedaletto in Venice. Curated by Leonardo Bigazzi, the show features eight newly commissioned site-specific films that explore themes of excess, sensory overload, and geopolitical tension. Works include Roman Khimei and Yarema Malashchuk's "Affirmations" (2026), depicting fictional deathbed testimonies of Russian soldiers, Lawrence Abu Hamdan's "450XL: The Story of a Fugitive Sound" (2026) about a sonic attack in Belgrade, and Maya Watanabe's "Jarkov" (2025-26) reflecting on Arctic ice melt and Pleistocene remains.

Lost Lincoln Portrait From Teddy Roosevelt’s Office Reemerges After a Century

A long-lost portrait of Abraham Lincoln by American realist Ernest Wells has reemerged after more than a century. The painting, which hung in President Theodore Roosevelt’s office throughout his term and served as a source of personal inspiration, was recently identified in the collection of the descendants of antique dealers Ann and Jack Rouchaud. The work’s provenance was confirmed via a letter from Roosevelt’s friend and Lincoln’s former bodyguard, Colonel William H. Crook, which remains affixed to the back of the canvas.

michelangelo attributions painting bust

Recent scientific and archival investigations have led to two significant new attributions to the Renaissance master Michelangelo Buonarroti. The first involves a painting titled 'Spirituali Pietà,' which was previously sold as an anonymous work but has now been linked to the artist through pigment analysis, X-ray fluorescence of monograms, and stylistic parallels to his known masterpieces. Simultaneously, researcher Valentina Salerno has identified a marble bust of Christ the Savior in Rome’s Basilica of St. Agnes Outside the Walls as a potential Michelangelo original, based on a decade of archival research.

mysterious art installation turns up on nycs north brother island

A mysterious art installation featuring an outdoor living room has been discovered on the shores of North Brother Island, an abandoned site in New York City’s East River. The arrangement, which includes a vintage wood-paneled television and a leather armchair perched on a concrete block, was spotted by a local kayaker. The island, once home to a quarantine hospital and the site of the General Slocum maritime disaster, has been closed to the public since 1963.

italian culture minister antonello da messina sothebys

A double-sided panel painting by Renaissance master Antonello da Messina, titled 'Ecce Homo and Saint Jerome in the Desert,' was withdrawn from Sotheby's Old Masters auction just days before its scheduled sale. The Italian Ministry of Culture purchased the work directly for $14.9 million, preventing it from going to public auction where it was estimated to fetch $10–15 million.

israel pavilion venice biennale belu simion fainaru protest

Israel will officially participate in the 2026 Venice Biennale, two years after its pavilion closed amid protests. The pavilion will be located in the Arsenale rather than its usual Giardini site, which is under construction. Representing Israel is sculptor Belu-Simion Fainaru, a Haifa-based artist and Israel Prize winner, who previously represented Romania at the 2019 Biennale. His pavilion, titled "Rose of Nothingness," will feature an installation about water inspired by poet Paul Celan's concept of black milk, with 16 pipes dripping black water into a pool. The pavilion is curated by Sorin Heller and Avital Bar-Shay. However, the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) has renewed its protest, calling the pavilion the "Genocide Pavilion" on Instagram and demanding Israel's exclusion from the Biennale.

nft paris and rwa paris shelved with one month notice due to crypto and nft market collapse founder says

NFT Paris and its sister event RWA Paris have been canceled just one month before they were scheduled to take place at the Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris. Founder Alexandre Tsydenkov announced the cancellation on LinkedIn, citing the collapse of the crypto and NFT markets as making the events financially impossible despite drastic cost cuts. Both conferences had run for four years, showcasing digital art, NFT galleries, and AI-generated works, but had recently shifted toward broader tech and blockchain topics. All tickets will be refunded.

2025 gold art prize winners

The Gold Art Prize, a biennial award series for AAPI and Asian diaspora artists, has announced its 2025 winners: Dan Lie, Stella Zhong, Morehshin Allahyari, Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork, and Kenneth Tam. Each receives an unrestricted $25,000. The prize, now in its third iteration, was launched in 2021 by adviser Kelly Huang and Gold House, a Los Angeles-based organization focused on the AAPI community. The 2025 edition is funded by the Kahng Foundation. Finalists included Trisha Baga, CFGNY, Ajay Kurian, Sa’dia Rehman, and TT Takemoto.

ohio dutch paintings looted nazis monuments men foundation

The auction of two 17th-century Dutch still-life oil paintings of flowers was halted at Apple Tree Auction Center in Newark, Ohio, after the Monuments Men and Women Foundation and the Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project identified them as Nazi-looted art. The paintings, originally part of Adolphe and Lucie Haas Schloss's collection, were seized in 1943 and later stored in Hitler's Führerbau before being looted again. Foundation founder Robert Edsel traveled to Ohio to alert the auction house, which cooperated by removing the works from sale and placing them in a vault. The consignor's identity remains undisclosed, and the foundation is working to return the paintings to the Schloss family.

italian politicians protest return of altarpiece slovenia

A 16th-century altarpiece by Vittore Carpaccio, *Madonna and Child Enthroned with Six Saints* (1518), has been returned to the Slovenian town of Piran, where it was originally commissioned for the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. The painting was removed in 1940 and placed in Padua for safekeeping during World War II, remaining in the Basilica of Sant’Antonio for decades. Following pressure from Franciscan friars in Padua, the work was quietly transferred back to Piran on September 4, days before Italian President Sergio Mattarella’s state visit to Slovenia. Slovenian Culture Minister Asta Vrečko hailed the return as the result of long-standing efforts.

