Vasari Art Codex

person people schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 1 link 1 gallery

newly established uc irvine langson orange county museum of art names kathryn kanjo as first director 1234765963

The newly formed UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art has appointed Kathryn Kanjo as its first director. Kanjo, who currently leads the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD), will assume the role in February 2026, also overseeing the UC Irvine Jack & Shanaz Langson Institute of California Art. The appointment follows the amicable merger of the University of California, Irvine, and the Orange County Museum of Art, finalized this fall, which created a new entity uniting three major California art collections—the Irvine, Buck, and OCMA collections—totaling some 9,000 works housed in a 53,000-square-foot facility at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 1 link 7 artists, 1 gallery

Frida Kahlo: Auction Record and Gender Gap in the Contemporary Art Market

Frida Kahlo's self-portrait *El sueño (La cama)* (1940) sold for $54.7 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York, setting a new record for the artist and the highest price ever paid for a work by a female painter. The sale, which exceeded pre-auction estimates of $40–50 million, briefly appeared to signal progress in the art market's gender dynamics.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 8, 2025 link 3 artists

rembrandt print old master record 2724728

A rare Rembrandt drypoint print, *Arnout Tholinx, Inspector* (ca. 1656), sold for £3.1 million ($4.1 million) at Christie’s London on December 3, setting a new world auction record for an Old Masters print. The work, commissioned by a medical inspector during Rembrandt’s financial struggles, was part of the Sam Josefowitz collection and last appeared at auction 101 years ago. The sale, dedicated to over 100 Rembrandt prints from Josefowitz’s collection, totaled £8.6 million ($11.4 million), with other notable lots including *Christ presented to the People* and *Christ healing the Sick*.

newspaper Artnet News open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Dec 5, 2025 visibility 6 link 20 artists, 7 galleries

Political statements at Art Basel Miami Beach are sparse but strident

At Art Basel Miami Beach, one year into Donald Trump’s second presidential administration, most galleries are avoiding overt political themes, though a few notable exceptions stand out. The most talked-about piece is Maurizio Cattelan’s marble sculpture *Bones (2025)*, a crashing eagle metaphor for the nation’s state, shown on Gagosian’s stand. Other politically charged works include Nicholas Galanin’s burned totem pole and drone-inspired rug, David Hammons’ *African American Flag (1990)*, and Tim Youd’s typewriter performance of Hunter S. Thompson’s book. Most exhibitors, however, focus on apolitical American iconography or market-driven choices.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Dec 4, 2025 visibility 4 link 5 artists

Who let the dogs out? Beeple unleashes uncanny robot canines at Art Basel Miami Beach

Digital artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, is presenting a new installation titled *Regular Animals* (2025) at Art Basel Miami Beach's Zero 10 digital art section. The work features robotic canines with hyper-realistic heads resembling tech billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, as well as historical figures Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, and Beeple himself. Each robot costs $100,000 (in an edition of two plus one artist's proof), and all were sold during the VIP preview, except the Bezos piece. The robots excrete certificates of authenticity that include QR codes for purchasing accompanying NFTs, and they continuously photograph their surroundings, with images reinterpreted in the style of each dog's humanoid counterpart.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 1 link 8 artists, 3 galleries

simon de pury art market confidence 2720560

The article reports on the upcoming Art Basel in Miami Beach and the improved mood in the art market, driven by strong auction results. Sotheby's emerged as the clear winner over Christie's in the fall 2024 auctions, achieving over $2.2 billion in total sales across Sotheby's, Christie's, and Phillips. Key consignments included the Leonard Lauder Collection, featuring a record-making Klimt, a Frida Kahlo that became the highest-selling work by a woman artist, and Maurizio Cattelan's golden toilet. The article credits Sotheby's move into the Breuer building—formerly home to the Whitney, the Met, and the Frick—for enhancing the presentation and aura of the previews.

