Art News. Vasari Codex

trending_up market schedule Aug 26, 2025 visibility 11 link 4 artists

people inc claes oldenburg coosje van bruggen plantoir sculpture

People Inc., the media company formerly known as Dotdash Meredith, sold the 23-foot-tall sculpture *Plantoir* (2001) by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen on August 22. The bright-red garden trowel sculpture, recognized as the World’s Largest Garden Trowel Sculpture, had been a landmark on the former Meredith Corp. campus in Des Moines, Iowa, since 2002. The buyer, sale price, and new location were not disclosed, though the company stated the piece was offered to local organizations before being sold to an out-of-state buyer. The sculpture is expected to be moved by the end of September.

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person people schedule Aug 20, 2025 visibility 20 link 2 artists

brian ferriso named director dallas museum of art

The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) has appointed Brian Ferriso, the longtime director of the Portland Art Museum (PAM), as its next director, effective December 1. Ferriso succeeds Agustín Arteaga, who left last year to lead the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. During his 18-year tenure at PAM, Ferriso grew the endowment by $40 million, eliminated $7 million in debt, doubled curatorial staff, and made the museum free for visitors 17 and under. He also oversaw major collection diversification, co-commissioned Jeffrey Gibson’s U.S. Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, and will open a 100,000-square-foot expansion funded by a $140 million capital campaign.

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candle obituary schedule Aug 11, 2025 visibility 33 link 46 artists, 1 gallery

legendary art collector sylvio perlstein has died

Sylvio Perlstein, the legendary art collector, patron, and impresario, died on August 6. Hauser & Wirth confirmed the news, calling him a visionary who shaped one of the most important art collections of the past century. In 2018, the gallery exhibited 380 pieces from his collection across its Chelsea and Hong Kong locations in the show 'The Sylvio Perlstein Collection – A Luta Continua'. Perlstein was born in Belgium in the 1930s, fled to Brazil with his family during World War II, and later joined the diamond business in Antwerp. His collection spanned Dada, Surrealism, American minimalism, and Land art, featuring works by Man Ray, René Magritte, Donald Judd, and many others. He maintained close friendships with artists and displayed works throughout his Paris home, which cultural critic Arthur Lubow described as 'a contemporary version of Ali Baba's cave'.

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article culture schedule Aug 6, 2025 visibility 17 link 11 artists

the right influential art historian victoria coates project esther

The article profiles Victoria Coates, an art historian and former Trump administration official, who is leading 'Project Esther,' a conservative initiative aimed at taking over US higher education and targeting progressive organizations. Named after the biblical queen, the project accuses critics of Israel of anti-Semitism and seeks to dismantle what it describes as a 'terrorist support network.' Coates, who previously served as Deputy National Security Advisor and worked on Rumsfeld's memoirs, has a long history of attacking academia from within, including as an anonymous blogger behind 'Elephants in Academia.'

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 25, 2025 visibility 22 link 9 artists

renoir drawings exhibition morgan

A woman in Pennsylvania purchased a nude charcoal sketch for $12 at a local auction, later discovering it was a Pierre-Auguste Renoir drawing now potentially worth six figures. This fall, the Morgan Museum and Library will present "Renoir Drawings," the first exhibition dedicated to the artist's works on paper since 1921, bringing together over 100 drawings, pastels, watercolors, and prints. The show is organized thematically, covering Renoir's academic studies, sketches of modern life, and portraits, and will reunite finished works with preparatory drawings, including major loans from the Musée d'Orsay, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other institutions.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 25, 2025 visibility 20 link 7 artists

consuelo kanaga brooklyn museum

The Brooklyn Museum has opened "Consuelo Kanaga: Catch the Spirit," a major solo exhibition dedicated to the pioneering American photographer Consuelo Kanaga (1894–1978). The show features nearly 200 works drawn from the museum's extensive collection of 2,000 negatives and 340 prints, gifted by Kanaga's third husband, artist Wallace Putnam. Kanaga, one of the nation's first women photojournalists, is celebrated for her socially conscious images capturing labor activists, the poor, and African Americans under Jim Crow laws, as well as cityscapes, portraits, and still lifes. The exhibition is organized with Madrid's Fundación MAPFRE and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and curated by Drew Sawyer, formerly of the Brooklyn Museum and now at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

