The article, published by TheValue.com in partnership with AIG, provides expert analysis and insights from New York’s November auction week. It covers key sales, market trends, and notable results from major auction houses including Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips, with commentary from specialists and market observers.
Sotheby's first evening auctions in its new Manhattan headquarters, the former Whitney Museum building designed by Marcel Breuer, achieved a record total of $605.1 million ($706 million with fees) on November 18. The night was headlined by the sale of 24 works from the collection of the late billionaire Leonard Lauder, which alone brought in $456.2 million. The standout lot was Gustav Klimt's 'Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, 1914-16)', which sold for $205 million ($236.3 million with fees) after a nearly 20-minute bidding war, becoming the second-most-expensive painting ever sold at auction. A subsequent contemporary art auction added $148.8 million ($178.5 million with fees) across 44 lots.
The article reports on major auction results from Christie's, Bonhams, and other houses, including a $700 million evening sale at Christie's and a Norman Rockwell painting sold for $7.25 million linked to former President Donald Trump. It also highlights notable consignments and bidding activity from high-profile collectors and estates.
The Art of Wishes charity auction, founded in 2017 by Batia Ofer, is holding its fifth gala in October 2025 at the Chancery Rosewood in London. Artists Zadie Xa and Dominic Chambers have contributed works: Xa's 'Worlding (2025)' (estimate £30,000-£50,000) and Chambers' 'In Safe Keeping (2025)' (estimate £50,000-£70,000). Other consignments include pieces by Ron Arad and Deborah Azzopardi. The 22 works will be viewable at Phillips auction house in London from 9-12 October and online. The auction has raised over £13 million for Make-A-Wish UK since 2017, granting over 5,000 wishes to critically ill children.
Art Basel Paris is underway, and this article highlights 17 must-see museum shows across the city. Key exhibitions include a joint tribute to Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, and Pontus Hultén at the Grand Palais; a Rick Owens fashion retrospective at Palais Galliera; the first French monographic show of John Singer Sargent at the Musée d'Orsay, featuring his scandalous 'Portrait of Madame X'; a Bridget Riley exhibition exploring her debt to Georges Seurat; a Minimalism survey at the Bourse de Commerce; and a major Jacques-Louis David retrospective at the Louvre marking the bicentenary of his death.
The University of California, Irvine has finalized its acquisition of the Orange County Museum of Art, creating a new unified institution named the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. The merger combines OCMA's 53,000-square-foot, $98 million facility in Costa Mesa with UC Irvine's academic resources, bringing together over 9,000 works of art. The museum will also showcase UC Irvine's Gerald Buck Collection and Irvine Museum Collection, while the Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art continues operating on campus. OCMA staff have joined UC Irvine, and a national search for an executive director is underway.
The National Gallery Singapore will host Southeast Asia’s largest exhibition of French Impressionist art, titled “Into the Modern: Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,” from November 14, 2025, to March 1, 2026. The show features over 100 paintings on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, including works by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, and Camille Pissarro, with 17 Monet paintings such as ‘Poppy Field in a Hollow near Giverny’ and ‘Cap Martin near Menton.’ None of the artworks have been displayed in Southeast Asia before.
Agnes Gund, the influential American arts philanthropist and collector, has died at age 87. Gund was a transformative figure at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, serving on its board from 1976, as president from 1991 to 2002, and later as president emerita. She helped raise funds for MoMA's $858m expansion, donated around 100 works to the museum, and pushed for acquisitions of women and artists of color. Beyond MoMA, she founded Studio in a School in 1977 to bring art education to New York City public schools and co-chaired a Sotheby's auction to support Miss Porter's School. Her death was first reported by The New York Times; she is survived by four children.
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, has announced a historic expansion, increasing its size by 50 percent to 114,000 square feet, with a grand opening scheduled for June 6 and 7, 2026. The expansion, designed by Safdie Architects, includes fully reimagined galleries and is celebrated by two landmark gifts: 18 major works by women artists donated by chairperson Olivia Walton and her husband Tom Walton, and 200 artworks by over 100 artists donated by collectors Candace and Michael Humphreys. The Walton gift features artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Alice Neel, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, while the Humphreys gift introduces many new artists to the museum's holdings.
