Art News. Vasari Codex

trending_up market schedule Mar 6, 2026 visibility 26 link 8 artists

by the numbers sothebys london march 2026

Sotheby’s London Modern and Contemporary evening sale in March 2026 achieved a robust £130.6 million ($175 million), marking a significant 108.6 percent increase over the previous year's equivalent auction. The event was a "white glove" sale, with all 53 offered lots finding buyers, led by a Francis Bacon self-portrait that fetched £16 million. A notable highlight was a record-breaking £5.2 million sale for Leon Kossoff’s "Children’s Swimming Pool," which sparked a competitive ten-buyer bidding war.

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article news schedule Mar 4, 2026 visibility 18 link 1 artist

dali museum st petersburg expansion 2028

The Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, has announced a $65 million expansion project set to break ground in 2026. The 35,000-square-foot addition, designed by the Beck Group, will feature flexible gallery spaces for immersive digital art experiences, a dedicated K-12 learning center, and community-focused programming areas. The project, titled "Reveal," aims to modernize the institution's infrastructure while reinterpreting the architectural language of its existing 2011 building.

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article news schedule Feb 13, 2026 visibility 9 link 6 artists

us figure skating sonja hilma portraits

U.S. Figure Skating commissioned athlete and artist Sonja Hilmer to create custom, elegant line-drawing portraits of each member of the 2026 Winter Olympic team. The black and gold ink portraits, inspired by Italian fashion drawings, were hung above the skaters' beds in the Olympic Village as a personal touch from home.

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article culture schedule Feb 10, 2026 visibility 12 link 6 artists

olympics opening ceremony art references

The opening ceremony of the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics featured significant art-historical references, including a flame cauldron inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's knot drawings and performances that brought to life the marble sculptures of Antonio Canova. Dancers animated recreations of works like 'Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss,' and the ceremony included symbolic representations of Italian architectural landmarks like the Colosseum and Florence's Duomo.

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article news schedule Feb 6, 2026 visibility 15 link 7 artists

claire tabouret criticism notre dame cathedral commission

French figurative painter Claire Tabouret has been awarded the commission to create new stained glass windows for Notre-Dame Cathedral, replacing 19th-century works by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and Jean-Baptiste Lassus that survived the 2019 fire. Her designs, featuring multiethnic, multigenerational worshipers during Pentecost, were unveiled in the exhibition "Claire Tabouret: In a Single Breath" at the Grand Palais. The project, chosen by President Emmanuel Macron and Archbishop Laurent Ulrich from 110 candidates, has drawn criticism as an act of vanity and a possible violation of heritage guidelines, though Tabouret and Macron remain undeterred.

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article news schedule Jan 26, 2026 visibility 21 link 10 artists

artists circulate letter urging jewish museum save murals guston shahn fogel demolition

A group of artists led by Elise Engler, Joyce Kozloff, and Martha Rosler has circulated a letter urging the Jewish Museum in New York to intervene and save New Deal-era murals and sculptural reliefs from the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building in Washington, D.C. The artworks, created by Jewish artists including Ben Shahn, Philip Guston, and Seymour Fogel, are threatened with demolition after the U.S. government listed the building for accelerated disposal in November 2025 and began soliciting demolition bids in December. The letter, addressed to Jewish Museum board chair Shari Aronson, has been signed by hundreds of artists and art-world figures, including Joan Semmel, Rochelle Feinstein, Joan Snyder, Lucy Lippard, and Kay WalkingStick.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jan 22, 2026 visibility 11 link 1 artist

leonardo da vinci mural milan olympics

A Leonardo da Vinci mural undergoing restoration at Sforza Castle in Milan will be temporarily opened to the public for five weeks starting February 7, coinciding with the Winter Olympics in Italy. Visitors can climb a 20-foot scaffold inside the Sala delle Asse to observe conservators at work on the delicate tempera painting, which was begun shortly before Milan fell to France in 1499 and was later covered by plaster and lost for centuries. The mural was rediscovered in the late 19th century, with further sections uncovered in the 20th century, and the current restoration uses Japanese rice paper and demineralized water to clean the surface.

