A Muddy History of Plant-Hunting

The exhibition "Seeds of Exchange" at London's Garden Museum highlights a 1773 botanical collaboration between British amateur plant hunter John Bradby Blake and Cantonese painter Mak Sau. Centered on Blake’s unpublished "Flora Sinensis," the project attempted to systematically catalogue Chinese flora, including the Camellia japonica, through detailed watercolors that blended Western objective illustration with Chinese artistic expertise. These works served as the primary medium for introducing Chinese plant species to the West long before live specimens could survive the journey.

va censors catalogue after pressure from china former high museum coo pleads not guilty to theft charge morning links for april 15 2026 1234781274

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has faced scrutiny after censoring historical maps and images in its exhibition catalogues following pressure from its Chinese printer and state authorities. The museum removed content deemed sensitive by Beijing, including a 1930s illustration of British imperial trade routes and an image of Vladimir Lenin, to avoid publication delays. While the V&A described the changes as "minor edits," internal communications reveal staff frustration over the intervention by China's General Administration of Press and Publication.

Newly Authenticated Modigliani Heads to Sale at Art Basel Hong Kong via Pace with a $13.3 M. Price Tag

A newly authenticated painting by Amedeo Modigliani, "Jeune femme brune" (1917–18), is being offered for sale by Pace gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong with a price tag of €11.5 million ($13.3 million). The work, the highest-priced piece at the fair, was only recently included in art historian Marc Restellini's forthcoming Modigliani catalogue raisonné after decades of authentication disputes and legal battles.

gauguin self portrait kunstmuseum basel authenticity report 1234759147

The Kunstmuseum Basel has confirmed that a Paul Gauguin self-portrait, titled *Portrait de l’artiste par lui-même* (1903), is an authentic work by the French painter, despite decades of scrutiny. The painting, held by the museum since 1945, was subjected to scientific analysis—including pigment testing, radiography, and infrared reflectography—at the Bern Academy of the Arts after amateur art sleuth Fabrice Fourmanoir claimed it was actually painted by Gauguin’s friend Ky-Dong Nguyen Van Cam. The tests showed the pigments date to Gauguin’s era, but also revealed overpainting on the face, possibly done between 1918 and 1926, though the museum found no evidence of intentional forgery.

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The Louvre in Paris is staging a major retrospective of Jacques-Louis David, featuring 100 works by the French Neoclassical painter, to mark the bicentenary of his death in 1825. The exhibition opens October 15 and runs through January, drawing on the Louvre's own collection and prestigious loans from institutions including the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Curator Sébastien Allard emphasizes that the show is not a conventional blockbuster but aims to explore under-examined aspects of David's practice, particularly his political engagement across the Ancien Régime, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Empire.

wade guyton artwork inigo philbricks flops at sothebys 1234755862

A Wade Guyton artwork (2007) that was forfeited by Inigo Philbrick's business partner Robert Newland failed to sell at Sotheby's New York in late March 2025, carrying an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. The same piece had previously sold for $208,000 at a U.S. Marshals Service auction in Texas in August 2023, a steep decline from its $490,000 sale at Sotheby's in 2015. Another Guyton from the same forfeiture—a 2018 piece owned by Philbrick himself—sold for $215,100 at the Texas auction, representing a 65% drop from its 2018 Christie's Paris sale of €535,500 (about $625,000). The article also notes a curious discrepancy: the Texas auction catalog listed a Phillips auction house label on the 2007 Guyton, but Phillips does not appear in the work's provenance, and Philbrick was known to do business with Phillips.

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Solange has launched the Saint Heron Community Library, a new initiative making rare and out-of-print art books available to the public for free borrowing. The digital library, run through her Saint Heron platform, includes exhibition catalogs for artists such as Barbara Chase-Riboud, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Martin Puryear, Gary Simmons, and Pope.L, as well as texts like Cedric Dover's 1960 book *American Negro Art*. Books are loaned for 45 days, though most are already checked out. The collection also features works by Black thinkers and writers including Audre Lorde, Ntozake Shange, Octavia Butler, and Wanda Coleman.

