Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 10 link 8 artists

kids damage art 2639206

A child under the age of five recently scratched a Mark Rothko painting at a museum in the Netherlands, forcing its removal for restoration. The article compiles several notorious incidents of children accidentally damaging artworks, including a 12-year-old boy punching a hole through a $1.5 million Baroque painting by Paolo Porpora in Taipei, a 4-year-old shattering a 3,500-year-old vase at the Hecht Museum in Israel, a girl climbing a Donald Judd sculpture at Tate Modern, and kids breaking a glass artwork by Shelley Xue at the Shanghai Museum of Glass. In most cases, the damage was accidental, driven by curiosity or misinterpretation, and often involved lapses in adult supervision.

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article culture schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 17 link 13 artists

leonardo da vinci existing paintings ranked 2636065

Artnet News has published a ranking of Leonardo da Vinci's surviving paintings, focusing on completed, stand-alone works and excluding frescos like *The Last Supper* and unfinished pieces. The article evaluates paintings such as *Annunciation* (c. 1472–76), *Madonna of the Carnation* (1478–80), and *Ginevra de' Benci* (c. 1474–78), considering factors like attribution certainty, historical context, and unique traits—for instance, *Ginevra de' Benci* is the only Leonardo painting in a public collection in the Americas.

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trending_up market schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 13 link 4 artists

len riggios mondrian christies auction 2641657

A 1922 painting by Piet Mondrian, *Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue*, sold at Christie’s New York for $47.6 million, falling short of its $50 million-plus estimate and the artist’s auction record of $51 million set in 2022. The work was the highlight of the “Leonard & Louise Riggio: Collected Works” sale, a 39-lot trove from the late Barnes & Noble founder and Dia Art Foundation chairman, estimated at up to $326 million. The painting sold to a single phone bidder, likely the guarantor, with no room action.

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article culture schedule May 15, 2025 visibility 16 link 10 artists

michelangelo 550 birthday headlines 2639169

Artnet News rounds up recent headlines involving Renaissance master Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni as institutions prepare to celebrate his 550th birthday in 2025. The article highlights three stories: a scene in HBO's *The White Lotus* season three finale that echoes Michelangelo's *Pietà*; the ongoing scholarly debate over whether Michelangelo himself forged the ancient sculpture *Laocoön and His Sons*; and the restoration of Michelangelo's family tomb at the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence ahead of his birthday.

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gavel restitution schedule May 15, 2025 visibility 17 link 3 artists

valparaiso university brauer museum can sell paintings 2531663

The Porter County Superior Court has approved Valparaiso University's plan to sell three valuable paintings from the Brauer Museum of Art—works by Frederic Edwin Church, Childe Hassam, and Georgia O'Keeffe valued at around $20 million—to fund renovations to freshman dormitories. The decision follows a year and a half of controversy, including a lawsuit from the museum's founding director Richard Brauer and condemnation from major museum professional organizations, who argue that deaccessioning art for non-collection purposes violates ethical standards.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 12, 2025 visibility 19 link 5 artists

moma curator jodi hoptman hilma af klint botanical drawings 1234741702

MoMA has acquired a rare portfolio of 46 botanical drawings by Hilma af Klint, created between 1919 and 1920, and will present them in an exhibition titled “What Stands Behind the Flowers” from May 11 to September 27. Curator Jodi Hauptman discusses how the drawings reveal af Klint’s dual approach—traditional figuration alongside abstract diagrams—and her deep engagement with the natural world, including newly discovered evidence that she worked as a professional scientific illustrator for a mushroom specialist.

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candle obituary schedule May 12, 2025 visibility 19 link 8 artists

venice biennale curator koyo kouoh dies 1234741881

Koyo Kouoh, the Cameroonian-born curator appointed to lead the 2026 Venice Biennale, has died unexpectedly at age 57. The Venice Biennale announced her passing on Saturday, describing her as a figure of “passion, intellectual rigor, and vision.” Her husband, Philippe Mall, stated that a recently diagnosed cancer was the cause of death in a hospital in Basel, Switzerland. Kouoh had served as executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town since 2019, and was the second African-born curator to lead the Venice Biennale.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 12, 2025 visibility 24 link 21 artists

superfine met museum costume institute black dandy 1234740801

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute will open "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" on May 10, an exhibition tracing over 300 years of Black dandyism. The show features around a dozen paintings, fashions, works on paper, photography, sculpture, and decorative objects, including a 1758 portrait of Roch Aza, a ten-year-old enslaved boy from Martinique, depicted in elegant livery alongside his enslaver. The exhibition examines how well-dressed Black figures appeared in European art as symbols of their owners' wealth and status during the transatlantic slave trade, and how subsequent generations have reappropriated and subverted that imagery.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 10, 2025 visibility 22 link 22 artists

national gallery sainsburg wing reopening gabriele finaldi 1234741454

London's National Gallery has reopened its Sainsbury Wing after a three-year, $113 million renovation, timed to the museum's 200th anniversary. Director Gabriele Finaldi, who was knighted this year, oversaw the project, which was designed by architect Annabelle Selldorf and faced criticism from original architect Denise Scott Brown. The revamped wing features a light-filled foyer, 17 galleries with no prescribed route, and a rehang titled “The Wonder of Art.” The museum also acquired a mysterious painting by an unknown artist, The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret and Two Angels (1500–10), for $20 million through Sotheby's.

