The Louvre Museum has announced a four-year restoration project for Peter Paul Rubens's monumental 'Marie de' Medici Cycle,' comprising 24 large-scale paintings. The works will be removed from public view starting this fall as the museum transforms their dedicated gallery into an on-site restoration studio to address yellowed varnishes and discordant past retouching.
Artist Jordan Wolfson has directed a new advertising campaign for Prada's Spring/Summer 2026 collection. The campaign, titled "I, I, I, I AM… PRADA," features unsettling, computer-generated birds and a bird-man hybrid alongside models including actors Carey Mulligan, Nicholas Hoult, Damson Idris, and Hunter Schafer, continuing Wolfson's signature style of disturbing digital avatars.
The New York Academy of Art has donated $66,000 in funds originally received from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), a nonprofit supporting sexually exploited girls. The move redirects all donations the school accepted from Epstein after his 2008 conviction. The academy's board chair, Eileen Guggenheim, who solicited the funds, will retire from her role a month early on April 1, following renewed scrutiny of the institution's Epstein ties.
A New Series on Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera Is Heading to Netflix
Netflix has announced a new series focusing on the turbulent relationship and artistic partnership between Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. The project, adapted from Claire Berest's biography, will be co-directed by Mexican filmmakers Patricia Riggen and Gabriel Ripstein and aims to present the story through a specifically Mexican and feminine perspective, exploring their politics and infamous love affairs.
Studio 54 Fine Art, founded and directed by Gary Williamson, is pioneering a nimble gallery model without a permanent brick-and-mortar space, instead meeting collectors through rotating physical exhibitions and behind-the-scenes matchmaking. The gallery is currently presenting the exhibition “Empire of Silence: The Untamed Majesty of Rowan Blackwell” in Switzerland, featuring large-scale photographs of wild animals by artist Rowan Blackwell, on view through August 31. Williamson, who transitioned from luxury goods and property investment to founding the gallery in Milan in 2016, emphasizes a focus on quality, provenance, and long-term value, with a roster of artists selected for technical mastery and distinctive vision.
Imvelo Studios, a Zambian gallery, has opened a group exhibition titled "Rise and Shine" featuring emerging Zambian artists across diverse mediums, including painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Curated by gallery founder Ng’onga Silupya, the show highlights artists such as Jeremiah Ludaka, Boyd Bishonga, Kaluba B. Chilawa, Hassan Yasini, Clare Chilemu, and Hezroth Simanda, whose works employ abstraction, Neo-Expressionism, and traditional techniques to explore themes of youth, cultural identity, and social commentary.
German artist Horst Antes, born in 1936, is being celebrated with two major exhibitions timed to his 90th birthday. Galerie Koch in Hannover presents a solo show titled “Horst Antes: Exhibition Marking the Artist’s 90th Birthday,” while the Sprengel Museum Hannover concurrently mounts “A Collection,” featuring roughly 80 works from its holdings. The shows highlight Antes’s pioneering role in New Figuration, particularly his iconic “Kopffüßler” (Head-Footer) character, which appears across paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from 1969 to 2014. The Galerie Koch exhibition also foregrounds his “House Pictures,” which explore architecture through non-hierarchical color planes and ambiguous perspective.
Sotheby's May 2026 auctions in New York generated $433.1 million in sales over under three hours, a 132.7 percent increase compared to the same period last spring, despite offering fewer lots. This strong performance signals a top-heavy recovery in the art market after three years of contraction. Separately, the Neue Galerie will merge with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2028, and Art Dubai continues despite disruptions from the U.S.-Iran war.
The 61st Venice Biennale is underway, and while it is officially a non-commercial exhibition, market forces are increasingly influential behind the scenes. Artnet News host Margaret Carrigan reports on auction houses actively participating in opening week, and highlights Sotheby’s upcoming single-owner sale in London featuring works from billionaire Joe Lewis’s collection, expected to exceed $200 million. Meanwhile, Whitechapel Gallery has created a new economist-in-residence position to address ongoing financial strain in museums.
A collection of rare Keith Haring artworks, gifted to his childhood friend Kermit Oswald over nearly three decades, is coming to auction at Sotheby’s Breuer Building in May 2025. The trove includes a self-portrait from 1985 (estimated at $3–5 million), a painted crib and dresser ($250,000–350,000), a carved wood sculpture from 1983 (up to $800,000), and other early works on wood, fabric, and paper. These pieces trace Haring’s artistic evolution before his subway drawings and international fame, and were kept by Oswald, who was Haring’s best friend since kindergarten and later installed his shows.
