Art News. Vasari Codex

museum exhibitions schedule Dec 19, 2025 visibility 21 link 4 artists

mathaf museum campus expansion architect lina ghothem

Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha has appointed Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh to lead a major campus expansion, announced as the institution celebrates its 15th anniversary. The project will redesign the ground floor lobby and library as an open majlis-inspired space, expand the cafe and shop, add a monumental portrait by Yan Pei-Ming, and later transform the plaza and parking area into artist studios, ceramics facilities, glass and material labs, and a sound studio in collaboration with Tarek Atoui. Mathaf director Zeina Arida called the plan 'a new chapter' for the museum.

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person people schedule Dec 18, 2025 visibility 19 link 16 artists

walter robinsons legacy is celebrated with honorary doctorate new scholarship

Hundreds gathered on a cold Monday night in New York at Phillips auction house and the Metropolitan Club to celebrate the life and legacy of Walter Robinson, the beloved art-world figure who died in February 2025. The event, organized by the New York Academy of Art as part of its annual “Take Home a Nude” fundraiser, featured silent and live auctions, a posthumous honorary doctorate awarded to Robinson, and the announcement of the Walter Robinson Scholarship funded by auction proceeds. The evening raised over $800,000, with works by students and acclaimed artists like Richard Prince and Kiki Smith on offer, and Robinson’s painting *Blood on the Sun* (2018) selling for $35,000.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 17, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

sothebys 2025 sales results analysis

Sotheby's is projecting $7.0 billion in consolidated 2025 sales, a 17% increase over the previous year and the strongest result in the company's history. Auction sales rose 26% to $5.7 billion, driven by high-quality consignments including the Leonard A. Lauder Collection and a $236.4 million Klimt painting. Luxury sales climbed 22% to $2.7 billion, while RM Sotheby's surpassed $1 billion for the first time. The opening of Sotheby's new global headquarters at the Breuer Building was a commercial centerpiece, generating $1.17 billion in its inaugural week. The company also expanded rapidly in the Middle East, staging the first international auction in Saudi Arabia and launching Collectors' Week in Abu Dhabi.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 16, 2025 visibility 23 link 11 artists

malba acquires daros latinamerica collection expansion

Malba, the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires, has acquired the Daros Latinamerica Collection, a private trove of 1,233 works by 117 artists spanning the 1950s to 2010s. The deal, orchestrated by founder Eduardo F. Costantini, nearly doubles the museum's holdings to roughly 3,000 works and is part of a broader expansion timed to Malba's 25th anniversary in 2026, including a building extension beneath Plaza Perú that will double its footprint to 90,000 square feet.

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person people schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 20 link 7 artists

maria balshaw tate

Maria Balshaw, the director of Tate, will step down in the new year after nine years at the helm, the museum announced Friday. Appointed in 2017, Balshaw was the first woman to lead the institutional network, which includes Tate Modern and Tate Britain. Her tenure was marked by a substantial diversification of Tate’s collection and programming to spotlight new art forms, indigenous artists, and artists from the Global South. She also oversaw the launch of a landmark £150 million endowment fund for Tate Modern to address financial woes. Memorable exhibitions included surveys of pre-internet digital artists, modern art in Nigeria, and retrospectives for Leigh Bowery, Isaac Julien, Yoko Ono, and Emily Kam Kngwarray.

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article news schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 14 link 6 artists

georgia okeeffe ghost ranch conservation

The state of New Mexico has announced a major conservation effort to preserve 6,000 acres of desert landscape that inspired artist Georgia O’Keeffe. The New Mexico Land Conservancy is partnering with the National Ghost Ranch Foundation to implement the Ghost Ranch Conservation Plan, which will protect land, water, and wildlife habitat around Ghost Ranch—where O’Keeffe lived and worked from 1940 until her death. The plan involves conservation easements held in trust for the public benefit, ensuring the area remains undeveloped while allowing continued visitor access to hiking trails, museums, and the retreat center.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 15 link 2 artists, 1 gallery

william eggleston david zwirner books

David Zwirner Books has released a new monograph titled *William Eggleston: The Last Dyes* (2025), dedicated to the final major body of photographs by pioneering American color photographer William Eggleston using the now-discontinued dye-transfer printing process. A solo exhibition of these images will open at David Zwirner gallery in New York on January 15, 2026, following a presentation at the gallery’s Los Angeles location earlier this year. The book includes a newly commissioned essay by critic Jeffrey Kastner.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 20 link 9 artists, 1 gallery

