London's National Gallery announces £750m fundraising drive towards new wing and expanded collection

London's National Gallery has announced a £750m fundraising drive, called Project Domani, to expand its collection into the 20th and 21st centuries and build a new wing on the site of St Vincent House, north of the Sainsbury Wing. Around half the target has already been pledged, including two record £150m donations from the Crankstart foundation and the Julia Rausing Trust. A shortlist of six architectural firms—including Foster + Partners, Kengo Kuma and Associates, and Selldorf Architects—has been released to design the extension, with a final choice expected by April and the wing opening in the early 2030s.

Spring 2026 Exhibitions Opening Celebration

The Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University has announced its Spring 2026 exhibitions lineup, featuring works by Vitória Cribb, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, Eric N. Mack, Hew Locke, and Naeem Mohaiemen. Highlights include Cribb's 'echoes of a wet finger,' commissioned by Sharjah Art Biennial 16 and Mercosul Biennial 14, and solo presentations by Garrido-Lecca, Mack, and Locke, as well as Mohaiemen's film and video works. The season is supported by a range of funders including the American Electric Power Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Milestone moment as Newcastle Art Gallery reopens its doors for first look inside expanded building

Newcastle Art Gallery in Australia has reopened its doors to the public for the first time after a major expansion project, unveiling new gallery spaces, a central atrium, and a foyer. The milestone event, held on 26 September 2025, featured a First Nations First ethos with major commissions and acquisitions on display, and was celebrated as part of the New Annual festival. The expansion has more than doubled the gallery's size, adding 1,600 square meters of exhibition space, with several areas named after major donors including Valerie and John Ryan, Margaret Olley, and Robert and Lindy Henderson.

Newport Art Museum opens tennis-themed exhibition featuring artist-athletes

The Newport Art Museum will open "THE COURT: Art in Play" on September 24, an exhibition featuring works by seven artists who also compete in court tennis, the historic precursor to modern tennis. Organized by artist and court tennis champion Frederika Adam, the show runs through April 2026 at the Historic Griswold House and includes animation, book art, painting, photography, and memorabilia. Items from the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s permanent collection are displayed alongside the artists’ works.

World Famous Buffalo Bill Western Art Show And Sale Opens For 44th Year

The 44th Buffalo Bill Art Show and Sale opened at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, with over $20,000 in art sold on the first evening. The show features 104 paintings from 104 artists, valued at over $1.25 million, displayed until the live auction on September 19. A Buy-It-Now Sale offers 63 smaller pieces donated by artists, providing immediate purchasing opportunities alongside the main exhibition of contemporary Western art.

The Rooftop Gallery Next Door

Adam Zhu, an artist, skateboarder, and photographer, has transformed a 9-by-15-foot former storage shed on his Chinatown rooftop into Market Gallery, a tiny exhibition space. The opening of Tucker van der Wyden's "Savage Love" drew about 200 visitors who walked through Zhu's one-bedroom apartment to reach the show. Zhu, who moved into the apartment in 2015, renovated the shed with contractor Andrew Kass, adding concrete walls and folding glass doors. The gallery has hosted seven shows, featuring emerging and established artists, and has become a platform for art in an unconventional setting.

Colorado Arts Spotlight: An exhibition honoring the Bauhaus artist behind Denver’s iconic “French fry” sculpture comes to Aspen — plus, things to do this weekend

The Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies in Aspen has opened a new exhibition titled "Sculpting the Environment," the first-ever show dedicated to the site-specific outdoor sculptures and land art of Bauhaus artist Herbert Bayer. Bayer, who moved to Aspen in 1945 at the invitation of industrialist Walter Paepcke, lived there for nearly 30 years and created Denver's iconic "Articulated Wall" sculpture in 1985, the year of his death. The exhibition, co-curated by Koko Bayer (his step-granddaughter) and Adam Thomas, highlights his three-dimensional process and his role in shaping Colorado's cultural landscape.

