Art News. Vasari Codex

article culture schedule Jan 1, 2026 visibility 11 link 5 artists, 2 galleries

experts how to make it art world

Artnet News has launched a new four-part podcast mini-series titled "How to Get Ahead in the Art World," produced in partnership with Art Market Mentors. Hosted by editor-in-chief Naomi Rea and produced by Sonia Manalili, the series features insights from top art-world insiders including Cat Manson (former Christie's leader turned career coach), Loïc Gouzer (former Christie's rainmaker and founder of Fair Warning), and Brooke Lampley (senior roles at Sotheby's and Gagosian). Each episode covers a key career lesson: taking ownership of your career, trusting your instincts, leading with passion, and embracing a layoff as a reset.

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article culture schedule Dec 31, 2025 visibility 17 link 4 artists

frank lloyd wright guggenheim leeches teeth pulled

Frank Lloyd Wright, the renowned architect of New York's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, underwent bizarre medical treatments at the urging of Hilla Rebay, the artist and curator who commissioned him to design the museum. Rebay, a Prussian-born baroness and advisor to Solomon R. Guggenheim, convinced Wright to have all his teeth pulled and replaced with dentures within six weeks of their meeting, and also subjected him and his wife to leech bloodletting to drain 'old' blood. The Wrights stopped following her advice when she eyed their daughter's teeth.

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article culture schedule Dec 29, 2025 visibility 14 link 11 artists

art bites doges palace fire

The Doge's Palace in Venice has suffered multiple fires over its history, with the most devastating occurring in 1577. That blaze destroyed the Great Council Chamber, consuming irreplaceable artworks including a 1365 fresco by Guariento di Arpo, portraits of past doges by Titian, and paintings by Tintoretto, Vittore Carpaccio, Pisanello, Bellini, and Paolo Veronese. The fire's cause remains unknown, but its impact was catastrophic due to the chamber's concentration of highly valued Renaissance paintings.

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article culture schedule Dec 29, 2025 visibility 26 link 32 artists

art pop culture crossover 2025

Artnet News recapped nine notable art and design crossovers in pop culture from 2025. These include a Renoir painting spotted in a Wes Anderson film, a John Everett Millais reference on a Taylor Swift album cover, and a Dieter Rams chair appearing in the TV show "Severance." The article also highlights painter Ronan Day-Lewis bringing his visual world to film with his debut "Anemone," Spike Lee incorporating his art collection into the film "Highest 2 Lowest," and Frank Lloyd Wright's Oak Park home being featured on the TV series "The Bear."

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 29, 2025 visibility 18 link 11 artists

she is an icon of finnish art now modernist helene schjerfbeck takes a global stage

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has opened "Seeing Silence: The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck," the first major U.S. survey of the Finnish modernist painter. The exhibition features approximately 60 works spanning Schjerfbeck's entire career, drawn primarily from the Finnish National Gallery / Ateneum Art Museum, as well as other Finnish and Swedish collections. Curated by Dita Amory of the Met and Anna-Maria von Bonsdorff of the Ateneum, the show takes a thematic rather than chronological approach, highlighting Schjerfbeck's evolution from academic realism to a distinctive, introspective modernism.

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article culture schedule Dec 26, 2025 visibility 19 link 23 artists

10 art historical deep dives

Artnet News published a roundup of 10 art historical deep dives from 2025, curated by an editor who expresses a deep passion for art history. The article highlights several featured stories, including the eccentric tale behind Carl Kahler's monumental cat painting "My Wife's Lovers" (1891), commissioned by Gilded Age patron Kate Birdsall Johnson; the record-breaking sale of Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer" for $236.4 million at Sotheby's New York, with its rich symbolism and Imperial Chinese motifs; the online resurgence of August Friedrich Schenck's obscure 19th-century painting "Anguish" (ca. 1878), popularized by TikTok; and the centenary of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" with a deep dive into Francis Cugat's iconic cover art "Celestial Eyes" (1924).