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article culture schedule Jul 25, 2025 visibility 15 link 6 artists

pierre bonnard louvre bonnarding

French Post-Impressionist artist Pierre Bonnard was known for his compulsive habit of retouching his paintings long after they were considered finished, even allegedly sneaking into museums and collectors' homes with a hidden palette and brush to make adjustments. According to the article, Bonnard would enlist friends like fellow artist Édouard Vuillard to distract guards while he worked, and the poet Jane Hirschfield coined the term "bonnarding" to describe this obsessive practice. The article recounts a persistent rumor that Bonnard was once arrested in the Louvre while retouching his own work, though this is likely a myth.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 15, 2025 visibility 16 link 11 artists

work of the week edouard vuillard

A painting by Édouard Vuillard, *Madame Vuillard à Table* (1896–1897), sold for $2.7 million at Ford Art Auction in 2025, a dramatic increase from its $254,000 sale at Sotheby’s just 18 months earlier. The work, depicting the artist’s mother, was estimated at $350,000–$550,000 and attracted 21 bidders. Ford’s sales director Elizabeth Katz attributed the strong result to the subject’s desirability and the painting’s origin in Vuillard’s Nabis period. The previous Sotheby’s sale was from the estate of William J. Levy, benefiting a University of Pennsylvania scholarship.

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article news schedule Jul 14, 2025 visibility 25 link 7 artists

centre pompidou metz cancels caribbean art show

The Centre Pompidou-Metz in France has canceled a planned survey of Caribbean and Guyanese art titled “Van Lévé,” curated by Guadeloupean curator Claire Tancons. The exhibition, scheduled to open in October 2026, was to feature artists including Gaëlle Choisne and Pol Taburet. Museum director Chiara Parisi cited budgetary constraints in an email to Tancons, but Tancons disputed this, noting that the Ford Foundation had already contributed $500,000. A group of artists and curators, including Zineb Sedira and Tabita Rezaire, issued a statement condemning the cancellation and questioning whether bias played a role.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 14, 2025 visibility 23 link 15 artists

elsa schiaparelli va museum show

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London will host "Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art" in March, the first major institutional exhibition in the U.K. dedicated to Italian couturier Elsa Schiaparelli. The show will feature around 200 objects, including garments, accessories, sculptures, and paintings, highlighting Schiaparelli's revolutionary use of color, surrealist collaborations with artists like Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau, and Man Ray, and her impact on 20th-century fashion. Key pieces include the Skeleton Dress, Tears Dress, and Shoe Hat, alongside works by Picasso and others that contextualize her creative circle.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 12, 2025 visibility 23 link 19 artists

must see site santa fe international cecilia alemani once within a time

Curator Cecilia Alemani has organized the latest edition of the SITE Santa Fe International, titled "Once Within a Time," inspired by Godfrey Reggio's 2022 film of the same name. The exhibition, which opened in 2025, centers on storytelling and features Reggio's trippy 55-minute film alongside works by over a dozen artists, including Helen Cordero, D.H. Lawrence, Louise Bonnet, Norman Zammitt, Joseph Yoakum, John McCracken, Karla Knight, and Ali Cherri. The show extends beyond SITE Santa Fe to multiple venues across New Mexico, such as the New Mexico Military Museum, a hotel, and a cannabis shop, weaving together themes of eros, energy, the military, and the state's archetypes like UFOs, Land art, and Native spirituality.