Allen Rosenbaum, the former director of the Princeton University Art Museum who led the institution from 1980 to 1999, died on August 3, 2025, at Calvary Hospital in New York City at age 88. Rosenbaum joined Princeton in 1974 as assistant director under Peter Bunnell, and during his 25-year tenure as director, he significantly expanded the museum's collections, adding major works such as Giulio Cesare Procaccini's "The Martyrdom of Saint Justina," Pinturicchio's "Saint Bartholomew," and Pietro da Cortona's "Saint Martina Refuses to Adore the Idols." He also oversaw the 1989 opening of the Mitchell Wolfson Jr. Wing, which added 27,000 square feet of exhibition space.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced its MetLiveArts fall and winter 2025–26 season, featuring world premiere performances and commissions created specifically for the museum's galleries, as well as concerts in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. The season highlights a significant number of new works by female artists, including composers and musicians Gabriela Ortiz, Wu Man, Hanzhi Wang, Emily Wells, Layale Chaker, and Leilehua Lanzilotti. Performances will draw inspiration from the Met's collection and special exhibitions like 'Man Ray: When Objects Dream,' with events beginning September 9, 2025, featuring Wu Man and The Knights. The season also includes the JACK Quartet as the museum's 2025–26 Quartet in Residence and the appointment of Sarah Jones as Head of Live Arts.
Marina Abramović and Peter Doig have been awarded the 2025 Praemium Imperiale prizes for sculpture and painting, respectively, each receiving a 15 million yen (£77,000) honorarium. The awards, presented by the Japan Art Association under honorary patron Prince Hitachi, also recognized Belgian filmmaker Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (theatre/film), Hungarian pianist András Schiff (music), and Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto De Moura (architecture). The National Youth Theatre received the 2025 Grant for Young Artists.
Christie’s has announced its London Summer Season, running from June to August 2025, with the Post-War to Present sales as a central highlight. The season includes live and online auctions, selling exhibitions such as 75 Years of New Contemporaries and Modern British Art: A Selling Exhibition, and cultural partnerships. Key auction highlights include Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's '8pm Zaragoza' (estimate £500,000–700,000), Victor Man's 'The Chandler' (estimate £300,000–500,000), and works by David Hockney, Cecily Brown, KAWS, and Georg Baselitz. The live sale takes place on 26 June, with online bidding from 17 June to 1 July.
Phillips has appointed Robert Manley as chairman of modern and contemporary art and Miety Heiden as chairman of private sales, following the departure of Cheyenne Westphal and Jean-Paul Engelen. Manley, who joined Phillips in 2016, has secured major consignments including the collection of Francesco Pellizzi and the Pop Art trove of Miles and Shirley Fiterman, while Heiden has driven a 46 percent growth in annual private sales. The appointments come after Phillips' $51.9 million Modern and Contemporary Evening Sale, which reinforced the auction house's strength in the contemporary segment.
A major new exhibition, “The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869–1939,” has opened at Chicago’s Wrightwood 659, featuring over 300 queer artworks from 125 artists across 40 countries. Curated by Jonathan D. Katz and Johnny Willis, the show includes early photographs of drag, a painting of a late-1700s trans pioneer, and what is believed to be the first same-sex wedding depicted in art, alongside works by iconic figures like Gertrude Stein and James Baldwin. The exhibition, eight years in the making, draws loans from institutions such as the Tate and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as private collections, and runs through July 26.
A new auction record has been set, with a significant artwork selling for a high price at a major auction house. The sale took place recently, drawing attention from collectors and the art market.
A writer revisits the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) alumni magazine after being assigned to explore how a group of RISD graduates from the late 2000s helped shape contemporary American material culture. The article focuses on the cohort that studied at RISD during the 2008 financial crisis, a time of institutional dysfunction and curricular drift, and includes figures like fashion brand Eckhaus Latta (co-founded by Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta), designer Adam Charlap Hyman, artists Katie Stout, Misha Kahn, F Taylor Colantonio, and Martine Gutierrez. The author reflects on shared memories and the unique conditions that produced this influential group.