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 22, 2025 visibility 20 link 10 artists

sargent monet rodin

The Musée d'Orsay has launched a landmark exhibition titled "Sargent: Dazzling Paris," marking the centenary of John Singer Sargent's death and focusing on his formative decade in 19th-century Paris. The show highlights Sargent's early friendships with artists like Monet and Rodin, his training under Carolus-Duran, and key portraits such as those of Fanny Watts and Madame X, the latter of which caused a scandal that drove him to London. The article also features five portraits that illuminate Sargent's artistic circles in Paris.

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article policy schedule Dec 22, 2025 visibility 14 link 1 artist

smithsonian content review white house threatens funding

The Trump administration has threatened to withhold funding from the Smithsonian Institution, accusing it of failing to comply with a content review demanded by the White House. In an email obtained by the Washington Post, budget director Russell Vought and Domestic Policy Council director Vince Haley alleged that the Smithsonian had not turned over all requested documents and exhibition materials, citing a prior executive order in which President Trump claimed the institution promoted “corrosive ideology” by portraying the U.S. as inherently racist. Smithsonian secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III defended the network’s independence, stating it remains committed to sharing information but that a government shutdown had slowed efforts. The administration set a January 13 deadline for full compliance, specifically targeting programming for America’s 250th anniversary.

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article local schedule Dec 22, 2025 visibility 17 link 14 artists

detroit institute of arts dia 1976 ad spot remake

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) has released a 50th-anniversary remake of its iconic 1976 television commercial, "You Gotta Have Art." The original spot, created by advertising agency W.B. Doner & Co., featured museum staff, volunteers, and local performers singing and dancing among masterpieces. The new version, directed by DIA's Director of Visual Media Adam Kosberg, recreates the original shot-for-shot, incorporating updated choreography, a Motown-influenced arrangement by Detroit musicians Marion Hayden and Alvin Waddles, and appearances by local artists including Carole Harris and Allie McGhee, who reprised their roles from the 1976 film. Over 200 museum employees and performers from Wayne State University participated in the production.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 22, 2025 visibility 18 link 10 artists

auctioneers jewelry evening sales

Sotheby's held its inaugural evening sale at the Breuer building, featuring the Contemporary and the Now sale. Auctioneer Oliver Barker achieved $527.5 million in sales, surpassing the pre-sale low estimate of $379 million. The highlight was Gustav Klimt's portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, which sold for $236.4 million, setting an auction record for Klimt and becoming the second most expensive work ever sold at auction. During the sale, auctioneer Phyllis Kao wore a David Webb necklace from the mid-1980s, featuring carved emeralds, rubies, and cabochon sapphires, which was on view and available for private sale at Sotheby's retail salon in the Breuer lobby.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 22, 2025 visibility 24 link 14 artists

baku azerbaijan art week

The article recounts the author's experience attending Baku Art Weekend in Azerbaijan, a festival centered at the Zaha Hadid-designed Heydar Aliyev Centre. The event featured a major exhibition of Fernando Botero's work, "The Triumph of Form," alongside kinetic installations by Daniel Wurtzel and sculptures by Jorge Marín. The festival is shaped by Leyla Aliyeva, vice president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and daughter of Azerbaijan's president, who aims to position Baku as a global cultural capital.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 19, 2025 visibility 22 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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article policy schedule Dec 18, 2025 visibility 31 link 3 artists

txst black history 101 mobile museum visit aclu challenge

Texas State University (TXST) canceled a scheduled appearance of the Black History 101 Mobile Museum at its San Marcos campus for Black History Month 2026, prompting a First Amendment challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas. The museum's founder, Khalid El-Hakim, had been invited by a campus activities director on October 13, 2025, but the invitation was rescinded on October 28 after consultation with supervisors and leadership. The ACLU's letter to TXST president Kelly Damphousse cited a 2023 Texas Senate bill banning DEI programs at public universities and the state's political climate as reasons for the cancellation, though the university denied the DEI ban was the cause.