The exhibition "Women Artists of the American West: Colorado and Utah: 1885–1935" at History Jackson Hole spotlights seven forgotten female artists, including the adventurous mountaineer and painter Helen Henderson Chain. Curated by the founders of the Paris-based nonprofit AWARE, the show uncovers the lives of women who documented the Rocky Mountains and local communities while navigating the restrictive social norms of the late 19th century. Through paintings and photographs, the exhibition challenges the traditional, male-dominated "heroic" narrative of Western expansion.
An exhibition titled "Churchill the Artist" has opened at Chartwell, Winston Churchill's former home in Kent, England. The show features personal artifacts like his paint-spattered Savile Row overalls and spectacles, alongside paintings, including the first U.K. display of his work "Quiet Waters," a gift to his friend Lord Beaverbrook.
A solo presentation of self-taught artist Sam Doyle's work at the Outsider Art Fair in New York is generating significant attention, particularly a painting titled "Dr Bus Ha.Lo." being offered for sale for the first time at $85,000. The immersive booth, organized by London's Gallery of Everything, recreates the artist's front yard and showcases his vivid portraits of local Gullah community figures and Black cultural icons.
The global art landscape is set for a significant transformation in 2025 with the opening of several high-profile museum projects. These range from the long-awaited reopening of New York’s Frick Collection and the Studio Museum in Harlem to ambitious international debuts like the PoMo museum in Norway and the Fenix Museum of Migration Stories in Rotterdam. These projects feature designs by world-renowned architects including Annabelle Selldorf, India Mahdavi, and MAD Architects, often repurposing historic structures with bold contemporary additions.
Jeweled Snuffboxes Stolen in Brazen Paris Heist Go on Display
Two 18th-century jeweled snuffboxes, stolen in a 2024 axe-wielding heist at Paris's Musée Cognacq-Jay, have been restored and will go on display at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. The boxes, part of the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection, were among seven luxury objects stolen; five were later recovered after an insurance payment, but a third snuffbox remains missing.
palace holyroodhouse queen elizabeth apartment tour
The Royal Collection Trust has announced that Queen Elizabeth II’s private apartments at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh will open to the public for the first time. This limited 100-day engagement, running from May 21 to September 10, commemorates what would have been the late monarch’s 100th birthday. Visitors will gain access to the Breakfast Room, Dressing Room, and Sitting Room, which feature a mix of historic Flemish tapestries, Qing dynasty decorative arts, and personal clothing ensembles.
London-based gallery Trinity Fine Art has announced a curated presentation for TEFAF Maastricht 2026 focusing on the stylistic evolution from Mannerism to the Baroque. The showcase features three significant works: an ambitious 1580 biblical scene by Lavinia Fontana, a rare and well-documented 1610 depiction of St. Jerome by Orazio Gentileschi, and a mature 1620 composition of the Holy Family by Giulio Cesare Procaccini.
British artist James Doran-Webb is set to debut his first solo exhibition with the venerable UK gallery Gladwell and Patterson during Scottsdale Ferrari Art Week 2026. Known for his intricate wildlife sculptures crafted from reclaimed driftwood, Doran-Webb’s practice transforms weathered, inanimate natural materials into dynamic animal forms such as horses, owls, and meerkats. The presentation will pair these contemporary sculptures with Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings to create an immersive environment.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged veteran New York antiquities dealer Michael Ward with criminal facilitation following an investigation into the illicit trade of cultural property. Ward, who operated his Upper East Side gallery for nearly forty years, was convicted in September for his role in facilitating the sale of stolen artifacts, including a 1st-century gilded bronze plaque. Court documents reveal a broader pattern of misconduct involving 40 objects stolen from Italy, Greece, and Turkey, with a total value reaching into the millions.
rachel valdes gary nader art centre
Cuban artist Rachel Valdés has opened a solo exhibition titled "Light and Matter" at the Gary Nader Art Centre in Miami. The show features a new body of work that explores the phenomenon of diffraction and the concept of afterimages—the optical illusions that persist after a light source is removed. Valdés uses these sensory echoes to bridge the gap between physical light and psychological experience, creating abstract compositions that mimic cellular or internal visions.
Four previously unseen artworks by Stuart Sutcliffe, the original bassist for The Beatles, have gone on display at the Liverpool Beatles Museum. The exhibition includes a collage and a sketch from his student days at Liverpool College of Art, as well as two monochromatic lithographs created later while he was studying in Hamburg after leaving the band.