bernini the ecstasy of saint teresa

Gian Lorenzo Bernini's iconic Baroque sculpture *The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa* (1647–1652) is examined in detail, depicting the Spanish Carmelite nun Saint Teresa of Ávila in a moment of divine rapture as an angel pierces her heart with a golden arrow. The artwork, housed in the Cornaro Chapel at Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, was commissioned by Cardinal Federico Cornaro and remains one of Bernini's most celebrated and controversial masterpieces, blending theatricality, religious fervor, and virtuosic marble carving.

liste art fair basel celebrates 30 years as a champion of emerging talent

Liste Art Fair Basel returns for its 30th anniversary edition in 2025 at Messe Basel, featuring 99 galleries from 31 countries, nearly half of which are first-time exhibitors. The fair emphasizes solo presentations and experimental projects, with 11 galleries receiving production support from Liste Foundation Basel and Friends of Liste. A daily program includes performances curated by Jacob Fabricius, workshops by Tina Braegger, and panel discussions. Nikola Dietrich helms the fair for the first time as director.

From men on dog leads to public breast-fondling, Valie Export’s art demanded a total feminist revolution

Valie Export, the pioneering Austrian feminist artist known for her provocative and confrontational performances from the 1960s onward, is the subject of a reflective essay by writer and academic Hettie Judah. The article revisits Export's radical works such as *Hyperbulia* (1973), where she crawled naked through electrified wires; *From the Portfolio of Doggedness* (1968), in which she led a man on a dog lead through Vienna; and *Action Pants: Genital Panic* (1969), where she walked through a cinema with exposed genitals. Judah draws on her own interviews with Export, who died in 2023, and discusses the artist's manifesto demanding that women use art to reshape consciousness and achieve liberation.

Rose Finn-Kelcey review – flying puns, smart pranks and prayers for 20p

The Guardian reviews "Rose Finn-Kelcey: House Rules," a posthumous exhibition at the new Arts Collective in Northampton, UK. The show features works by the British conceptual artist (1945–2014), including her 1972 flag installation "Power for the People" at Battersea Power Station, a prayer vending machine titled "It Pays to Pray," and pieces exploring permission, spirituality, and societal restrictions. The exhibition is presented as a homecoming for Finn-Kelcey, who was born in Northampton.

World Press Photo 2026 winners – in pictures

The World Press Photo 2026 winners have been announced, with Carol Guzy awarded the top honor for her image of distraught girls clinging to their father as ICE agents detain him after an immigration hearing in New York City. Finalists include Saber Nuraldin’s photograph of Palestinians scrambling for aid in Gaza, Victor J Blue’s image of Achi women outside a Guatemala City court, and other powerful works documenting climate displacement in Mexico, a wedding during a typhoon in the Philippines, police detaining a priest at a pensioners’ protest in Argentina, and a social robot in Europe.

‘We’re attached to this land like a tree is rooted in soil’: unexpectedly timely exhibition speaks up for the people of south Lebanon

An exhibition titled 'Forget Me Not: South Lebanon in Memory and Motion' was held at London's Palestine House earlier this month. It featured archival news footage from 2000, photographs, audiovisual materials, and children's drawings to document the history, culture, and resilience of southern Lebanon, a region experiencing renewed conflict.

What Did Happen or What Might Have Happened or What Can Never Happen. Dustin Hodges by Nick Angelo

Dustin Hodges presents a new body of work across two exhibitions, "Barley Patch" at 15 Orient in New York and "Barley Patch 2" at Sebastian Gladstone in Los Angeles. The artist utilizes thin layers of pigment, color glazing, and distemper on linen to create compositions that superimpose cartoon motifs, such as black crows and characters from the "Arthur" series, over complex grids. His process involves a cyclical layering that drives a wedge between the logic of the image and the materiality of painting, resulting in works that feel both choreographed and visceral.

Women’s art exhibition brings world-renowned artists to the Customs House Museum

The Customs House Museum & Cultural Center in Clarksville, Tennessee, will host "Of Mark & Meaning: American Women Artists" from February 13 to April 26, 2026, as part of its ongoing "Celebrating Women Artists" series. The exhibition features 105 works selected from 791 entries by professional women artists, including world-renowned figures such as Paula B. Holtzclaw, Sherrie McGraw, Diana Reuter-Twining, Taylor Wiedemann, and Star Liana York. Selection jurors include Vivian Chiu, Marcia Goldenstein, and Kirsten Kokkin, while award judges include Katie Delmez, Sharon Louden, and Nandini Makrandi. Artists compete for over $30,000 in prizes, including a $10,000 Grand Prize. A related Symposium of Women in the Arts will take place at the Frist Art Museum on April 25, 2026, featuring a keynote by Sharon Louden.

Latest on the UNH Art Gallery

The University of New Hampshire (UNH) has converted its former Museum of Art, which closed in March 2024, into a vibrant art gallery now managed by the Department of Art and Art History. The gallery is led by department chair Professor Ben Cariens and has hosted exhibitions featuring student, faculty, and external work, including the "Not For Sale" exhibition from Rochester and a Modernisms show organized by the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. The space, located in the Paul Creative Arts Center, is open to the public with free admission.

Sung Tieu on Representing Germany at the 61st Venice Biennale

Sung Tieu, who is co-representing Germany at the 61st Venice Biennale alongside Henrike Naumann, responds to a questionnaire from ArtReview about her plans for the German Pavilion. She describes her inspiration as her mother and childhood home, a site built for foreign contract workers in the GDR that later became a refuge for the diaspora. Tieu states that her work relates to the Biennale theme "In Minor Keys" through the lens of Gehrenseestrasse, a concrete record of collective memory. She also expresses skepticism about the Biennale's importance, noting that the German Pavilion's fascist architecture compels artists to work against it, and that national pavilions reveal how much work remains in undoing nationalism.