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David Hammons has released a "post-exhibition catalogue" through Hauser & Wirth Publishers, six years after his 2019 survey at the gallery's Downtown Los Angeles location. The 12-by-12-inch, nearly 7-pound volume contains hundreds of images—installation shots, artwork reproductions, and ephemera—but no text whatsoever: no table of contents, essays, titles, dates, or page numbers. The book functions more as an artist's book than a traditional exhibition catalog, presenting Hammons's work in a raw, unapologetic sequence that resists scholarly interpretation.

New catalogues reveal Royal Collection's vast sculpture holdings—and Queen Victoria's acquisition spree

A new four-volume catalogue, authored by former royal surveyor Jonathan Marsden, documents approximately 1,800 sculptures in the Royal Collection. The publication reveals the unsystematic nature of the collection's growth, driven by royal tastes and historical opportunities, and highlights significant discoveries like a previously unknown bronze satyr by Benvenuto Cellini.

Lost John Constable Painting Rediscovered in Texas Bound for Auction

Lost John Constable Painting Rediscovered in Texas Bound for Auction

A long-lost, large-scale oil study by John Constable for his famous painting *The Cornfield* has been rediscovered and authenticated after decades in a rural Texas museum. Scientific analysis, including pigment tests and infrared reflectography, confirmed the materials and techniques match Constable's own, leading experts to declare it the largest known study for the 1826 masterpiece. The work, which had been mistakenly cataloged as a copy, will now be auctioned by Heritage Auctions in Dallas this June.

unseen jean antoine watteau christies paris 2734820

A rare Jean-Antoine Watteau drawing, never before publicly exhibited, and a major Jean-Honoré Fragonard painting will be auctioned at Christie’s Paris on March 25. The works come from the collection of the late Arthur Georges Veil-Picard, a banker and absinthe magnate who assembled a world-class trove of 18th-century French art over 40 years. The Watteau, *Actor Holding a Guitar Under His Arm*, was previously known only from a black-and-white photograph in the artist’s catalogue raisonné and is estimated at €600,000–800,000. The Fragonard, *The Happy Family*, from the 1770s, carries an estimate of €1.5–2 million. The sale also includes works by Hubert Robert, Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, and Marie-Suzanne Roslin, with total estimates reaching €5–8 million.

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The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. has deaccessioned eight major works by artists including Georges Seurat, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Anish Kapoor at Sotheby's fall sales. O'Keeffe's "Large Dark Red Leaves on White" (1927) sold for $7.9 million, a Seurat drawing fetched $4.9 million, while a painting by Arthur Dove fell short of expectations and a Kapoor sculpture failed to sell. The plan, devised by director Jonathan Binstock, aims to fund future contemporary art commissions and collection care, but has sparked an 18-month dispute between museum leadership and the Phillips family descendants over the interpretation of founder Duncan Phillips's legacy.

8 standout art books to gift and keep this season 2717083

The article highlights eight standout art books recommended for gifting this season, covering a range of topics from architectural deep dives and contemporary art to fashion histories and experimental catalogs. Featured titles include "All of Us Stars: Bobby Busnach," a photo book capturing the gritty glamour of 1970s Upper West Side nightlife, and "Christopher Wool: See Stop Run," an exhibition catalog documenting Wool's unconventional 2024 show in a Manhattan office tower. Other books span monographs, boundary-pushing catalogs, and fashion histories, each offering unique perspectives on visual culture.

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Singer-songwriter Jewel, a Grammy nominee and former sculpture student, will debut her first solo exhibition titled "Matriclysm: An Archeology of Connections Lost" at Salone Verde in Venice from May 10 to November 22, 2025, coinciding with the 62nd Venice Biennale. The show, presented by Crystal Bridges Museum of Art and organized by curator-at-large Joe Thompson, features new paintings, sculptures, tapestries, installations, and sound works exploring feminine power, climate change, and universal connection. Highlights include a massive plaster sculpture of a pregnant woman created with artist Patrick Bongoy, a glass installation produced at the Toledo Museum of Art, and works incorporating data from NASA, NOAA, Stanford University, and UC Berkeley.

top 6 accidents in museums 510965

This article from Artnet News compiles a list of notable accidents in museums, where visitors, children, or even curators have inadvertently damaged valuable artworks and artifacts. Incidents include a four-year-old boy shattering a $15,000 Lego sculpture of a Zootopia character, a 12-year-old boy punching a $1.5 million Baroque painting by Paolo Porpora at Huashan 1914 Creative Park in Taipei, a Cy Twombly sculpture knocked over at the Menil Collection in Houston, and a visitor breaking a 4,000-year-old Minoan vase at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum in Crete. The article is framed as a lighthearted yet cautionary look at the fragility of museum objects and the human errors that lead to their damage.