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article news schedule May 9, 2025 visibility 18 link 3 artists

britain royal coronation portraits charles iii camilla 1234741047

The United Kingdom unveiled official coronation portraits of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, painted by artists Peter Kuhfeld and Paul Benney respectively, to commemorate the 2023 coronation. Charles is depicted in a red room wearing coronation regalia beside the Imperial State Crown, while Camilla is shown in photorealistic detail in a powder blue silk dress. The portraits are on view at the National Gallery in London.

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article culture schedule May 7, 2025 visibility 15 link 5 artists

eva hesse documentary 456167

A comprehensive new documentary on Eva Hesse, the innovative 1960s artist, will premiere in New York in April. Directed by Marcie Begleiter, the film explores Hesse's life as a German-born American who fled Nazi Germany, her difficult childhood as an immigrant, and her rise in New York's art scene. It features interviews with artists like Robert Mangold and examines her pioneering use of materials such as plastic, latex, and fiberglass. Hesse's career was cut short when she died of a brain tumor at age 34 in 1970, but her legacy has grown through posthumous retrospectives at major museums.

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person people schedule May 6, 2025 visibility 13 link 5 artists

mara manus to depart inaugural ceo pioneer works 1234740682

Mara Manus is stepping down as CEO of Pioneer Works, the Brooklyn arts and science non-profit founded by artist Dustin Yellin, after a brief tenure that began in 2023. Her departure comes after she met the organization's fundraising goals months ahead of schedule and completed the third phase of a $30 million capital campaign in early 2025. Gabriel Florenz, the founding artistic director since 2012, has expanded his role to executive director, while Stephanie Hemshrot was appointed Chief Operating Officer. Manus previously led the New York State Council on the Arts and the Public Theater.

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trending_up market schedule May 5, 2025 visibility 17 link 10 artists

sfmoma gift pamela joyner alfred giuffrida 1950427

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) has received a landmark gift of 31 paintings, sculptures, and drawings from the Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida Collection, which focuses on abstract works by artists of the African diaspora. The donated pieces, created by 20 American artists born before 1930—including Elizabeth Catlett, Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis, and Richard Mayhew—are intended to fill historical gaps in the museum's collection. Joyner, who became an SFMOMA trustee in 2020, selected works that represent the earliest generation of artists in her collection, aiming to support a more inclusive art-historical narrative.

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article news schedule May 5, 2025 visibility 17 link 2 artists

will the us participate in the 2026 venice biennale 1234740594

As President Donald Trump cuts U.S. art programs and funding, questions surround the country's participation in the 2026 Venice Biennale. A Vanity Fair piece by Nate Freeman reports that the selection process is already behind schedule, with the U.S. State Department's typical 18-month lead time now reduced to just one year. The National Endowment for the Arts, which convenes the advisory committee for the pavilion, has been halted, and a key assistant secretary position is vacant. The application portal remains open but now includes new language requiring art that "reflects and promotes American values" and scrubbing references to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

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trending_up market schedule May 2, 2025 visibility 12 link 7 artists

rachofsky house dallas for sale 2635863

The Rachofsky House, a landmark contemporary art residence in Dallas designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier, has been quietly listed for sale off-market by Compass agent Faisal Halum. The 9,000-square-foot home at 8605 Preston Road has been owned for decades by prominent collectors Howard and Cindy Rachofsky, who annually hosted the Two x Two gala there, raising over $130 million for amfAR and the Dallas Museum of Art. Howard Rachofsky confirmed the sale, citing his age (81) and ongoing estate planning.

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article news schedule May 2, 2025 visibility 8 link 3 artists

mark rothko dutch museum scratched 2637522

A large Mark Rothko painting, *Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8*, was removed from display at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam after a young visitor scratched it during an "unguarded moment." The 1960 work, measuring over 7 by 8 feet, is one of only two Rothkos in Dutch collections. The museum has sought conservation expertise in the Netherlands and abroad, and expects the painting to be shown again after treatment. The work was on view at the museum's open storage facility, the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, while the main building undergoes renovation until at least 2030.