Jeffrey Epstein commissioned a large-scale reproduction of Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem's 1591 painting 'The Massacre of the Innocents' for the entrance of his New Mexico ranch. The $1,999 copy, depicting Roman soldiers killing infants, was ordered in 2010 from the reproduction company Ocean's Bridge Group and was requested to be shipped by his assistant in 2011.
Theater director Łukasz Twarkowski's new multimedia production, "ROHTKO," is set to open at London's Barbican Centre on October 2. The four-hour performance, which premiered in Riga in 2022, uses onstage action, video screens, and a techno soundtrack to explore the nature of authenticity in art, taking the Knoedler & Co. forgery scandal—which involved fake Rothko, Pollock, and Motherwell paintings—as a central narrative thread.
Artnet News has published a preview of major museum exhibitions scheduled across the United States in 2026, highlighting five standout shows. These include "Renaissance to Runway: The Enduring Italian Houses" at the Cleveland Museum of Art, which examines the intersection of fashion and art from the Renaissance to today; "The One-Two Punch: 100 Years of Robert Colescott" at the Tacoma Art Museum, celebrating the centenary of the artist known for his provocative figurative paintings; "Containing Multitudes" at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, a photography exhibition marking America's 250th year; and "Frida: The Making of an Icon" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, focusing on Frida Kahlo's enduring legacy.
Artist Ming Wong has created a new video installation titled "Dance of the Sun on the Water / Saltatio Solis in Aqua," currently on view at the National Gallery in London. The work reimagines the figure of Saint Sebastian, drawing inspiration from the museum's collection of classical paintings, including a 1475 altarpiece by Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo, as well as Derek Jarman's 1976 queer film "Sebastiane." Wong, the fifth artist selected for the National Gallery's Modern and Contemporary program, completed the piece during a one-year residency, exploring how the martyr's image has evolved across centuries and what it means in contemporary times.
Todd von Ammon, a young gallerist, critiques the contemporary art market's over-reliance on art fairs and the homogenization of gallery spaces into a sterile, grid-like system. He contrasts this with the lost charm of discovering hidden, architecturally unique galleries in labyrinthine neighborhoods, which he argues fosters a sense of urban belonging and agency for collectors and art workers. The article traces the shift from the rabbit warrens of SoHo to the dense Chelsea gallery district and the rise of the modern art fair, epitomized by Art Basel's expansion to Miami Beach in 2002, which he likens to a pyramid scheme that burdens young galleries with high costs for minimal returns.
Hazel Knapp, a self-taught artist with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, painted Vermont landscapes from her wheelchair between the 1930s and 1940s, often with her mother Elsie by her side describing the terrain. Knapp exhibited at the 1939 Museum of Modern Art show alongside Grandma Moses and Morris Hirshfield, was profiled in Sidney Janis's book *They Taught Themselves*, and sold ten paintings to Gertrude Stein, who planned an unrealized Paris exhibition. Despite this promising start, Knapp fell into obscurity after her mother's death.
Nnena Kalu, a 59-year-old Scottish artist with a learning disability, has won the 2025 Turner Prize, one of the world's most prestigious art awards. Her winning works include vast, swirling abstract drawings and sculptures made from wound VHS tape and found fabric, described as direct, honest, and compelling. The article argues that Kalu won not because of or despite her disability, but on the merit of her art, which stands out for its aesthetic simplicity and emotional power.
MoMA PS1, the contemporary art satellite of New York's Museum of Modern Art, announced it will offer free admission to all visitors starting January 1, 2026, thanks to a $900,000 donation from entrepreneur Sonya Yu. Previously, only New York City residents received free entry, while others faced a suggested $10 fee. The move positions MoMA PS1 as New York's largest free art museum, joining institutions like the Bronx Museum of the Arts and the American Folk Art Museum.
A Frida Kahlo painting, *El Sueño (La Cama)* (1954), sold at Sotheby’s New York for $54.7 million, setting a new auction record for the most expensive artwork by a female artist. The article, using data from the Artnet Price Database, lists the ten most expensive women artists at auction, including Lee Krasner ($11.6 million for *The Eye is the First Circle*), Jenny Saville ($12.4 million for *Propped*), Marlene Dumas ($13.6 million for *Miss January*), and Agnes Martin ($18.7 million for *Grey Stone II*).