newspaper Artnet News open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Nov 29, 2025 visibility 1 link 5 artists, 1 gallery

sothebys london lifts lid on its old master and 19th century evening sale with half of works unseen for a century 1234764098

Sotheby's London has announced the full lineup for its Old Master and 19th century evening sale on December 3, featuring 31 works defined by exceptional scholarly significance and rare discoveries. Half of the lots have been hidden from public view for over a century, and 12 have not appeared on the secondary market in 40 years. Top lots include Hans Eworth's portrait of Thomas Howard (estimate £3 million), Pieter Brueghel the Younger's The Census at Bethlehem (£5 million), a rediscovered Peter Paul Rubens oil sketch (£3 million), and a Rembrandt portrait of Saint John on Patmos (£7 million). The sale also includes works from the collection of Dr Hinrich Bischoff, such as Lucas van Valckenborch's Autumn: Landscape with Archduke Matthias of Austria (£800,000).

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trending_up market schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 2 link 3 artists, 1 gallery

michelangelo drawing sistine chapel christies new york 1234763395

A five-inch-tall red chalk drawing of a foot, attributed to Michelangelo (1475–1564), is set to be auctioned at Christie’s New York in February with an estimate of $1.5–2 million. The work was discovered when Giada Damen, a specialist in Old Master drawings at Christie’s, flagged it from a public online submission; after extensive provenance research, technical analysis, and comparison with known sketches, Christie’s has declared it a preparatory study for the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508–1512). If authenticated, it would be one of only two such Michelangelo drawings remaining in private hands.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 25, 2025 link 3 artists, 1 gallery

triceratops gros delettrez dinosaur sale 2718137

Parisian auction house Gros and Delettrez is offering a 66 million-year-old Triceratops prorsus skull on December 11, with an estimate of €300,000–€500,000 ($345,615–$576,025). The specimen, which surfaced from Wyoming's Lance Formation, is exceptionally complete with over 70 percent of its original bones and all three original horns intact. This marks the auction house's first dinosaur offering and will christen its new Rive Gauche headquarters, with the skull going on view on December 9 alongside works by Pablo Picasso and Pierre Soulages.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 1

dorset museum sherborne almshouse triptych 1234763609

The Dorset Museum & Art Gallery in England has launched a fundraising campaign to acquire a rare 15th-century Netherlandish altarpiece, known as *The Master of the Sherborne Almshouse Triptych*, valued at up to £3.5 million ($4.6 million). The work is set to be auctioned by Sotheby’s in an Old Master evening sale next month, and the museum aims to prevent it from entering a private collection or being exported. The triptych, which depicts five healings of Jesus Christ, was hidden during periods of iconoclastic destruction and rediscovered in St. John’s Almshouse in Sherborne in the 19th century; it has only left the site twice, for exhibitions at the Royal Academy in 1923 and the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2003.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 21, 2025 link 2 artists, 3 galleries

lynne drexler painting sets a record at christies 1234763052

Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art day sale on Thursday achieved $88.7 million, with an 88% sell-through rate by lot and 90% by value. The standout lot was Lynne Drexler’s 1960 painting *Keller Fair II*, which sold for $2,027,000—shattering her previous auction record by nearly $500,000 and far exceeding its $800,000–$1.2 million estimate. The work, a dense abstraction from Drexler’s early 1960s period, was described by advisors and dealers as a rare, exceptional example.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 21, 2025 visibility 1 link 4 artists, 1 gallery

Gustav Klimt portrait sells for about R4 billion, breaking modern-art auction records

Gustav Klimt's portrait "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer" (1914–1916) sold for $236.4 million (about R4 billion) at a Sotheby's auction in New York, becoming the most expensive modern artwork ever sold at auction and the second most expensive painting in history, behind only Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi." The sale, which featured works from the estate of billionaire collector Leonard Lauder, unfolded in a tense 20-minute bidding war among six collectors. The painting had been hidden from public view since the 1980s. The same auction also saw Maurizio Cattelan's 18-karat gold toilet "America" sell for over $12 million.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 20, 2025 visibility 1 link 17 artists, 2 galleries