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trending_up market schedule Jul 9, 2025 visibility 22 link 18 artists

crystal bridges art bridges horseman collection native art

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Art Bridges Foundation in Bentonville, Arkansas, have acquired 90 works of contemporary Native art from the John and Susan Horseman Collection. The acquisition includes pieces by prominent Indigenous artists such as Kent Monkman, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Kay WalkingStick, and Cannupa Hanska Luger. Nine works will go to Crystal Bridges, while the remaining 81 will join Art Bridges' collection, which now totals around 250 works, with Native art making up a third. The works will be displayed in upcoming exhibitions at the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine and Crystal Bridges' expanded campus, with loans to partner institutions planned.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 9, 2025 visibility 12 link 6 artists

wafa al hamad overlooked artist

The Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha has opened "Wafa al-Hamad: Sites of Imagination," the first solo museum exhibition dedicated to the late Qatari artist Wafa Al-Hamad (1964–2012). Curated by Lina Ramadan, the show runs through August 9 and features over 40 years of Al-Hamad's work across mediums including ink, watercolor, pastel, collage, and digital art. Al-Hamad was one of the first female students at the Qatari Free Atelier in 1981 and later became a professor at Qatar University, exhibiting in group shows across the Gulf such as the Sharjah Biennale 4 (1999) and "6 Gulf Women Artists" in Sharjah (1994).

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trending_up market schedule Jul 8, 2025 visibility 13 link 6 artists

work of the week emily carr

A painting by Emily Carr, titled *Fir Trees* (ca. 1935), sold for CA$576,000 ($418,370) at Cowley Abbott’s live auction of Canadian and international art in Toronto on May 28, more than doubling its low estimate. The work is a vivid example of Carr’s signature forest scenes, reflecting her deep connection to the British Columbian landscape and her association with the Group of Seven. The auction also saw strong results for other Group of Seven artists, including Franklin Carmichael’s *Old Orchard* (1940) at CAD$768,000, and for Marcelle Ferron’s untitled 1964 abstract painting at CAD$696,000.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 2, 2025 visibility 10 link 2 artists

balenciaga decade of demna

At Kering's historic Laennec headquarters in Paris, the exhibition "Balenciaga by Demna" presents a self-curated retrospective of the designer's decade-long tenure at the house, from 2015 through 2025. Open by appointment through July 9, the show features 101 objects including complete looks, accessories, and provocations drawn from 30 collections, alongside audio narration using an AI rendering of Demna's voice. The exhibition serves as a capstone before Demna transitions to his new role as creative director of Gucci, while Pierpaolo Piccioli prepares to take over at Balenciaga. Highlights include a metallic gold ballgown shaped like a Ferrero Rocher candy, a hyperrealistic mannequin of muse Eliza Douglas, and the Spicy Chili Chips Bag clutch.

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article culture schedule Jun 30, 2025 visibility 17 link 3 artists, 1 gallery

the bear tyler mitchell photographs

The fourth season of the FX series *The Bear* features two photographs by Tyler Mitchell in an episode centered on the character Syd. The works shown are *Untitled (Kiki and Stephan Dancing)*, a grid of shots commissioned by *Vogue* featuring actors KiKi Layne and Stephan James, and *Untitled (Group Hula Hoop)*, a 2019 image of children hula hooping in Brooklyn. Mitchell, who rose to fame for photographing Beyoncé, is now represented by Gagosian and has seen his market prices climb above $24,000 at auction.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 27, 2025 visibility 19 link 10 artists

liz collins fiber art risd museum venice biennale

Liz Collins created two monumental 16-foot-long tapestries for the 2024 Venice Biennale, titled *Rainbow Mountains: Moon* and *Rainbow Mountains: Weather* (both 2023). Initially conceived as a single 40-foot weaving, the project proved too ambitious and was split in two. Collins worked at the TextielLab in Tilburg, Netherlands, switching to a lighter yarn after a failed trial, and ultimately brought the finished works to New York in duffel bags before curator Adriano Pedrosa selected them for the Biennale. The textiles depict mountain ranges emitting rainbows through dark skies, exploring themes of duality—danger and joy, precarity and euphoria.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 27, 2025 visibility 23 link 15 artists