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person people schedule Dec 18, 2025 visibility 20 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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article news schedule Dec 18, 2025 visibility 21 link 13 artists

top ukrainian art historian believes italian museum holds 14 fake russian and ukrainian modernist works

Konstantin Akinsha, a prominent curator and art historian of Russian and Ukrainian art, has identified 14 artworks in the collection of the Palazzo de Nordis museum in Cividale del Friuli, Italy, as likely forgeries. In a Substack post and interview with ARTnews, Akinsha scrutinized the De Martiis Collection, donated in 2015 by the late collector Giancarlo De Martiis, which includes works attributed to Russian and Ukrainian modernist painters. He points to suspicious provenances involving Jean Chauvelin, a disgraced French art dealer, and Boris Gribanov, a convicted forger. A specific still life attributed to Olga Rozanova (1915-17) is nearly identical to a 1999 painting by contemporary Russian artist Andrei Saratov, who confirmed he did not paint the museum's version. Elisabetta Gottardo, the municipal head of culture, acknowledged Akinsha's authority and pledged further investigation.

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article news schedule Dec 16, 2025 visibility 19 link 6 artists

louvre strike

On December 15, 2025, the Musée du Louvre in Paris was forced to close as approximately 400 of its 2,100 employees went on strike, picketing outside the museum's glass pyramids and turning away visitors. The strike follows a series of crises at the institution, including a $102 million jewel heist in broad daylight two months prior, a flooding incident from a burst water pipe in November, and ongoing concerns about deteriorating facilities, long lines, and substandard restrooms and dining areas. Workers are demanding higher wages and better conditions, with three trade unions—CGT, SUD, and CFDT—warning in an open letter that staff feel like "the last bastion before collapse."

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trending_up market schedule Dec 16, 2025 visibility 20 link 5 artists

art institute chicagos acquisitions 2025

The Art Institute of Chicago announced its top acquisitions from over 1,000 works added to its collections in 2025. Highlights include Kay WalkingStick’s two-panel painting *The Silence of Glacier* (2013), which overlays Northern Cheyenne beadwork onto a Glacier National Park landscape; Christian Schad’s *Portrait of Composer Josef Matthias Hauer* (1927); Frans Francken II’s *Esther Before Ahasuerus* (1622); a rare 17th-century Indian textile titled *A Nayaka Nobleman with Courtiers and Courtesans*; an untitled photograph from Francesca Woodman’s “Caryatid” series (1980); and the *Ovejo Armchair* (1972) by Jaime Gutiérrez Lega.

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article news schedule Dec 16, 2025 visibility 13 link 4 artists, 1 gallery

cai guo qiang arcteryx fireworks tibet

Artist Cai Guo-Qiang sparked a major controversy on Chinese social media after staging a fireworks display titled "Rising Dragon" in the Himalayas near Shigatse, Tibet, on September 19, 2025. The event, co-organized with outdoor brand Arc'teryx, drew dozens of art insiders and influencers but was quickly condemned by netizens, environmental scientists, and activists for threatening the fragile Tibetan plateau ecosystem and showing cultural insensitivity toward sacred Buddhist mountains. Both Cai and Arc'teryx issued apologies, and state media outlets like CCTV and Xinhua condemned the performance, leading to an investigation by local authorities.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 15, 2025 visibility 18 link 5 artists, 1 gallery

walton ford gagosian tutto cheetah marchesa luisa casati

Walton Ford's new series of paintings, on view at Gagosian in New York through April 19, centers on the Marchesa Luisa Casati and her two cheetahs. The works depict the Milanese heiress and Futurist muse in early 20th-century Venice, but the animals—not the glamorous woman—command the focal point. Ford, known for subverting natural history illustration, uses watercolor to balance trompe-l'oeil realism with painterly abandon, developing the characters across multiple canvases with Italian titles referencing literature by Casati's lover, poet Gabriele D'Annunzio.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 15, 2025 visibility 30 link 18 artists

malba acquires 1200 works

Eduardo F. Costantini, founder of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (Malba), announced the acquisition of the Daros Latinamerica Collection in Zurich, adding 1,233 works by 117 artists to the museum's holdings. This roughly doubles Malba's collection to 3,000 works, with a major expansion project planned to accommodate the new pieces, set to begin next fall to mark the museum's 25th anniversary. Highlights include works by Doris Salcedo, Ana Mendieta, Julio Le Parc, Alfredo Jaar, Lygia Clark, and Jesús Rafael Soto, with 75 artists new to Malba.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 21 link 9 artists, 1 gallery