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article news schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 12 link 8 artists

howard castle completes restoration 2635867

Castle Howard, the historic North Yorkshire estate known for its role in Netflix's *Bridgerton* and the 1981 film *Brideshead Revisited*, is reopening to the public after major restoration work. The centerpiece is the tapestry drawing room, which had stood as an empty shell since a 1940 fire devastated much of the house. The room has been fully reconstructed with a new ceiling, floor, fireplace, paneling, and window casings, overseen by architect Francis Terry. Four 18th-century tapestries by John Vanderbank, depicting the seasons, have been restored and reinstalled in their original locations for the first time since the early 1700s. The restoration also prompted a rehang of the Long Gallery and a reimagining of the grand staircase, which now displays artifacts collected by the earls of Carlisle.

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trending_up market schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 23 link 48 artists

state of the art market understanding regional differences in the globalized art market 2444281

Artnet News and Morgan Stanley have released an analysis of the global art market, examining auction performance by artists from different regions over the past decade. The report breaks down sales by region—North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East—and by genre categories including Old Masters, Impressionist and Modern, Postwar and Contemporary, and Ultra-Contemporary. Key findings show that North American and European artists dominate the market, while African-born artists have seen notable but uneven growth, and Asia-Pacific-born artists have experienced a marked decline.

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article news schedule May 1, 2025 visibility 11 link 5 artists

american civil liberties union of texas artists in residence 1234740261

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas (ACLU of Texas) has named Houston-based painter Vincent Valdez and Austin-based author KB Brookins as the recipients of its artists-in-residence program for 2025–26. Each artist will receive $30,000 to fund individual projects and will collaborate with the ACLU of Texas and community leaders to advocate for civil rights. Valdez plans to paint portraits of local community leaders and create poster packets combining Know Your Rights information with archival research for statewide distribution. Brookins will address pretrial detention in Texas jails through original compositions, workshops, and public presentations, focusing on mass incarceration issues in Harris County. The pair were selected from roughly 200 applicants following a statewide open call, succeeding artist Kill Joy, who led an immigrants' rights tour with large puppets.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 30, 2025 visibility 19 link 5 artists

kevin beasley storm king acoustic mirror 1234740204

Kevin Beasley has created a large-scale acoustic mirror for Storm King Art Center, opening May 7. The 11-foot-tall, 100-foot-wide four-part sculpture is inspired by World War I–era concrete acoustic mirrors used for detecting enemy aircraft. Unlike those obsolete relics, Beasley's work is made from recycled clothes cast in resin and will amplify visitors' voices and outdoor sounds. The piece engages with the history of the Hudson River School painters and themes of colonialism, Manifest Destiny, and contested land, while also celebrating agricultural cycles through its seasonal titles: Proscenium| Rebirth, Growth, Harvest, and Dormancy.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 30, 2025 visibility 15 link 7 artists

emily fisher landau picasso sothebys 2384885

Pablo Picasso's 1932 painting *Femme à la montre*, depicting his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter, sold for $139.4 million (including fees) at Sotheby's New York during the highly anticipated Emily Fisher Landau sale. The work, estimated at $120 million, was the centerpiece of the auction, with bidding starting at $95 million and concluding after a two-minute standoff among three phone bidders, including one from Asia. Brooke Lampley, Sotheby's head of global fine art, secured the winning bid on behalf of a client. The sale was handled by Sotheby's, which won the right to auction the estate of Landau, a longtime Whitney Museum board member and private collector.

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article news schedule Apr 29, 2025 visibility 18 link 3 artists

texas police new york spree sally mann 2637594

Texas police officers traveled to New York museums in February as part of a failed child pornography investigation against photographer Sally Mann and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The investigation stemmed from Mann's photographs of her nude underage children, displayed in the exhibition "Diaries of Home," which some local viewers and officials deemed harmful. The officers visited the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum, spending nearly $7,000 on the trip. A grand jury declined to take action in March, and the photos were returned. Museums reported no recent communication with the police and stated Mann's works had not been on view for years.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 26, 2025 visibility 21 link 12 artists

rare basquiat sothebys contemporary auctions in new york 1234739897

Sotheby's will auction a rediscovered early Jean-Michel Basquiat painting from 1981, unseen for 36 years, with a $10–15 million estimate at its Contemporary Evening Auction in New York this May. The sale also features major works from three tightly held private collections: the estate of Barbara Gladstone, the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, and Daniella Luxembourg's 'Im Spazio' group, alongside top lots by Lucio Fontana, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Ed Ruscha. The Modern Evening Auction includes a Pablo Picasso musketeer portrait and a Georgia O'Keeffe painting, with combined estimates for both sales reaching up to $525.2 million.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 26, 2025 visibility 19 link 4 artists