lalanne hippopotamus bar 31 million record

A 1976 Hippopotamus Bar by François-Xavier Lalanne sold for $31.4 million at Sotheby's after a 26-minute bidding war, setting a new auction record for the French artist. The hand-wrought copper, steel, and wood piece, commissioned by art patron Anne Schlumberger, is the only copper prototype from the series and features concealed compartments for bottle storage, ice bucket, and glassware. The sale was part of the Schlumberger collection, which also included a gold-patinated bronze armchair by Claude Lalanne that fetched $1 million and a pair of bronze gates that sold for $787,400.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 14 link 10 artists, 1 gallery

giacometti schiaparelli buttons bonhams

A pair of rare bronze buttons designed by Alberto Giacometti in 1938 for fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli will be auctioned at Bonhams on December 16, each estimated at £5,000–£8,000. Titled "Femme aux Bras Levés," the buttons were used on garments including a coat worn by Marlene Dietrich, now in the German Cinema Museum in Berlin. Only two other examples exist, held by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and Le Comité Giacometti. The sale also features a rare Émile Gallé vase, works by Lucie Rie, and a Tiffany Studios chandelier.

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person people schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 20 link 13 artists

hamza walker winner 2026 audrey irmas award ccs bard

The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard) has awarded its 2026 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence to Los Angeles–based curator Hamza Walker. Walker, executive director of the Brick (formerly LAXART) since 2016, will receive $25,000 and be honored at CCS Bard’s spring gala in April. He is recognized for exhibitions featuring artists like Elizabeth Paige Smith, Gregg Bordowitz, and Postcommodity, and for cocurating the acclaimed "Monuments" exhibition with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, which examines artists' responses to Confederate monument removals. Walker also secured a $1 million donation from collectors Jarl and Pamela Mohn to fund the Brick's move to a new Hollywood space and its rebranding.

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article news schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 19 link 8 artists

rijksmuseum to open satellite branch eindhoven netherlands

The Rijksmuseum, the national museum of the Netherlands in Amsterdam, has announced a partnership with the municipality of Eindhoven to build a satellite branch in the city. The 35,000-square-foot building will be located in a park near Eindhoven Central Station and is expected to open in six to eight years, presenting exhibitions drawn from the Rijksmuseum’s collection of over one million objects, including masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Van Gogh. Major sponsorship comes from Dutch semiconductor company ASML.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 18 link 6 artists

paris modern art museum donation henri matisse

Barbara Dauphin Duthuit, the wife of Henri Matisse's grandson, has donated 61 works by Matisse to the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. The gift includes seven paintings, numerous drawings, etchings, lithographs, and illustrated books, most of which feature portraits of the artist's eldest daughter, Marguerite (1894–1982). Many of these works were on view in France for the first time during the museum's recent exhibition “Matisse and Marguerite: Through Her Father’s Eyes.” The donation spans from Marguerite's childhood to 1945, including pieces that reference her convalescence from diphtheria and her survival of Gestapo torture during World War II.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 18 link 5 artists

claire tabouret maquettes notre dame stained glass windows

French painter Claire Tabouret's full-scale maquettes for six new stained-glass windows at Notre-Dame Cathedral go on public display at Paris's Grand Palais museum through March 15. The designs, chosen from 110 submissions in an international competition, depict the Pentecost and will be fabricated by the historic atelier Simon-Marq. The new windows replace 19th-century lights by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and Jean-Baptiste Lassus, which survived the 2019 fire but are being replaced at the direction of French President Emmanuel Macron and Archbishop Laurent Ulrich.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 26 link 25 artists

helen frankenthaler facts

Helen Frankenthaler, the pioneering Color Field painter known for her luminous, stain-soaked canvases, is the subject of a renewed wave of exhibitions. The Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao recently hosted a major survey of her work, while the Museum of Modern Art in New York is currently presenting "Helen Frankenthaler: A Grand Sweep" in its atrium. Next year, the Kunstmuseum Basel will open the largest exhibition of her art in Europe to date, marking her first solo museum show in Switzerland. The article also recounts her biography—her privileged upbringing on the Upper East Side, her studies at the Dalton School and Bennington College, her relationships with Clement Greenberg and Robert Motherwell, and her invention of the soak-stain technique in 1952, which helped birth Color Field painting.

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article news schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 15 link 11 artists

architecture houses lost los angeles fires

A week after wildfires erupted across Los Angeles, the city remains under critical threat as the Pacific Palisades, Eaton, Hollywood Hills, and San Fernando Valley fires have forced the evacuation of roughly 200,000 residents, destroyed about 12,000 buildings, and claimed at least 24 lives. Among the losses are culturally and architecturally significant structures, including the Bunny Museum in Altadena, the historic Will Rogers ranch, the Altadena Community Church (designed by Harry L. Pierce), the Andrew McNally House (a Queen Anne-style mansion by Frederick Roehrig), Richard Neutra's Benedict and Nancy Freedman House, and Gregory Ain's Park Planned Homes in Altadena. Adrian Scott Fine of the Los Angeles Conservancy described the destruction as "a mass erasure of heritage."