MoMA PS1 kicked off its 50th anniversary year with an intimate cocktail event at the Tribeca townhome of board member Michi Jigarjian, hosted by the museum's patron group the Greater New Yorkers. Over 100 guests—including artists, collectors, dealers, and curators—gathered for remarks from Director Connie Butler, Chief Curator Ruba Katrib, and co-chairs Leslie Fritz, Ed Tang, and Amitha Raman, followed by a performance by experimental cellist Dorothy Carlos. Attendees received a first look at the upcoming quinquennial exhibition "Greater New York 2026," which will feature over 50 New York-based artists, with a partial list including Farah Al Qasimi, Fields Harrington, Hardy Hill, Sofia Sinibaldi, and Julia Wachtel.
CULTURED magazine and fashion brand MZ Wallace celebrated the 10-year anniversary of their Young Artists List with an event at (SUB)MERCER in SoHo, where they announced Iraqi-born, Los Angeles-based artist Ali Eyal as the winner of the 2025 Young Artist Prize. Eyal received an unrestricted $30,000 grant, selected by a jury of curators from the Met, the Hammer, and MoMA, for his multidisciplinary practice reflecting on violence endured during his upbringing in Baghdad.
The Tuscan hill town of Monte San Savino launched a contemporary art exhibition titled "Art Gender Gap" on International Women's Day, featuring 40 female artists and 53 works across multiple historic venues including the GAS, Chiesa di Santa Chiara, Palazzo Ciocchi di Monte, and the Renaissance Cisternone. Curated by Giuseppe Simone Modeo, Nicoletta Castellaneta, and Domenico de Chirico, the show includes loans from the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington (via its Italian committee president Claudia Pensotti Mosca), the Christian Levett collection, and the FAMM Museum in Mougin, France—a museum dedicated exclusively to women artists. Participating artists range from historical figures like Louise Bourgeois, Carol Rama, and Sonia Delaunay to contemporary names such as Kiki Smith, Pipilotti Rist, Marlene Dumas, Tracey Emin, and Mona Hatoum.
A Perugia Giotto e i Giotteschi per celebrare gli 800 anni dalla morte di San Francesco
The Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria in Perugia has opened the exhibition "Giotto e san Francesco. Una rivoluzione nell'Umbria del Trecento" to mark the 800th anniversary of the death of Saint Francis of Assisi. Curated by Veruska Picchiarelli and Emanuele Zappasodi, the show brings together major international loans to reunite works by Giotto and his Umbrian and Sienese followers, exploring the artistic revolution sparked by Francis's life and Giotto's break from Byzantine tradition toward naturalism.
A Reggio Emilia torna la grande rassegna Fotografia Europea. Programma, appuntamenti, centinaia di mostre diffuse
Fotografia Europea, the major photography festival in Reggio Emilia, returns for its 21st edition from April 30 to June 14, 2026, under the theme "Fantasmi del quotidiano" (Ghosts of the Everyday). The official circuit features twenty exhibitions across historic venues such as Chiostri di San Pietro, Palazzo da Mosto, and Palazzo dei Musei, as well as modern spaces like Spazio Gerra and Collezione Maramotti. Highlights include works by Felipe Romero Beltrán (winner of the KBr Photo Award 2025), Mohamed Hassan, Salvatore Vitale, Marine Lanier, Ola Rindal, Tania Franco Klein, Giulia Vanelli, Frédéric D. Oberland, and Simona Ghizzoni, with curatorial contributions from Tim Clark and Luce Lebart. Over three hundred off-circuit exhibitions will also be held throughout the city.