david zwirner benefit exhibition raises 1 million ali forney center

David Zwirner gallery in New York hosted a four-day benefit exhibition titled “Toward the Light: Artists for the Ali Forney Center,” which raised $950,000 for the Ali Forney Center, a nonprofit supporting queer youth with housing, education, job training, and medical care. Curated by art adviser Stephen Truax, the show featured 37 artists, including Ross Bleckner, Marlene Dumas, Jenna Gribbon, Julie Mehretu, and Wolfgang Tillmans, and generated $1.2 million in sales, with artists receiving $250,000 and the gallery waiving its commission. Truax, who previously co-organized smaller editions with Sotheby’s, shifted to a gallery partnership to gain more control over sales and pricing, more than doubling his initial $350,000 fundraising goal.

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article news schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 16 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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article news schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 20 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 20 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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article culture schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 16 link 5 artists

simon de pury photos art

The author recounts a visit to the Prado in Madrid, where his attempt to photograph a portrait by Alonso Sánchez Coello was blocked by a guard enforcing a strict no-photography policy. This experience leads him to reflect on the evolution of museum mementos, from postcards—which he used to buy and even had his children select as a curatorial exercise—to the role of social media in sharing art. He recalls his time as curator of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, where postcard sales were a key revenue and popularity gauge, and notes that Instagram now serves as a virtual window into exhibitions and art fairs like Art Basel Miami.

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article news schedule Dec 10, 2025 visibility 21 link 6 artists

matisse prints stolen library exhibition sao paulo brazil

On December 7, two armed thieves stole eight prints by Henri Matisse and at least five engravings by Brazilian modernist painter Cândido Portinari from the Mário de Andrade Library in São Paulo. The works were part of the exhibition “From Book to Museum,” organized in collaboration with the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art, which was scheduled to close that day. Police have arrested one suspect, and some artworks were reportedly abandoned nearby.

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article news schedule Dec 10, 2025 visibility 21 link 8 artists

zohran mamdani best museum new york subway system

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani declared in a New York Times interview that the city's best museum is its subway system, citing the public artworks by artists like Vito Acconci, Nick Cave, Yoko Ono, Faith Ringgold, and Jeffrey Gibson that are accessible to all riders. He praised the MTA for making art available regardless of income, while also expressing interest in visiting the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, and crediting his wife, illustrator Rama Duwaji, for expanding his appreciation of art beyond formal settings.

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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 9, 2025 visibility 17 link 4 artists

brazil library heist matisse

Brazilian authorities arrested one suspect after an armed robbery at São Paulo's Mário de Andrade Library on Sunday, where two thieves stole eight Henri Matisse engravings and works by Brazilian painter Candido Portinari. The artworks were displayed in a glass vitrine as part of the exhibition “From the Book to the Museum,” which was set to close November 30. The thieves held up a security guard and a couple, stuffed the items into a canvas bag, and discarded some works near a rubbish heap during their escape, partially captured by facial recognition cameras. The second suspect remains at large, and the library has not disclosed which specific works were taken.

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article news schedule Dec 9, 2025 visibility 13 link 5 artists

louvre leak strike

A water pipe burst at the Musée du Louvre in Paris on November 26, damaging 300 to 400 archival documents related to Egyptian history in the Mollien Pavilion. The leak, which also posed a fire risk due to a nearby electrical cabinet, was followed by a smaller leak days later. Employees, represented by a coalition of unions including CGT, CFDT, and Sud, have voted unanimously to begin a rolling strike next Monday, demanding urgent renovations and the hiring of 200 new staff to restore the workforce to 2014 levels. The Louvre's director Laurence des Cars had previously warned that the museum's buildings were in "poor condition" and "no longer water tight," and a major renovation was announced, but pipe repairs were not scheduled until September 2026.

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