Auction Results: New Records for Noah Davis and Antonio Obá at Sotheby's, Major Paintings by Barkley L. Hendricks and Kerry James Marshall Went Unsold

Sotheby’s New York held its Now & Contemporary Evening Auction on November 18 at the newly opened Breuer building, featuring works by Black artists. Noah Davis’s “The Casting Call” (2008) sold for $2 million, setting a new auction record for the late artist, while Antonio Obá’s “Alvorada – Música Incidental Black Bird” (2020) achieved $1.016 million, nearly ten times its low estimate. However, major paintings by Barkley L. Hendricks and Kerry James Marshall went unsold, highlighting a mixed market for exceptional figurative works. The auction followed a blockbuster sale of Leonard A. Lauder’s collection, where Gustav Klimt’s portrait sold for $234 million.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 19, 2025 visibility 1 link 13 artists, 3 galleries

november marquee auction sales midpoint analysis 1234762366

Christie's and Sotheby's November marquee auctions in New York generated a combined $1.4 billion, with Sotheby's achieving a record $706 million from a double-header sale. The highlight was Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer" (1914–16), sold for $236.4 million from the collection of late cosmetics heir Leonard Lauder, becoming the most expensive modern artwork ever sold at auction. Christie's Monday sale brought in $690 million, falling short of its $731.5 million high estimate but still marking a 42% increase over its equivalent sale last November.

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gavel restitution schedule Nov 18, 2025 visibility 2 link 4 artists

california attorney general nazi looted picasso madrid 1234762075

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has re-entered a decades-long legal battle over a Camille Pissarro painting, *Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain* (1897), which was sold under duress by Lilly Cassirer Neubauer to a Nazi appraiser in 1939 for 900 Reichsmarks. The painting is now held by the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. The case, originally filed in 2000 by Neubauer's son Claude Cassirer, has been continued by his heir David Cassirer, Ava's estate, and the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County. A new California law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in September allows exceptions for property taken due to political persecution, and Bonta is now defending the state's authority to compel the return of stolen art to victims connected to California.

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gavel restitution schedule Nov 18, 2025 visibility 2 link 4 artists

california attorney general nazi looted picasso madrid 1234762075

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has re-entered the long-running legal battle over a Camille Pissarro painting, *Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain* (1897), which was sold under duress by Lilly Cassirer Neubauer to a Nazi appraiser in 1939 for 900 Reichsmarks. The painting is now held by the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, and the Cassirer family has sought its return for decades. A new California law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in September allows exceptions for property taken as a result of political persecution, and Bonta is now defending the state's authority to compel the return of stolen art to victims connected to California.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 18, 2025 visibility 1 link 15 artists, 2 galleries

the phillips collection to deaccession georgia okeeffe arthur dove georges seurat 1234761918

The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., is proceeding with plans to auction major works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Arthur Dove, and Georges Seurat at Sotheby's on November 20, despite sharp backlash from former curators, members of the Phillips family, and the museum's non-governing members body. The works—including O'Keeffe's *Large Dark Red Leaves on White* (estimate $6–8 million), Seurat's conté crayon drawing ($3–5 million), and Dove's *Rose and Locust Stump* ($1.2–1.8 million)—are considered central to founder Duncan Phillips's vision. Director and CEO Jonathan Binstock argues the proceeds will fund a permanently restricted endowment for commissioning new work by living artists, acquisitions, and collection care, aligning with Duncan Phillips's belief in supporting contemporary practitioners.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 18, 2025 source 3 sources visibility 1 link 20 artists, 3 galleries

In major auction night, rare Klimt painting smashes records at $236.4 million

Sotheby's held its first sale at its new US headquarters in New York, where Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer" sold for $236.4 million, becoming the most valuable work of modern art ever sold at auction and the most expensive artwork ever sold by Sotheby's globally. The record-breaking 20-minute bidding war also saw strong results for works by Edvard Munch ($35.1 million) and a Klimt landscape ($86 million), while the evening's total reached $706 million. However, two top lots by Kerry James Marshall and Barkley L. Hendricks failed to sell, and Maurizio Cattelan's gold toilet "America" drew only a single bid from Ripley's Believe It or Not! for $12.1 million.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 17, 2025 link 8 artists, 1 gallery

