Auctioneer Kimberly Pirtle Leaves Sotheby’s to Launch Hybrid Art-Philanthropy Advisory

Kimberly Pirtle, a fast-rising auctioneer at Sotheby’s, has left the company to launch Gabriel Advisory Group, a hybrid art advisory and cultural philanthropy firm. The new practice works across primary and secondary markets, advising collectors on acquisitions while also guiding philanthropic strategy and institutional engagement, drawing on Pirtle’s experience in Sotheby’s collectors group and her work with benefit auctions for organizations including the Pratt Institute, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Queens Museum, and the Gordon Parks Foundation. Pirtle is also maintaining a role as a VIP consultant with Frieze.

Major Greek contemporary art non-profit Neon to close after 14 years

Neon, a major Greek contemporary art non-profit founded by businessman and patron Dimitris Daskalopoulos, is closing after 14 years, stating it has fulfilled its cultural and social mission. Between 2012 and 2026, the organization presented 44 exhibitions across museums, historical sites, and public spaces, commissioning 105 works by Greek and international artists. Notable projects include donating Antony Gormley's sculpture 'RULE II' (2019) to the island of Delos—the first contemporary work permanently installed at an ancient site—and funding the €1.4m renovation of the Lenorman Street Tobacco Factory in Athens into a cultural center. Neon will present its final exhibition, the third installment of 'Michael Rakowitz & Ancient Cultures,' later this year at the Old Acropolis Museum.

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.

tracey emin retrospective women artists abortion bed

Tracey Emin’s major retrospective, "A Second Life," has opened at Tate Modern, marking a significant milestone in the artist's career following her recovery from bladder cancer. The exhibition surveys her evolution from the provocative "Young British Artist" era—featuring iconic works like the 1998 installation 'My Bed' and her early quilted blankets—to her more recent, expressive oil paintings and bronze sculptures. The show specifically highlights her 1996 film 'How it feels,' positioning her early 1990s abortion as the central, transformative event of her life and artistic practice.

Prado Restoration Lab Coats by Loewe

prado restoration lab coats loewe

Spanish luxury fashion house Loewe has designed custom, high-performance lab coats for the restoration department at the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid. Developed in collaboration with the museum's conservators, the garments are crafted from non-reflective materials to prevent glare on masterpieces and feature leather-reinforced pockets specifically sized for restoration tools.

thomas kaplan rembrandt lion drawing sothebys sale

Rembrandt van Rijn's drawing *Young Lion Resting* (ca. 1638–42) sold for a record $17.9 million at Sotheby's New York on Wednesday, the highest price ever paid for a drawing by the Dutch master. The work, which toured Paris, Abu Dhabi, Tokyo, and New York before the sale, was offered from the Leiden Collection, the renowned private trove of 17th-century Dutch Golden Age art assembled by Thomas Kaplan and his wife Daphne. All proceeds from the sale will benefit Panthera, the wild cat conservation charity co-founded by Kaplan and Jon Ayers.

hamburger bahnhof gala patrons

Berlin's Hamburger Bahnhof museum, facing budget cuts of up to 12% and shifting government spending priorities in Germany, is planning its first-ever gala to mark its 30th anniversary. Co-directors Sam Bardouil and Till Fellrath are spearheading the event, set for March, which will feature cultural figures including Cate Blanchett, Matt Dillon, Elmgreen & Dragset, and the Berlin Philharmonic. The museum has also launched the Chanel Commission and the International Companions philanthropy circle to diversify funding sources.

komal shah making their mark foundation forum launch

Komal Shah, a prominent art collector, announced the renaming of her Shah Garg Foundation to the Making Their Mark Foundation, coinciding with a three-day forum in Washington, D.C., scheduled for March 2025. The foundation takes its name from the traveling exhibition "Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection," curated by Cecilia Alemani, which highlights women artists from Shah and her husband Gaurav Garg's collection. The forum, held at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, will feature panels, keynotes, and performances organized around themes like Visionary Voices and Changemakers, with Alemani as curatorial director and Loring Randolph as director.