Newport Art Museum to present ‘Howard Gardiner Cushing: A Harmony of Line and Color’

The Newport Art Museum will present 'Howard Gardiner Cushing: A Harmony of Line and Color' from July 12 to December 31, 2025, the first major retrospective in decades of the Gilded Age artist. Curated by Ricardo Mercado, the exhibition features over 55 paintings, many unseen publicly for over 60 years, and will be held in the museum's Cushing Gallery, named after the artist and funded by his patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.

‘Art is an important way of depicting these atrocities’: London show shines a light on sexual violence in conflict

The Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London has opened "Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict," the first major UK museum exhibition to address the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Featuring video testimony from journalist Christina Lamb, the show draws on the IWM's collections and new testimonies from survivors, including propaganda posters, photographs by Lee Miller, and a newly acquired miniature Sonyeosang statue. Curators Maeve Underwood and Helen Upcraft re-examined the museum's holdings to uncover hidden narratives of sexual slavery and humiliation from World War II to the Russia-Ukraine war.

Immediately after the Second World War, how did six exhibitions attempt to make sense of the atrocities?

Berlin's Deutsches Historisches Museum has opened an exhibition titled "On Displaying Violence: First Exhibitions on the Nazi Occupation in Europe, 1945-48," which revisits six post-World War II exhibitions that attempted to process the atrocities of the war. These shows took place in venues ranging from the Grand Palais in Paris to a Czech villa formerly occupied by a Nazi official, and included displays such as the UK's Daily Express "The Horror Camps" (1945), the French traveling show "Hitlerian Crimes" (1945), "Warsaw Accuses" (1945) at the National Museum in Warsaw, and "Our Path to Freedom" (1947) at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The Berlin exhibition uses original objects, film footage, photographs, and recordings to recreate the experience of these early post-war shows.

Stephan Balkenhol New Bronze Sculptures 2026 - Man in a White

German sculptor Stephan Balkenhol has unveiled two new hand-painted bronze editions, "Man in a White Shirt and Black Pants 2026" and "Venus 2026." Released in editions of 30 and standing 68 cm tall, the works are being showcased and sold through Frank Fluegel Galerie across its Nuremberg and Kitzbühel locations. The release coincides with the artist's participation in the Art Cologne Palma de Mallorca Fair and precedes his 70th birthday in 2027.

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Debbie Ma's solo exhibition "The Language of Surface: Paintings by Debbie Ma" is on view at the Bridgehampton Museum on Long Island through December 30, 2025. The show features Ma's geometric abstractions that incorporate marble dust and impasto techniques, creating tactile surfaces that bridge visual abstraction and material investigation. Works such as "Red Between the Lines II" (2025) and "From the Earth" (2025) demonstrate her exploration of line, shape, and color while referencing Modernist movements like Abstract Expressionism and Constructivism.

That Time Raphael Visited Tivoli, Transforming Antiquity into Art

Quella volta che Raffaello visitò Tivoli trasformando l’antichità in arte

In April 1516, Raphael Sanzio embarked on a historic excursion to Tivoli alongside a prestigious circle of Renaissance intellectuals, including Baldassarre Castiglione and Pietro Bembo. This journey served as a critical field study for Raphael, who had recently been appointed as Rome's prefect of antiquities. By examining the complex ruins of Hadrian's Villa and the Sanctuary of the Sibyl, the group engaged in a sophisticated blend of archaeological investigation and humanist leisure that defined the cultural climate under Pope Leo X.

art fair conductor powerhouse arts new york

Conductor Art Fair made its debut at Powerhouse Arts in Gowanus, Brooklyn, with a VIP preview night on April 29, ahead of its public run from April 30 to May 3. Led by Powerhouse Arts President Eric Shiner and Fair Director Adriana Farietta, the event drew over 800 guests, featuring installations by Juan Jose Barboza-Gubo, House of Silence by Vuslat, and Sana Frini, along with 28 gallery exhibitors and 20 special projects. A performance by Grammy-nominated artist Lido Pimienta highlighted the evening, and the fair showcased works by numerous artists and gallerists.