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article culture schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 22 link 6 artists

burton the meeting on the turret stairs

The article explores Frederic William Burton's iconic Victorian watercolor *Hellelil and Hildebrand, the Meeting on the Turret Stairs* (1864), held at the National Gallery of Ireland. It recounts the tragic medieval Danish ballad that inspired the painting, in which the noblewoman Hellelil and her guard Heldebrand are doomed lovers. Burton, an Irish painter influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, worked exclusively in watercolor and gouache, making this delicate piece a technical marvel. The museum displays it only one hour twice weekly to protect it from light damage.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 4, 2025 visibility 22 link 10 artists, 2 galleries

warhol portrait muhammad ali art basel miami

A 1977 Andy Warhol portrait of Muhammad Ali, priced at $18 million, will be the centerpiece of Lévy Gorvy Dayan's booth at Art Basel Miami Beach. The 40-inch acrylic and silkscreen canvas, featuring a royal purple background, was previously purchased for $18.1 million at Christie's in 2021. The work is part of a series of 10 Warhol portraits of sports stars commissioned by collector Richard L. Weisman, and is autographed on the back by Ali.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 4, 2025 visibility 18 link 5 artists

london national gallery to raise 1 billion project domani

London's National Gallery has announced Project Domani, a nearly $1 billion initiative to collect 20th- and 21st-century art and build a new wing to house it. The institution has shortlisted six architectural firms—including Foster + Partners, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, and Kengo Kuma and Associates—from 65 entrants in an international competition, with a winner to be announced in April. About half the funds have been raised, with major pledges from Crankstart, the Julia Rausing Trust, and the National Gallery Trust. The wing will be built on the last undeveloped portion of the campus at 30 Orange Street and is projected to open in the early 2030s.

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article culture schedule Dec 4, 2025 visibility 20 link 13 artists

art nouveau renaissance mucha jugendstil paris metro

The article recounts the author's personal rediscovery of Art Nouveau, sparked by encountering an iron doorknob shaped like a Belgian endive at the Bröhan Museum in Berlin. It explores the movement's history, its German variant Jugendstil, and the philosophical debate between Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno over its merits—Benjamin criticizing it as a superficial escape from industrial reality, Adorno defending its utopian desire to reconcile art, nature, and technology. The piece also notes a contemporary resurgence of interest in the style.

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article news schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 17 link 4 artists

jennifer gilbert lumana detroit

Entrepreneur and art collector Jennifer Gilbert has founded Lumana, a new non-profit arts organization in Detroit's Little Village neighborhood. Housed in a repurposed 21,000-square-foot former shipbuilding and storage facility at Stanton Yards, the space is being adapted by SO–IL architectural firm with landscape design by OSD. Slated to open in Fall 2027, Lumana will feature two exhibition halls, a café, bookstore, auditorium, and educational spaces, and will house Gilbert's foundation. Gilbert plans to draw on her private art collection for exhibitions, including an inaugural show focused on Cranbrook Art Museum's Detroit collection, and is considering curatorial fellowships to commission new site-specific work.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 12 link 5 artists

moma carlo rambaldi centennial screening series

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York will host a two-week screening series starting December 10, featuring 15 films that showcase the special effects work of the late mechatronics maestro Carlo Rambaldi. Co-curated with Rome's Cinecittà studios, the series spans Rambaldi's career from Italian arthouse and exploitation films to Hollywood blockbusters like *Alien* (1979), *E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial*, *King Kong* (1976), and *Dune* (1984). The screenings include films directed by Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Dario Argento, and David Lynch, among others. Rambaldi, who would have turned 100 this autumn, was also honored earlier this year with an exhibition at Long Island City Culture Lab and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

long forgotten rubens found in paris mansion

A long-lost painting by Peter Paul Rubens, a dramatic crucifixion scene dated to around 1614–15, was discovered among the possessions of a deceased Parisian homeowner during a routine appraisal. Auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat identified the work and consulted Rubens expert Nils Büttner, who confirmed its authenticity through x-ray imaging and pigment analysis. The painting sold at auction on November 30 for €2.3 million ($2.7 million), exceeding its presale estimate of €1–2 million.

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article news schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 23 link 11 artists

hong kong fire arts groups asian art news

A devastating fire in Hong Kong's Tai Po neighborhood, which killed at least 151 people, has prompted a period of mourning and led several major cultural institutions to cancel or postpone public events. The Hong Kong Arts Festival and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust cancelled a press conference for the "No Limits" program, while M+ rescheduled its "Night: Festive Play" event. Meanwhile, art fairs and galleries continue to announce developments: Kiaf Seoul will run concurrently with Frieze Seoul in 2026, Contemporary Istanbul will introduce a new Focus Asia section, and Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 will feature new sectors Echoes and Zero 10. In the market, On Kawara's "NOV. 27, 1984" sold for HK$8.5 million at Bonhams Hong Kong, and standout results were seen at Sotheby's Hong Kong.