guerrilla girls feminist collective why so important

The feminist collective Guerrilla Girls began its activism in May 1985 by wheat-pasting posters in SoHo, New York, that listed prominent male artists and revealed that their galleries showed 10 percent or fewer women artists. The group formed after the 1984 MoMA exhibition 'An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture' included only 13 women out of 169 participants, sparking protests that failed to gain traction. For 40 years, the Guerrilla Girls have used statistics-driven, provocative posters to call out sexism and racism in galleries, museums, and the broader art world. This year, their anniversary is marked by retrospective exhibitions at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, and the National Gallery of Bulgaria in Sofia.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 26, 2025 visibility 16 link 4 artists

napoleon sale sothebys paris france famous antiques dealer

On Wednesday in Paris, Sotheby's auctioned a collection of Napoleonic artifacts from the private collection of prominent French antiques dealer Pierre-Jean Chalençon, generating €8.7 million ($9.6 million) against a €6 million estimate. The 112-lot sale included imperial furniture, Old Master paintings, and personal relics such as Napoleon's worn stockings and a copy of his marriage certificate. Highlights included a portrait by Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse that sold for €863,600 (20 times its estimate) and the only surviving remnant of Napoleon's first will, which fetched €482,600. However, Napoleon's bicorne hat underperformed, selling for €355,600 against a €600,000 low estimate, amid provenance questions raised by French newspaper Le Figaro.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 25, 2025 visibility 19 link 16 artists

best digital art works picked by experts

The Digital Art Mile, Basel's first-ever digital art fair, opened its second edition on Monday at the city's Kult Kino Camera cinema, running through Sunday. Founded by digital art adviser Georg Bak and ArtMeta founder Roger Haas, the fair features panels, conferences on the digital art market, and the headline exhibition “Paintboxed,” which explores the history of the Quantel Paintbox. In a calmer, more academic atmosphere than Art Basel, ARTnews asked 10 prominent digital art figures to select their favorite artwork from the fair, with responses highlighting works such as Kim Asendorf's "Monogrid 90," XCOPY's "Last Selfie," and Matt Kane's "Gazers 200."

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 25, 2025 visibility 22 link 3 artists

john singer sargent madame x three things

John Singer Sargent's iconic portrait *Madame X* (1883–84), depicting American-born socialite Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, caused a scandal when it debuted at the 1884 Paris Salon. Critics were outraged by the fallen shoulder strap on Gautreau's gown, which implied an illicit rendezvous, and by the public exposure of a recognizable high-society woman in such a provocative pose. Sargent repainted the strap after the Salon, but the damage was done: Gautreau's reputation suffered, and Sargent fled Paris for London to restart his career. The painting now belongs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and will be featured in its upcoming exhibition "Sargent and Paris."

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trending_up market schedule Jun 25, 2025 visibility 18 link 15 artists, 1 gallery

sothebys london contemporary evening summer sale report

Sotheby's London contemporary evening sale on Tuesday brought in nearly £62.5 million ($84 million), within its pre-sale estimate of £55 million to £74 million. The 48-lot sale achieved an 83% sell-through rate, with five works selling for over £5 million each, led by Tamara de Lempicka's 'La Belle Rafaëla' (1927) at £7.4 million and Pablo Picasso's 'Nu assis dans un fauteuil' (1964–65). The auction saw strong bidding for a Basquiat work on paper, 'Untitled (Indian Head)', which sold for £5.4 million, and a standout result for Yu Nishimura's 'through the snow' (2023), which tripled its high estimate at £230,000.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 24, 2025 visibility 15 link 5 artists

tamara de lempicka us retrospective de young museum

The de Young Museum in San Francisco will host the first major retrospective of Polish Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka in North America this fall, organized by curator Furio Rinaldi with Gioia Mori. The exhibition, titled “Tamara de Lempicka,” brings together her ultramodern masterpieces—including loans from the Centre Pompidou—and explores her lesser-known design process, biography, and evolving identities. It will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston in spring 2025.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 24, 2025 visibility 11 link 5 artists