flag art foundation serpentine galleries artist prize

The FLAG Art Foundation, based in New York, has pledged £1 million ($1.3 million) to London's Serpentine Galleries to establish a new biennial artist prize. Named the Serpentine x FLAG Art Foundation Prize, it will award £200,000 ($265,000) to an international artist who has been exhibiting for fewer than ten years, along with an exhibition at both institutions and a catalog. The first winner will be selected in 2026, with exhibitions at Serpentine in 2027 and FLAG in 2028. The prize is funded by collector Glenn Fuhrman's foundation and is the largest contemporary art prize in the UK.

dorothy vogel collector dead

Dorothy Vogel, who with her husband Herbert built one of the most celebrated art collections of the 20th century while working as a librarian and a postal clerk, died on November 10 at age 90. The couple amassed thousands of Minimalist and conceptual works by artists such as Donald Judd, Roy Lichtenstein, and Sol LeWitt, housing them in their rent-controlled Manhattan apartment. They never sold any artwork and ultimately donated their entire collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

judge approves purdue pharma settlement

A federal bankruptcy judge has approved a new settlement for Purdue Pharma, the pharmaceutical company behind OxyContin, resolving thousands of lawsuits related to its role in the opioid crisis. The deal, which replaces a 2021 settlement rejected by the Supreme Court, requires the Sackler family to contribute up to $7 billion and relinquish ownership of Purdue, while allowing individuals to sue family members directly.

sothebys sets new world record for photography auction

Sotheby's New York held a single-owner auction titled "175 Masterworks To Celebrate 175 Years of Photography: Property from Joy of Giving Something Foundation" on December 11 and 12, achieving a world record for a photography auction. The sale grossed $21,325,063, surpassing its presale estimate of $13–20 million and beating the previous record of $15 million set by a Sotheby's sale in 2006. The collection came from the late American financier Howard Stein, who founded the Joy of Giving Something Foundation in 1999. The auction had a strong sell-through rate of 90.3 percent by lot and 94.9 percent by value, with top lots including Alvin Langdon Coburn's "Shadows and Reflections, Venice" (1905) at $965,000 and August Sander's "Handlanger" at $749,000. Several female photographers set new records, including Tina Modotti, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Lee Miller.

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.

rose art museum gala exhibition fund

The Rose Art Museum held its first-ever New York benefit gala, marking its return to the fundraising circuit after two decades. Co-chaired by advisor Abigail Ross Goodman and Christie’s Sara Friedlander, the event honored sculptor Hugh Hayden and philanthropist Lizbeth Krupp, the longtime chair of the museum’s board of advisors. The evening raised $900,000 toward a new $2 million Exhibition Endowment Fund, with Krupp making the first gift. Guests included artists Salman Toor, Leilah Babirye, Ali Banisadr, and Ilana Savdie, as well as gallerist Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn and Public Art Fund’s Nicholas Baume.

New fund helps museums make purchases at Frieze New York

The Sherman Family Foundation Acquisition Fund has launched at Frieze New York, providing $50,000 annually to help US museums acquire works from the fair's Focus section, which features solo stands by galleries under 12 years old. In its first year, the Baltimore Museum of Art acquired works by Reika Takebayashi, Seba Calfuqueo, and Joanne Burke, while the Brooklyn Museum acquired two works by Bettina (Bettina Grossman). Each artist also receives an unrestricted $5,000 award.

Everything You Need to Know About LACMA’s New David Geffen Galleries

LACMA has opened its new David Geffen Galleries, a single-story building spanning Wilshire Boulevard that houses the museum's permanent collection spanning 6,000 years of art. The galleries feature a revolutionary curatorial approach organized around bodies of water—Atlantic, Mediterranean, Indian, and Pacific—creating nonhierarchical displays that mix works across time and geography, such as 17th-century Dutch paintings alongside 20th-century photography. The building also includes 3.5 acres of shaded public space below, outdoor sculptures by artists like Alexander Calder and Jeff Koons, and a 220,000-square-foot pavement artwork by Mariana Castillo Deball.

Frieze Los Angeles Diary: hockey hotties, roaming Rami and Simon sells

Frieze Los Angeles week kicked off with a flurry of high-profile events, celebrity sightings, and charitable initiatives across the city. Key highlights included the Felix Art Fair, where RF. Alvarez’s painting inspired by the queer hockey drama 'Heated Rivalry' drew significant attention, and a major benefit auction led by Simon de Pury that raised over $500,000 for natural disaster relief. The week also featured a prestigious gathering at a private James Turrell Skyspace to celebrate the Serpentine Americas Foundation.