Come sarà la decima edizione fiera Art Monte-Carlo nel Principato di Monaco
Art Monte-Carlo, the boutique art fair in the Principality of Monaco, celebrates its tenth edition from April 29 to May 1, 2026 (preview April 28), under the High Patronage of H.S.H. Prince Albert II. The fair will host 26 international galleries of modern and contemporary art at the Grimaldi Forum, moving to new spring dates and coinciding with the Monaco Art Week (April 27–May 1). Newcomers include Italian gallery Secci, Mitterrand from Paris, A&R Fleury, Cecilia Hillström Gallery, Fabienne Levy, Giovanni Martino Projects, Lee & Bae, Ritsch-Fisch Galerie, and Monegasque galleries Hartford Fine Art – Lampronti Gallery and M.F. Toninelli Art Moderne. Returning exhibitors include Almine Rech, Cortesi, Galleria Continua, Suzanne Tarasieve, Semiose, Van de Weghe, Voena, and Wilde. A curated section features a collective exhibition titled "Earthly Delights," curated by Stefano Rabolli Pansera and inspired by Luis Buñuel, centered on a functioning bar as a conceptual and physical space. The fair also includes a public program and talks with figures such as photographer Juergen Teller, auctioneer Simon de Pury, and collector Batia Ofer, and has moved under the influence of Informa Prestige, the luxury division of events company Informa.
5 mostre in Provenza per i 100 anni di Fragonard, la storica maison di profumi
The historic French perfume house Fragonard is preparing to celebrate its centenary in 2026 with a series of five exhibitions in Provence. Founded in 1926 by Eugène Fuchs and named in honor of the Rococo painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard, the maison has evolved into a significant cultural patron under the leadership of the Costa family. The upcoming celebrations highlight the family's extensive private collections, which span ancient perfume artifacts, traditional Provençal costumes, and fine art, housed across several free public museums in Grasse, Paris, and Arles.
This article is a guide to finding art books in Chicago, tracing a walking trail that begins at the Chicago History Museum and continues to the Graham Foundation and the Newberry Library. The author reflects on beloved but now-closed art bookstores like Rizzoli's Water Tower Place, Prairie Avenue Bookshop, and Golden Age, then proposes a contemporary route for discovering art, architecture, and design books in the city's remaining cultural institutions and museum shops.
Greater Philadelphia is launching a year-long Semiquincentennial celebration in 2026, featuring a series of major exhibitions across the region. Highlights include "A Nation of Artists" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the "What Now" festival by ArtPhilly, and "Bells Across PA," a statewide display of painted Liberty Bell replicas. Other notable shows include the Museum of the American Revolution's "The Declaration's Journey," The Franklin Institute's immersive theme park exhibit, The Academy of Natural Sciences' Indigenous re-examination of its Lewis and Clark collection, and the Independence Seaport Museum's look at early American commerce. The Clay Studio presents "Radical Americana" across 20 sites, the National Liberty Museum opens three exhibitions on the First Amendment, and a new show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art explores monuments, curated by Paul Farber.
Gió Marconi Gallery in Milan, Italy, is presenting 'Ron Nagle. Phantom Banter,' the first solo exhibition in Italy dedicated to West Coast sculptor Ron Nagle. The show features eleven ceramic sculptures produced between 2024 and 2026, along with recent drawings, highlighting Nagle's refined small-scale works and his process of translating drawings into three-dimensional objects. Nagle, born in 1939 in San Francisco, apprenticed with Peter Voulkos in the 1960s and became a key figure in the California Clay Movement, influenced by artists like Ken Price.
The Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, New Jersey, will open three new exhibitions on May 17, 2026: 'Claybash,' a triennial juried ceramics exhibition; a solo show of figurative paintings by Emily Strong; and 'Mindscapes,' a solo exhibition of works by 93-year-old artist Bascha Mon. Emily Strong's show features large-scale realist oil paintings that explore themes of cultural identity, gender, and human relationships, with QR codes linking to interviews with her models. 'Claybash' includes 40 artists selected by curator Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy, with cash prizes awarded. Bascha Mon's exhibition highlights her six-decade career of imaginative, color-driven work.
The exhibition "Monuments," co-organized by The Brick and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), features ten former Confederate monuments removed from public spaces across the American South. Highlights include Kara Walker's reconfigured "Unmanned Drone" (formerly Charlottesville's Stonewall Jackson monument), Richmond's toppled Jefferson Davis statue, and a graffitied Matthew Fontaine Maury statue. Co-curator Hamza Walker explains the show began after the 2015 Charleston church shooting and gained urgency following George Floyd's murder in 2020, involving complex negotiations with city governments and stewards to secure the politically charged pieces.