museums of tomorrow roundtable 2025 2634542

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) will host the 2025 Museums of Tomorrow Roundtable (MTR) from May 11-17, bringing together 14 global museum leaders and technology firms including Adobe, Anthropic, Bloomberg, and Salesforce. Participants include directors such as Marion Ackermann (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz), Stephanie Rosenthal (Guggenheim Abu Dhabi), Eike Schmidt (Museo di Capodimonte), Mami Kataoka (Mori Art Museum), and others, alongside Bay Area museum heads and AI artist Refik Anadol, who will speak in a free public program at the de Young Museum. The forum aims to bridge the museum and technology communities, exploring how advanced technologies can enrich operations and visitor experiences while supporting artists working with technology.

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gavel restitution schedule Apr 25, 2025 visibility 17 link 2 artists

art institute of chicago nazi looted schiele drawing return 1234739791

A New York judge has ordered the Art Institute of Chicago to return Egon Schiele's 1916 drawing to the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, an Austrian Jewish art collector persecuted during the Holocaust. The ruling, issued by Judge Althea Drysdale, determined that the work was looted by the Nazis and that the museum failed to properly scrutinize its provenance, relying on discredited records from Swiss dealer Eberhard Kornfeld. The drawing had been in the museum's collection since 1966 and was seized in 2023; the museum plans to appeal.

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museum exhibitions schedule Apr 22, 2025 visibility 14 link 5 artists

ai weiwei rebel retrospective seattle 1234739184

The Seattle Art Museum has opened “Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei,” the largest U.S. retrospective ever for the Chinese dissident artist. The exhibition features iconic works such as the neon sign *FUCK* (2020), the sculpture *Middle Finger* (2000), and the photographic series “Study of Perspective” (1995–2011), alongside pieces that remix art history—from Duchamp-inspired readymades to Lego versions of Old Masters. Curated by Ping Foong, the show spans Ai’s career, including his politically charged responses to the Sichuan earthquake and his infamous 1995 performance *Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn*.

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article local schedule Apr 18, 2025 visibility 11 link 7 artists

canada giant van gogh easel fate 2633654

In 1997, artist Cameron Cross installed The Big Easel, a 75-foot-tall sculpture of an easel displaying a reproduction of Vincent van Gogh's sunflower paintings, in Altona, Canada, to honor the town's status as the Sunflower Capital of Canada. After a windstorm on February 28 blew off a panel of the painting and further damage occurred on March 15, the town removed the four-ton painting and conducted a survey to gauge public support for restoration. A majority of respondents (68%) voted to save the artwork, with 60% preferring a hand-painted canvas over a printed replica and 61% wanting to keep the Van Gogh sunflowers. Cross plans to rebuild the fiberglass canvas from scratch and repaint the image in 2026, with costs estimated at CA$70,000 ($50,500) for a durable marine-grade plywood version.

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rate_review review schedule May 19, 2026 visibility 1 link 2 artists

Winston Churchill: The Painter review – We will daub them on the beaches

The Guardian reviews "Winston Churchill: The Painter," an exhibition of nearly 60 paintings by the former British prime minister, curated by Xavier Bray and Lucy Davis. The show assembles works from across the UK and private collections, depicting scenes from Churchill's travels, stately homes, and leisure moments, painted as an amateur Sunday painter for stress relief rather than artistic acclaim. The review notes Churchill's use of techniques borrowed from Walter Sickert, including projectors and monochrome underlayers, and describes his style as charmingly amateurish with a vivacity in seascapes but weakness in figures and architectural luminosity.

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rate_review review schedule May 19, 2026 visibility 2 link 9 artists

James McNeill Whistler review – a luscious, seductive blockbuster for the painter who scandalised Britain

Tate Britain has opened a major retrospective dedicated to James McNeill Whistler, the American painter who scandalized Victorian Britain. The exhibition centers on his iconic work *Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1* (commonly known as *Whistler's Mother*), lent by the Musée d'Orsay, and traces his evolution from raw realist scenes of London's docks to radical, abstract celebrations of color and pattern. It includes a reconstruction of *The Peacock Room* and highlights his rivalry with critic John Ruskin, who accused him of 'flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.'

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article culture schedule May 18, 2026 visibility 4 link 7 artists

Let’s dress like a Mark Rothko! How gen Z fell for the king of colour field paintings

Mark Rothko, the abstract expressionist known for his color field paintings, is experiencing a cultural resurgence among Generation Z on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Videos inspired by his work amass hundreds of thousands of views, with creators styling outfits based on his canvases, assigning his paintings to personality archetypes, and comparing his palettes to dream pop bands like the Cocteau Twins. The Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas, has also seen a wave of curious young visitors drawn to the meditative, confrontational experience of his art.

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