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person people schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 16 link 10 artists

komal shah making their mark foundation forum launch

Komal Shah, a prominent art collector, announced the renaming of her Shah Garg Foundation to the Making Their Mark Foundation, coinciding with a three-day forum in Washington, D.C., scheduled for March 2025. The foundation takes its name from the traveling exhibition "Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection," curated by Cecilia Alemani, which highlights women artists from Shah and her husband Gaurav Garg's collection. The forum, held at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, will feature panels, keynotes, and performances organized around themes like Visionary Voices and Changemakers, with Alemani as curatorial director and Loring Randolph as director.

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article local schedule Dec 1, 2025 visibility 17 link 10 artists

miami water taxis basel

Miami is expanding its free water taxi service and shuttle routes for Art Week 2024, which coincides with Art Basel Miami Beach. The city will increase the number of water taxis from four to seven, operating between Maurice Gibb Memorial Park and the Venetian Marina, with service running from December 1 to December 7. Shuttles will connect the convention center to the Design District, mid-beach, and South Beach, where fairs like SCOPE, Untitled Art, SATELLITE, and Aqua Art Miami are held. The Transit mobile app will track all services in real time.

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article news schedule Dec 1, 2025 visibility 17 link 3 artists

flag art foundation serpentine galleries artist prize

The FLAG Art Foundation, based in New York, has pledged £1 million ($1.3 million) to London's Serpentine Galleries to establish a new biennial artist prize. Named the Serpentine x FLAG Art Foundation Prize, it will award £200,000 ($265,000) to an international artist who has been exhibiting for fewer than ten years, along with an exhibition at both institutions and a catalog. The first winner will be selected in 2026, with exhibitions at Serpentine in 2027 and FLAG in 2028. The prize is funded by collector Glenn Fuhrman's foundation and is the largest contemporary art prize in the UK.

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article policy schedule Dec 1, 2025 visibility 14 link 5 artists

louvre ticket price hike

The Louvre will raise ticket prices by 45 percent for non-E.U. visitors starting January 14, 2026, with tickets increasing to €32 ($37) for travelers from the U.S., U.K., and China, while E.U. visitors continue to pay €22. The price hike, announced on November 27, is expected to generate €15–20 million annually to fund modernization plans, following intense criticism over aging infrastructure and a $102 million jewel heist in October. The museum also faces structural issues, including the temporary closure of parts of its Sully wing due to fragile support beams, and has implemented an €80 million security master plan.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 28, 2025 visibility 21 link 3 artists

christies london to sell third part of sam josefowitzs rembrandt print collection in december

Christie’s London will auction the third and final part of Sam Josefowitz’s Rembrandt print collection on December 3, featuring 101 etchings by the Dutch master. The sale, titled “The Sam Josefowitz Collection: Graphic Masterpieces by Rembrandt van Rijn – Part III,” follows two previous installments that together brought £13.5 million. A highlight is the rare portrait *Arnout Tholinx, Inspector* (circa 1656), estimated at up to £2.5 million, described as the last impression in private hands. The collection was amassed by Josefowitz, a Lithuanian-born entrepreneur who built a mail-order business before his death in 2015.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 28, 2025 visibility 18 link 8 artists

magrittes empire of light history

René Magritte’s *L’empire des lumières* series, comprising 17 oil paintings and 10 gouaches created between the late 1940s and early 1960s, juxtaposes a nocturnal street scene with a bright daytime sky. The article explores the origins, meaning, and market performance of these works, noting that they were inspired by a line from André Breton’s poem *L’Aigrette* and reflect Magritte’s own Brussels neighborhood. Recent auction sales have shattered records, including a 1954 version that sold for $121.2 million at Christie’s New York in November 2024, making it the most expensive Surrealist artwork ever sold at auction.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 14 link 7 artists

goddard tiffany window heads to auction

A Tiffany Studios stained-glass window, the Goddard Memorial Window, sold for $4.2 million at Christie's Design Sale on June 12, 2025, exceeding its high estimate of $3 million. Commissioned in 1909 by Mary Edith Jenckes Goddard for St. Luke's Episcopal Church in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, the window features a pastoral landscape with an apple blossom tree, symbolic of youth. The sale follows a surge in the Tiffany window market, including a record $12.4 million sale at Sotheby's in November 2024 and recent acquisitions by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Crystal Bridges Museum.

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