Tracey Emin: ‘I’ve done more in my last five years than in the whole rest of my life’

Tracey Emin is the subject of a major retrospective at Tate Modern titled 'A Second Life,' which spans her career from her first solo show in 1993 to recent works. The exhibition is structured thematically around pivotal life events and includes a documentary addressing her 2020 bladder cancer diagnosis and subsequent surgery.

Van Gogh’s ‘Sower’ will soon go on sale at Sotheby's—where it's set to make record price

Van Gogh's drawing 'Sower in a Wheatfield with setting Sun' (July 1888) will be auctioned at Sotheby's New York on 18 November with an estimate of $8m-$10m. The work, which belonged to the late cosmetics heir and collector Leonard Lauder, is expected to set a new auction record for a Van Gogh drawing if it exceeds the $8.8m achieved by 'La Mousmé' in 2021. The drawing was originally made for the artist Émile Bernard and later passed through notable hands including dealer Ambroise Vollard and critic Théodore Duret before entering the Lauder collection. It will be sold alongside 23 other major works from Lauder's collection, including three important Gustav Klimt paintings, in a sale expected to fetch over $400m.

Van Gogh’s exuberant ‘Tarascon Stagecoach’ will be donated to a Los Angeles museum

The Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation is donating 63 works to three major U.S. museums, led by Vincent van Gogh's *Tarascon Stagecoach* (October 1888). The painting will debut at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) from February 22 to July 5, 2026, then travel to the Brooklyn Museum of Art in autumn 2026 and New York's Museum of Modern Art in 2027. The work depicts a horse-drawn coach in Arles, was sketched in a letter to Van Gogh's brother Theo, and has a rich provenance including early ownership by sculptor Medardo Rosso and a journey to Uruguay as the first Van Gogh in the Americas.

Revealed: Picasso’s granddaughter owned a Van Gogh—which she sold at Sotheby’s

Marina Picasso, granddaughter of Pablo Picasso, owned a Vincent van Gogh watercolor titled *Woman in a Wood* (September-October 1882), which she sold at Sotheby’s in New York on May 13 for $952,500. The work, which also features a sketch of a fishing boat on its reverse, was purchased by Marina in 1987 through Swiss dealer Jan Krugier from a Tehran-based collector. The sale was not publicly known until just before the auction. The article also notes that a separate Van Gogh oil painting, *In the Dunes* (September 1883), sold at Christie’s the previous day for $4 million from the collection of US businessman Jeffrey P. Draime.

TOP CHARITY Art Exhibition

The Museum of King Jan III in Wilanów, Warsaw, is hosting the TOP CHARITY Art exhibition from April 24 to June 24, 2025, featuring works from the OmenaArt Foundation’s African art collection. Acclaimed Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama served as guest of honour at the opening, and his jute sack piece NANDANBIA (2019) is on display. The exhibition includes a sculpture park curated by Isabel de Vasconcellos and Natalia Bradbury in partnership with Opera Gallery, showcasing artists such as Niki de Saint Phalle, Manolo Valdes, and Amedeo Modigliani. Works from the exhibition will be auctioned in the TOP CHARITY Auction on June 7, alongside a silent auction for emerging artists.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Ronald S. Lauder Neue Galerie New York Announce Plans for a Landmark Merger

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Ronald S. Lauder Neue Galerie New York have announced a landmark merger agreement, set to take effect in 2028. The merger will unite the Neue Galerie's collection of 20th-century Austrian and German art—including Gustav Klimt's *Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I*—with The Met, while preserving the Neue Galerie's distinct museum experience. Ronald S. Lauder and his daughter Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer plan to donate 13 additional paintings from their personal collection, and several Met trustees have pledged significant endowment gifts to support the integration and long-term operations.