Andy Warhol | Kiku Flowers (with hardback exhibition book, “edition club” order forms) (1984) | Available for Sale

APC ART has announced the exclusive sale of a rare 1984 Andy Warhol screenprint titled "Kiku Flowers." The work originates from a limited edition of 1,500 produced for a landmark exhibition at the Gendai Hanga Center in Tokyo and is being offered as a comprehensive historical package. The sale includes the original cloth-bound exhibition catalog and primary source documents, such as the original "edition club" order forms used for the Kiku suite.

Forget Masterpieces—Show Me Everything

The Victoria & Albert Museum has launched the V&A Storehouse in East London, a massive open-storage facility housing over 250,000 objects, 1,000 archives, and a vast library. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Austin-Smith:Lord, the space eschews traditional curated narratives in favor of a dense, immersive environment where visitors navigate four stories of artifacts arranged by cataloging logic rather than art-historical themes.

An expert’s guide to Robert Rauschenberg: five must-read books on the US artist

To mark the 100th anniversary of Robert Rauschenberg's birth, over half a dozen exhibitions have been organized worldwide, led by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. Shows include "Five Friends" at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and "Robert Rauschenberg: Fabric Works of the 1970s" at the Menil Collection in Houston. Michelle White, senior curator at the Menil, has selected five key books that illuminate different facets of the artist's life and career, from Calvin Tomkins's biography to a catalogue on Rauschenberg's early 1950s work.

To help preserve her works, Cindy Sherman is offering to destroy and reprint old photographs

Photographer Cindy Sherman has launched the Cindy Sherman Legacy Project (CSLP), a formal initiative to preserve her photographic works by offering to destroy and replace damaged prints with new, artist-approved reprints. The project, announced on June 16, includes condition assessments, a controlled replacement process, and an online catalogue raisonné. Collectors can submit works for evaluation at a New York facility; eligible prints are destroyed and replaced with mint-condition reprints signed by Sherman, with a $10,000 administrative fee plus production costs. The fee is waived for non-profit institutions.

The True Story of César's Forger Currently Featured in a Canal+ Documentary Series

L’histoire vraie du faussaire de César actuellement dans une série documentaire sur Canal+

The French documentary series on Canal+ explores the life of Éric Piedoie Le Tiec, a prolific art forger who flooded the market with thousands of fake works. Based in the French Riviera, Le Tiec specialized in creating pieces "in the style of" modern masters like Raoul Dufy and César Baldaccini. Following César's death in 1998, Le Tiec partnered with Jean-Charles Villa to mass-produce fake "compressions" using industrial car crushers, exploiting the artist's rising market value and lack of a definitive catalogue raisonné.

Talking Art With Rama Duwaji

New York City’s First Lady, Rama Duwaji, provided an exclusive look into her creative life during a studio visit at Gracie Mansion. The interview explores her dual identity as a ceramicist and illustrator and her transition into the political spotlight, showcasing the personal practice behind her public role.

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Nigel Peverett, a former staffer in the British Museum’s prints and drawings department, stole over 350 artworks during his tenure in the 1970s and 80s. The thefts, detailed in Barnaby Phillips’s upcoming book 'The African Kingdom of Gold', involved Peverett smuggling prints out of the museum, altering them with razors to remove catalog numbers, and selling them at London’s Portobello Road market. Although he was caught in 1992 with 35 prints in his possession, nearly 100 items remain unrecovered.