Un big della fotografia del Novecento è in mostra a Venezia: tanti scatti inediti

A major exhibition dedicated to 20th-century photography master Horst P. Horst has opened at Le Stanze della Fotografia on San Giorgio Maggiore Island in Venice. Titled "La Geometria della Grazia" (The Geometry of Grace), it is the largest and most significant show ever devoted to the photographer, featuring over 400 works—about half of which are exhibited for the first time. The display pairs original vintage prints with archival materials such as period magazines, preparatory drawings, sketches, letters from Coco Chanel and Salvador Dalí, and slide projections. The exhibition is organized into eight sections exploring Horst's constant search for balance and proportion, moving beyond his famous fashion photography for Vogue to highlight the classical and modernist influences in his work.

In this L’Aquila High School, there is a Contemporary Art Collection Created by Students and Artists

In questo liceo dell’Aquila c’è una collezione d’arte contemporanea realizzata dagli studenti con gli artisti

The Liceo Bafile in L’Aquila has established a permanent collection of contemporary art featuring over 60 site-specific works created through collaborations between professional artists and students. Initiated by artist and professor Licia Galizia following the devastating 2009 earthquake, the project integrates art into the educational environment as a tool for cultural rebirth. In 2026, the collection will expand further with seven new installations created by artists including Elena Bellantoni and Marco Nereo Rotelli in partnership with the Academy of Fine Arts of L’Aquila.

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Felix LA has announced the 57 exhibitors for its eighth edition, taking place February 26 to March 1, 2026, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, with a VIP preview on February 25. The fair includes a mix of established galleries such as Corbett vs. Dempsey, Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, and Yossi Milo, alongside emerging spaces like ATLA, One Trick Pony, and Plato. Over 20 galleries are participating for the first time, including New York Life Gallery, Feia, and Som Gallery, with international participants from Kyoto, Toronto, Milan, Busan, and Buenos Aires.

Influential New York gallery Venus Over Manhattan will close after 13 years

Prominent collector and dealer Adam Lindemann is closing Venus Over Manhattan, the New York gallery he founded in 2012, after 13 years. The gallery's final exhibition, Susumu Kamijo's 'Fish & Flowers,' opened in June and will close on July 17. Lindemann announced the closure in an open letter published on Artnet, citing a desire to return to building his personal art collection and describing the difficulties of navigating the art world as both a dealer and collector.

Artists in charge

A roundup of artist-run galleries in Kansas City highlights the rise of spaces like Vulpes Bastille and 100,000,000, which are reshaping the local art scene. These venues, operated by artists and volunteers, offer exhibition opportunities, studios, and community support, exemplified by Andrew Johnson's intimate multimedia installation "In The Presence of an Absence" at Vulpes Bastille.

elizabeth king louise bonnet swiss institute show interview

The Swiss Institute in New York has opened a new exhibition titled “De Anima,” pairing sculptor Elizabeth King and painter Louise Bonnet. Curated by director Stefanie Hessler, the show explores the boundaries between the living and the lifelike, featuring King's intricate automata and stop-motion films alongside Bonnet's large-scale oil paintings of fleshy, gestural figures. The artists, introduced by Hessler at an opening last year, discovered a shared fascination with involuntary bodily movements—twitching eyes, clenched jaws—and the invisible labor of artistic craftsmanship.

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A federal judge ordered the National Park Service to return historical displays at the President's House Site in Philadelphia that acknowledge George Washington's ownership of enslaved people. The signs had been removed last month by the NPS, which claimed the action was for "accuracy, honesty and alignment with shared national values." The City of Philadelphia sued, and Pennsylvania's governor filed a supporting brief.

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Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro filed an amicus brief supporting Philadelphia's lawsuit against the Trump administration's removal of an exhibit about slavery at Independence National Historical Park. The exhibit, "Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation," memorialized nine enslaved people who worked at the President's House Site and included panels on the slave trade and economy. The Interior Department removed it citing President Trump's March 2025 executive order against what it called "historical revision." Philadelphia's suit argues the removal violated a 2006 agreement requiring city approval for exhibit changes.

non bank art loans defaults rise deloitte private arttactic 1234768867

Half of non-bank art lenders experienced loan defaults in 2024, up from 17 percent in 2022, according to the Art and Finance Report 2025 by Deloitte Private and ArtTactic. The report notes that while the wider art market has shrunk since 2022—sales fell 12 percent to $57.5 billion in 2024—the market for art-backed loans has grown to an estimated $33.9–$40 billion. Non-bank lenders are increasingly taking on riskier clients, with some charging over 15 percent interest, while private banks reported zero defaults in 2024.