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article news schedule Jan 20, 2026 visibility 18 link 14 artists

california college of the arts closure

California College of the Arts (CCA), the Bay Area's last private art and design school, will close after the 2026–27 academic year, ending 116 years of operation. Vanderbilt University will acquire CCA's San Francisco campus and open a West Coast outpost in 2027, continuing some art and design programs. The closure follows years of financial struggles, including a $20 million deficit, declining enrollment from 1,800 to 1,295 students, and emergency fundraising that raised nearly $45 million—including a $22.5 million matching gift from the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation and a $20 million state grant—but proved insufficient to ensure long-term independence.

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article culture schedule Jan 16, 2026 visibility 14 link 4 artists

juergen teller bottega veneta summer 2026 campaign

Juergen Teller has photographed Bottega Veneta's Summer 2026 campaign, set against the iconic landmarks of Venice, including the Palazzo Contarini Polignac and the Venice Giardini. The campaign features models Liya Kebede and Anine Van Velzen, and arrives ahead of the 2026 Venice Biennale. It also marks the debut collection of Louise Trotter, who joined Bottega Veneta as creative director last year, drawing on the house's 50-year archives and reimagining signature items like the Lauren and Knot bags.

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article culture schedule Dec 29, 2025 visibility 16 link 6 artists

reframing the frame

Artnet News revisits the trend of inventive, sculptural frames in contemporary painting, originally explored in Katie White's essay "Bordercore." The article features a podcast conversation between White and editor Ben Davis, examining how artists like Stephanie Temma Hier use frames as surreal, symbolic extensions of their work, moving beyond traditional containment to comment on and disrupt the artwork's boundaries.

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article news schedule Dec 23, 2025 visibility 19 link 3 artists

christmas identical new banksy murals london housing crisis

Banksy has unveiled two identical murals in London, one near Tottenham Court Road Tube station and another in Queen's Mews, Bayswater. The artwork depicts two children lying on their backs, one pointing skyward, and was confirmed via the artist's Instagram. The piece appears during the Christmas season, but its placement near the landmark Centre Point skyscraper—a symbol of London's housing crisis—suggests a critique of homelessness and unaffordable housing.

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article news schedule Dec 16, 2025 visibility 13 link 3 artists

amenhotep iii colossi of memnon restoration

Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities unveiled the newly restored Colossi of Memnon, two monumental quartzite statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, at the entrance of his 86-acre Luxor tomb site. The restoration, led by German-Armenian archaeologist Hourig Sourouzian and involving Waseda University, the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and the World Monuments Fund, began in 2006 after decades of damage from earthquakes, floods, and looting. The team cleaned, 3D-scanned, and reassembled the statues using original fragments and new additions, also uncovering nearly 300 other sculptures and fragments. The Colossi now stand 45 feet tall, with the pharaoh depicted in royal regalia alongside smaller figures of his wives.

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article culture schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 20 link 10 artists

gustav klimt the kiss why so important

The article examines Gustav Klimt's iconic painting *The Kiss* (1907–1908) within the turbulent sociopolitical context of Vienna before World War I. It describes the city as a hotbed of ethnic tensions, anti-Semitism, and artistic ferment, where Klimt, alongside figures like Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler, explored repressed sexuality and decadence. The painting is presented as a symbol of this era, blending Symbolism, Japanese art, and Art Nouveau, and reflecting Klimt's role as a co-founder of the Vienna Secession, which broke with traditional aesthetics to pioneer modernism.

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article culture schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 16 link 8 artists

art bites sistine chapel michelangelo critics

The article recounts the creation and controversy surrounding Michelangelo's fresco of the Last Judgement on the west wall of the Sistine Chapel. While the chapel attracts 25,000 daily visitors and is celebrated as a pinnacle of Renaissance art, the west wall initially provoked scorn from church officials and critics like Biagio da Cesena and Pietro Aretino, who objected to its nudity, pagan imagery, and perceived idolatry. Michelangelo retaliated by painting his detractors into the fresco—Da Cesena as King Minos with donkey ears and a snake biting his genitals, and Aretino as Saint Bartholomew holding flayed skin resembling the artist.

