Pablo Picasso: Private Creative Realms Revealed in Dublin Exhibition

The National Gallery of Ireland presents 'Picasso: From the Studio', an exhibition opening 11 October 2025 that explores Pablo Picasso's private creative spaces across his career. Featuring sixty works, including paintings, sculptures, and ceramics, the show reconstructs the artist's studios from Montmartre's Le Bateau-Lavoir to the Mougins farmhouse, using archival photographs as ghostly backdrops. Key pieces like 'Violin and Bottle on a Table' (1915) and 'Tête de femme' (1931-32) reveal how specific environments—a cramped Parisian garret, a sun-drenched villa in Avignon, a Normandy stable—shaped his stylistic reinventions from Analytic Cubism to postwar ceramics.

$70m Giacometti bombs at patchy Sotheby’s Modern art auction

Sotheby's Modern evening sale in New York on May 13 brought in $152 million ($186.4 million with fees), falling short of its presale estimate of $170 million to $248 million. Four lots were withdrawn before bidding began, including works by Winslow Homer, Wassily Kandinsky, Candido Portinari, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The sale's star lot, Alberto Giacometti's bronze bust 'Grande tête mince' (1954/55), estimated at over $70 million, failed to sell when bidding stalled around $64 million. Other notable results included strong sales for Jean Arp, František Kupka, and Robert Delaunay, but several high-profile works by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Edgar Degas, Pierre Soulages, and David Smith also failed to find buyers.

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.

Christie's Hong Kong autumn sale drops 46% from last year but makes Picasso's record in Asia

Christie's 20/21st Century Autumn sale in Hong Kong on 26 September generated $72.6 million, a 46% drop from the same sale last year and roughly flat compared to its March sale. Despite the decline, a Picasso painting, *Buste de Femme* (1944), set a new Asia record at HK$196.75 million ($25.4 million) after a fierce bidding war. Other top lots included Zao Wou-ki's *17.3.63* (HK$85.2 million) and Yayoi Kusama's *Pumpkin [TWAQN]* (HK$34.66 million). The sale marked the first anniversary of Christie's Asia headquarters in the Henderson building. Sotheby's and Phillips also held autumn sales that weekend, with Sotheby's totaling HK$335.7 million and Phillips achieving HK$160 million.

Small Formats, Great Tensions

Kleine Formate, große Spannungen

The Paper Positions art fair in Berlin is celebrating its tenth anniversary, held in the vast Tempelhof Airport hangar with around 70 galleries. The fair focuses exclusively on works on paper, showcasing artists like Kubra Khademi, whose series "Women in simple situations" features nude female bodies as acts of resistance and political visibility. Other highlights include Annegret Soltau's pierced paper works, Una Ursprung's layered collages, Dirk Krecker's typewriter compositions, and Tina Heuter's tissue-paper sculptures, alongside photography by Stefanie Moshammer and vibrant works by Madita Kloss.

Hong Kong’s live art auctions are thriving thanks to Picasso and Nara

Hong Kong’s art auction market opened 2025 with significant momentum, characterized by a shift toward high-quality, museum-grade works and selective collecting. Major auction houses like Christie's, Bonhams, and Phillips reported strong results for blue-chip artists, highlighted by the sale of Pablo Picasso’s "Buste de Femme" for HK$196.75 million. While the market has become more deliberate, the demand for rare, impeccably sourced pieces by both Western masters and Asian contemporary icons remains robust.

Christie's Hong Kong 20th/21st Century Autumn Sales Total: HK$817M / US$106M - Christie's

Christie's Hong Kong held its 20th/21st Century Autumn Auctions on September 26-27, 2025, achieving a total of HK$817 million (US$106 million), the highest value auctions in the Asia market this season. The sales saw a 96% sell-through rate by lot and a hammer price 121% above the low estimate, with collectors from 32 countries participating. The top lot was Picasso's 'Buste de femme', which sold for HK$196.75 million (US$25.4 million), breaking the Asia auction record for the artist. New buyers increased versus last year, with 20% of all buyers being new, over half of whom were Millennials.

Here are the photos of the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (the one full of nude performers that it is forbidden to photograph)

Ecco le foto del Padiglione Austria alla Biennale di Venezia (quello pieno di performer nude che è vietato fotografare)

The Austrian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, titled "Seaworld Venice" and curated by Nora-Swantje Almes, features provocative performances by artist and choreographer Florentina Holzinger. The installation includes four distinct nude female performances: a performer acting as a bell clapper on the hour, a female Deposition of Christ scene with three women on a rotating vertical structure, a nude woman riding a jet ski in circles, and a reenactment of Giorgione's Sleeping Venus in a urine-filled tank. The pavilion has become the most talked-about and Instagrammed at the Biennale, drawing long queues despite a ban on photography.