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Libya’s National Museum, also known as the Red Castle Museum (As-Saraya Al-Hamra), has reopened in Tripoli for the first time since the 2011 revolution that ended Muammar el-Qaddafi’s rule. The museum, the largest in North Africa, closed at the onset of Libya’s military instability during the Arab Spring. Its 10,000-square-meter gallery houses artifacts spanning prehistory through Greek, Roman, and Islamic periods, including millennia-old mummies. Renovations began in 2023, with a full public reopening scheduled for early 2026; currently admission is limited to students.

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The Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) has canceled the 2025 edition of its flagship art fair, The Art Show, which was scheduled to open with a benefit preview on October 28 at the Park Avenue Armory. In an email to members, ADAA leadership cited a “strategic pause” and said the board made the decision after careful review, with plans to reimagine the fair for long-term sustainability. Exhibitors who submitted deposits will be contacted about reimbursement options, and the fair is expected to return in 2026 with a renewed vision.

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A Winston Churchill painting, *Churchill’s Marrakech* (circa 1935), sold for $1.3 million at Heffel Fine Art Auction House in Toronto, more than double its high estimate of $600,000. The work was the top lot in a 27-lot sale of deaccessioned works from the Hudson’s Bay Company corporate collection, which realized $4.9 million in total hammer price. Churchill had gifted the painting to his wife, Lady Clementine Ogilvy Spencer-Churchill, who donated it to Hudson’s Bay in 1956.

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President Donald Trump has demolished a portion of the East Wing of the White House to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, despite earlier claims that the addition would not impact the historic structure. The demolition began on October 20, with a backhoe tearing through the East Wing to make way for a ballroom that will nearly double the size of the main building and accommodate 650 people. The $250 million project, which Trump says is privately funded, marks one of the most significant changes to the White House in over a century.

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A federal judge dismissed a class action lawsuit against Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, ruling that its digital assets—including Bored Ape NFTs and ApeCoin—do not qualify as securities under the Howey test. Plaintiffs Adonis Real and Adam Titcher had alleged that Yuga Labs colluded with celebrities like Justin Bieber, Madonna, and Steph Curry, as well as talent agent Guy Oseary and crypto platform MoonPay, to inflate prices and violate securities laws. Judge Fernando Olguin found that while the plaintiffs satisfied one prong of the Howey test—expectation of profits from others' efforts—they failed to meet the other requirements, leading to the dismissal.

forged polish painting returns to the national museum in poznan poland 1234753722

A painting long attributed to Polish Realist painter Józef Pankiewicz and held by the National Museum in Poznań has been revealed as a forgery. The work, titled 'Vegetable Market at Żelaznej Bramy Square in Warsaw' and dated 1888, was awarded a silver medal at the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris and acquired by the museum in 1948. In 2017, scholar Michał Haake noticed discrepancies between the museum's version and historical reproductions, prompting an investigation. Conservators removed overpainting and found that the canvas, pigments, and composition differed from the original, with Pankiewicz's signature added after completion. The forgery, now attributed to an unidentified early 20th-century artist, is back on display alongside a photo of the original in the exhibition 'Succumb to Illusion.' The original painting has been missing since 1890.

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Adam Chinn, former chief operating officer at Sotheby's, has been quietly building International Art Finance (IAF), a boutique art lending firm backed by the billionaire Nahmad family. In a recent interview with ARTnews, Chinn revealed that IAF has disbursed nearly $400 million in loans and is on track to reach $500 million by the end of 2025. The firm offers short-term, non-recourse loans with an average size of $8 million, claiming an edge in speed and scale, with loans disbursed in as little as 10 days. The Nahmad family, prolific collectors and dealers, provides funding and conducts internal artwork valuations, a practice that has drawn scrutiny over potential conflicts of interest.