Whistler's Audain Art Museum Raises a Record-Breaking $1.5 Million at Annual Gala Marking its 10-Year Anniversary

The Audain Art Museum in Whistler, British Columbia, raised a record-breaking $1.5 million at its 2026 annual gala, marking the institution's 10-year anniversary. The sold-out event, attended by over 500 guests, featured a live art auction of works by artists in the museum's permanent collection, with Stan Douglas's 1974 piece 'Coat Check' achieving a $200,000 hammer price—the highest ever for the gala.

Dallas Art Fair Foundation Art Acquisition Fund 2026 Prizes Announced

The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) has selected several new works for its permanent collection through the Dallas Art Fair (DAF) Foundation Art Acquisition Fund. During the 2026 edition of the fair, curators and donors chose pieces by artists including Hasani Sahlehe, Caroline Monnet, Gloria Klein, Raymond Saunders, and Nicole Eisenman. The acquisitions span a variety of media, from large-scale abstract paintings and triptychs made of industrial materials to wood reliefs and works on paper.

Everyone’s a winner, baby: prizes abound during Frieze London

During Frieze London, multiple acquisition prizes and awards were announced, including the Tate Frieze Fund (supported by a private patron) which purchased works by Lubna Chowdhary and Barbara Walker for £150,000. The inaugural Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation Prize was awarded to Alex Margo Arden, while the Arts Council Frieze Acquisitions Fund grew to £90,000, acquiring works by Sarah Ball, Olu Ogunnnaike, Vanessa Raw, and Liorah Tchiprout. Other acquisitions included works by Michael Landy and Shaquelle Whyte for the Walker Art Gallery, and the Camden Art Centre Emerging Artist Prize went to Bogdan Ablozhnyy. Offsite, the Circa 2025 prize was won by Adham Faramawy for a film addressing the migration crisis.

Artists Jennifer Packer and Marie Watt receive $250,000 Heinz Awards

Artists Jennifer Packer and Marie Watt have been named winners of this year's Heinz Awards for the Arts, receiving an unrestricted cash prize of $250,000 each. The awards, now in their 30th edition, are bestowed by the Pittsburgh-based Heinz Family Foundation and honor individuals in the arts, economy, and environment. Packer, a painter known for boldly colorful figurative works, and Watt, whose practice spans steel sculpture and textiles rooted in Indigenous traditions, will be honored at a ceremony in Pittsburgh next month.

‘Landmark’ Tate exhibition to chart 40 years of works by Margate artist Dame Tracey Emin

Dame Tracey Emin will present a major retrospective titled 'Tracey Emin: A Second Life' at Tate Modern in London, running from February to August 2026. The exhibition spans 40 years of her career, featuring iconic works like the Turner Prize-nominated 'My Bed' alongside never-before-exhibited pieces across painting, video, textiles, neons, writing, sculpture, and installation. Emin, who rose to prominence in the 1990s, has recently been appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire and continues to invest in artist spaces in Margate.

A new art center debuts in an old Denver fortune cookie factory

Amanda Precourt is opening the Cookie Factory, a new art space in Denver's Baker neighborhood, on May 24. Housed in a former fortune cookie factory that Precourt purchased in 2017, the 5,700-square-foot venue features four exhibition rooms, two solo shows per year, and monthly activations. The inaugural activation on June 21 will include yoga and sound baths led by local healers. Precourt, a Denver native and philanthropist, has transformed the dilapidated building with her partner, artist Andrew Jensdotter, and added a second-story apartment for her personal contemporary art collection. The space will not display her collection but will commission new works inspired by Colorado's environment.

Ten Highlights From New York’s Spring Marquee Auctions

New York's spring marquee auctions are set for May 2025, with Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips presenting strong lineups after a 25% drop in total public sales in 2024. Highlights include the $250 million Leonard and Louise Riggio collection at Christie's, featuring Piet Mondrian's *Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue* (est. $50 million), and Alberto Giacometti's *Grande tête mince* (est. over $70 million) at Sotheby's. Other top lots include Lucio Fontana's *The End of God*, Jean-Michel Basquiat's *Baby Boom*, a Rothko from the Bass mansion, Claude Monet's *Crepuscular Peupliers*, Olga de Amaral's evening sale debut, a trove of 40 Roy Lichtenstein works, and an Ed Ruscha piece. The sales test market resilience amid supply constraints and a cautious art market.