Acquisitions round-up: an ‘exceptionally rare’ portrait of an enslaved person and two large-scale donations

The article reports on three major acquisitions and donations in the art world. The Mississippi Museum of Art and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art jointly acquired an 'exceptionally rare' portrait of Frederick, an enslaved person in pre-emancipation Mississippi, painted around 1840 by C.R. Parker. The portrait sold for $508,750 at Neal Auction Company. Separately, entrepreneur and collector Hermann Gerlinger donated 42 works by the German Expressionist group Die Brücke to Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, including a marriage portrait by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Additionally, the family of late Korean artist Suki Seokyeong Kang donated around 400 of her works to Ewha Womans University in Seoul, where she studied and taught.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

article local schedule Nov 16, 2025 visibility 1 link 2 artists, 2 galleries

Broadstairs art studio youngsters have multiple miniature paintings accepted for prestigious exhibition

Ten miniature paintings by young artists aged 14 to 19 from Kent Talents Art Studio in Broadstairs have been accepted into the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers Annual Exhibition. Additionally, eight miniature artworks and two large paintings by the studio's tutor, award-winning artist Lana Arkhi, were also selected. The 100% acceptance rate for the students' entries, alongside the tutor's multiple successes, marks a historic achievement for the studio.

newspaper The Isle of Thanet News open_in_new Read original

article news schedule Nov 14, 2025 visibility 1 link 17 artists, 3 galleries

trustees bolt palm springs art museum director hire 1234761292

Trustee Patsy Marino resigned from the Palm Springs Art Museum board just one week after Christine Vendredi was appointed director on September 29, 2024. In a resignation letter reported by the Los Angeles Times, Marino alleged that the hiring committee failed to interview any outside candidates, despite two "exceptional" candidates being considered, and cited "inappropriate interference" by the executive committee, individual trustees, and museum staff. Two other board members also left the 22-member body, though the museum claims their departures were unrelated. Vendredi, previously chief curator and interim CEO, has a background in luxury brand management at Louis Vuitton and holds multiple advanced degrees but no prior museum directorship experience.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 12, 2025 link 1 artist, 1 gallery

vanderbilt sapphire phillips geneva jewels 1234761304

Phillips’s “Geneva Jewels Auction” on Monday achieved CHF 13.7 million ($17 million) in total sales, with 96 of 113 lots sold (85% sell-through rate). Twelve lots from the Vanderbilt family sold out, contributing CHF 3.42 million ($4.25 million)—four times their low estimate. The top lot was “The Vanderbilt Sapphire,” a 42-karat sugarloaf Kashmir sapphire and diamond brooch by Tiffany & Co., which sold for CHF 2.88 million ($3.57 million), exceeding its $1–1.5 million estimate. Other highlights included a Cartier Magnificent diamond brooch ($560,582), a Bulgari “Serpenti” belt ($368,383), and multiple Cartier “Panthère” jewels. The auction drew over 1,600 visitors and bids from 44 countries.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 5, 2025 link 21 artists, 2 galleries

consignors november 2025 new york sales christies sothebys 1234760267

As the fall auction season returns to New York, Christie’s and Sotheby’s are preparing for evening sales amid an uneven art market. The article reveals key consignors behind major lots, including a Frida Kahlo painting from 1931, estimated at $6–8 million, owned by Miami-based Francisco and Fiorella Pérez Díaz, and three French Post-Impressionist works from the collection of the late Argentine patron Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier. The market context includes underwhelming results at Art Basel in Switzerland but strong attendance at Frieze London and Art Basel Paris, with collectors showing willingness to spend only on exceptional, well-priced works.

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