Sebastiaan Bremer: Super Modern Things

Edwynn Houk Gallery presents "Super Modern Things," an exhibition of new works by Sebastiaan Bremer. The artworks blend photography and painting, starting from historical source images such as 17th-century Dutch botanical catalogues and Golden Age still life paintings. Bremer photographs these reproductions and adds ink and acrylic marks—dots, lines, stains, and washes—creating rhythms that evoke language, music, emotion, and constellations. The exhibition continues his long-standing exploration of flowers and the layered histories of still life, addressing themes of beauty, mortality, value, ecology, and global exchange. An accompanying monograph of his flower series is scheduled for Fall 2026.

Duchamp and the Museum

The Museum of Modern Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art have co-organized a major exhibition and catalogue exploring Marcel Duchamp’s complex relationship with art institutions. Despite his reputation as a skeptical iconoclast who famously claimed to avoid the Louvre, Duchamp spent decades actively reshaping how museums function through his "portable museum" projects, curatorial collaborations, and the strategic placement of his legacy within permanent collections.

Five new art books to look out for this spring, including key artist biographies and the tale of an artistic rivalry

Five new art books are set for release this spring, including a biography of 17th-century painter Michaelina Wautier, a study of Louise Bourgeois using unpublished archival material, a dual biography exploring the rivalry between Michelangelo and Titian, a catalog accompanying the Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Tate Modern, and a volume on Francis Bacon’s literary influences housed at the Hugh Lane Gallery.

Local Art Books to Gift This Holiday Season

Several artists with ties to Baltimore have released new art books just in time for the holiday season. The featured publications include a debut monograph on Derrick Adams from Phaidon's Monacelli imprint, a book by rising painter Jerrell Gibbs titled 'No Solace in the Shade' published by Rizzoli, the exhibition catalogue for Amy Sherald's retrospective 'American Sublime' at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and Jackie Milad's debut art book 'Shabtis Gather' produced in partnership with BmoreArt. The article also recommends gifting a subscription to BmoreArt magazine.

Rarely seen Matthew Wong works to go on show in Venice

A major exhibition of rarely seen works by the late Chinese-Canadian artist Matthew Wong will open at the Palazzo Tiepolo Passi in Venice from 9 May to 1 November 2025, coinciding with the 61st Venice Biennale. The show features 35 works dating from 2015 to 2019, curated by John Cheim of Cheim & Read gallery, and is organized by the Matthew Wong Foundation, founded by the artist's parents Monita Wong and Raymond KP Wong after his death by suicide in 2019. The exhibition catalogue includes a text by Nancy Spector, former chief curator of the Guggenheim Museum.

Hallie Ford Museum of Art showcases Oregon’s foremost Modernist painter with ‘C.S. Price: A Portrait’

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art in Salem, Oregon, has opened 'C.S. Price: A Portrait,' a retrospective exhibition of more than 40 works by Clayton Sumner Price, a Modernist painter who helped shape America’s view of the West. The show was organized by Roger Saydack, a retired attorney and self-taught scholar who first encountered Price’s painting 'The Fisherman' as a boy at the Detroit Institute of Arts and spent decades researching the artist. It runs through August 30 and is the first solo exhibition of Price’s work in over 25 years, accompanied by a 312-page catalog.

suzanne duchamp retrospective zurich kunsthall schirn frankfurt 1234753306

A new retrospective at Kunsthaus Zurich, soon traveling to Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, spotlights Suzanne Duchamp (1889–1963), a French artist often overshadowed by her brothers Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, and Jacques Villon. The exhibition, titled “Suzanne Duchamp: Retrospective,” showcases her highly individual painterly practice rooted in Cubism and Dada, featuring works like *Radiation of Two Solitary Separates Apart* (1916–20) and *Marcel’s Unhappy Readymade* (1920), which reappropriates her brother’s readymade concept. The show includes a new catalog commission by painter Amy Sillman, who created digital drawings inspired by Duchamp’s formal dynamics.

lost jesus painting peter paul rubens paris mansion osenat 1234751588

A long-lost painting of Jesus Christ's crucifixion by 17th-century Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens, titled *Christ on the Cross* (1613), was discovered in a Parisian mansion by auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat last September. The large Baroque work, measuring 42 by 29 inches, was authenticated by German curator and art historian Nils Buttner, chairman of the Centrum Rubenianum, through X-ray imaging and pigment analysis. It will be auctioned by Osenat's auction house in Fontainebleau on November 30, with no estimate yet released.