tamara de lempicka boucard christies auction

Christie’s London is auctioning Tamara de Lempicka’s 1928 painting *Portrait du Docteur Boucard*, which has not been seen on the market in 40 years. The work, depicting doctor and bacteriologist Pierre Boucard, is expected to sell for between £5 million and £8 million ($6.18 million and $9.89 million). The sale coincides with the close of Lempicka’s historic retrospective at San Francisco’s de Young Museum—the first U.S. survey of the Art Deco master—and ahead of its opening at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 19, 2025 visibility 17 link 11 artists

harriet tubman river raid exhibition

A new exhibition at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina, titled “Picturing Freedom,” highlights Harriet Tubman’s role in the Combahee River Raid of 1863, where she guided Union troops to free 756 enslaved people in a single night. The show features works by Jacob Lawrence, Aaron Douglas, Elizabeth Catlett, and Faith Ringgold, alongside contemporary artists, and includes multimedia elements such as audio interviews with descendants, a video reenactment, and landscape photographs by J. Henry Fair. Guest curated by Vanessa Thaxton-Ward of Hampton University Museum, the exhibition is based on Edda L. Fields-Black’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book "COMBEE."

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 13, 2025 visibility 20 link 15 artists

matisse daughter

The Museum of Modern Art in Paris has opened "Matisse and Marguerite: Through Her Father's Eyes," an exhibition running through August 24 that explores the lifelong bond between Henri Matisse and his eldest daughter, Marguerite Duthuit-Matisse. Featuring over 100 works—including paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and ceramics—the show traces their relationship from her childhood through World War II, with many pieces rarely exhibited before. Loans come from institutions in the United States, Switzerland, and Japan, supplemented by photographs and archival materials.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 19 link 14 artists

see 100 years of presidential portraits leading up to barack obamas vibrant

The article presents a curated selection of presidential portraits from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's permanent exhibition "America's Presidents," spanning the last century from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama. It highlights the evolution of the form, from traditional depictions of Harding and Hoover to Norman Rockwell's beaming Nixon, Elaine de Kooning's artful Kennedy, and culminating in Kehinde Wiley's vibrant, almost-surrealist 2018 portrait of Barack Obama, which generated significant public excitement.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 19 link 21 artists

10 nudes take home a nude benefit

The New York Academy of Art held its 26th annual "Take Home a Nude" benefit auction at Sotheby's Upper East Side headquarters, honoring artist John Alexander. The event featured 112 artists, including Ryan McGinness, Natalie Frank, Christo, Eric Fischl, and Kiki Smith, who each donated unique drawings made from the same nude models during Will Cotton's annual Drawing Party. The party, hosted at Cotton's studio, brought together New York artists to sketch live models, with this year's theme featuring the sons and daughters of art-world figures like Glenn O'Brien, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, Anne Pasternak, and Barbara Gladstone posing alongside the nudes.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 18 link 11 artists

take home a nude new york academy of art

The New York Academy of Art held its 25th annual 'Take Home a Nude' fundraiser at Sotheby’s New York on October 24, featuring a live auction and party. Attendees included actresses Brooke Shields and Naomi Watts, who bid on artworks, along with dealers, artists, and collectors. Sotheby’s auctioneer Courtney Christensen led the sale, and 'Baby' Jane Holzer was honored for her collecting and Warhol-era legacy. Watts purchased four works, including a portrait by Liz Markus for $14,000, while Shields helped raise bids online.

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article local schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 23 link 16 artists

historic paris art schools risk development

The Académie de la Grande Chaumière, a historic Paris art school founded in 1904 that taught artists like Balthus, Joan Miró, and Louise Bourgeois, faces eviction by July 31 after its owner Alexandre Garèse declined to renew its lease. Garèse plans to redevelop the Montparnasse site into a mixed-use complex with commercial and cultural spaces, hiring architect Franklin Azzi for the project. Over 21,000 people have signed a petition to save the school, and local heritage groups SOS Paris and Monts 14 have rallied against the closure.

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