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article policy schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 18 link 3 artists

trump dc buildings demolish philip guston ben shahn

A retired General Services Administration official, Mydelle Wright, has accused the Trump administration of attempting to demolish four historic federal buildings in Washington, D.C., including the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building. The allegation was made in a supplemental declaration filed in a lawsuit brought by preservation groups. Wright claims the White House is soliciting demolition bids without GSA involvement, which she says has sole authority over such processes. The Cohen building houses significant New Deal-era murals by Ben Shahn, Philip Guston, and Seymour Fogel, and has been described as "the Sistine Chapel of the New Deal." The Trump administration has halted a planned green renovation and listed the building for accelerated disposition, raising fears of demolition and loss of the artworks.

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gavel restitution schedule Dec 10, 2025 visibility 27 link 8 artists

bouvier us discovery 91 missing artworks

Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier has filed a Section 1782 petition in US federal court to locate 91 artworks he claims are his, worth approximately $100 million. The filing targets roughly 15 major banks and two auction houses (Sotheby's and Christie's) to compel disclosure of financial and transactional records. The request is tied to Hong Kong legal proceedings against French dealer Pascal de Sarthe, whom Bouvier accuses of failing to return works placed with him for safekeeping. De Sarthe disputes Bouvier's ownership, and his attorney has asked the New York court to delay or deny the application as premature.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 16 link 11 artists

most expensive lots sold at auction in 2024

Artnet News analyzed the 10 most expensive lots sold at auction in 2024, drawing on the Artnet Price Database. The top lot was René Magritte's *L'Empire de Lumières* (1954), which sold for $121.2 million at Christie's New York in November, setting a new auction record for the artist and becoming the only work to break nine figures this year. Other notable sales included Ed Ruscha's *Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half* (1964) at $68.3 million, Claude Monet's *Nymphéas* (1914–17) at $65.5 million, and Jean-Michel Basquiat's *Untitled (ELMAR)* (1982) at $46.4 million. Seven of the top 10 lots sold in New York, with Hong Kong, London, and Vienna also represented.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 4, 2025 visibility 20 link 5 artists

beeple pooping robot dogs at art basel miami beach

At Art Basel Miami Beach, digital artist Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) debuted a new installation titled "Regular Animals" in the fair's Zero10 digital art section. The work features a pen of robot dogs fitted with lifelike heads of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Jeff Bezos, and Beeple himself. The robots wander, twitch, and periodically tip backward to eject printed images from their backsides, satirizing the algorithmic nature of digital platforms. The installation drew large crowds, with visitors like Courtney Karnez describing it as a "guilty pleasure" and a communal spectacle. By the end of the first VIP day, all editions of the robots had sold for $100,000 each.

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article culture schedule Dec 4, 2025 visibility 20 link 6 artists

pantone color of the year white

Pantone has announced 11-4201 Cloud Dancer, a soft shade of bright white, as its 2026 Color of the Year. This marks the first time the company has chosen a white hue since launching the initiative in 1999, following last year's Mocha Mousse. The decision, announced by Pantone Color Institute vice president Laurie Pressman, is framed as a symbol of calm and a desire for a fresh start in a frenetic society, drawing comparisons to Kazimir Malevich's Suprematist compositions and Robert Ryman's white paintings. The announcement has sparked debate over its cultural and political implications, with critics noting the choice's potential elitism and its resonance amid ongoing racial tensions.

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article culture schedule Nov 26, 2025 visibility 17 link 6 artists

vanity fair nuzzi unreleased portrait scandal

Vanity Fair has commissioned and will publish an abstract nude portrait of journalist Olivia Nuzzi, titled "How to Disappear," by artist Isabelle Brourman, in its Dec. 2 Hollywood Issue. The painting, which depicts Nuzzi nude with Americana symbols swirling around her, was created after the two met during Donald Trump's criminal trial and will also be exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach as part of Jeffery Deitch's presentation "The Great American Nude."

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article culture schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 18 link 7 artists

frida kahlo auction record op ed

Frida Kahlo's 1940 painting *El Sueño (La Cama)* sold for $54.7 million at Sotheby's New York, setting a new auction record for the most expensive work by a woman artist, surpassing Georgia O'Keeffe's *Jimson Weed, White Flower No. 1* ($44.4 million in 2014). The sale sparked widespread commentary, with many framing it as a milestone for gender equity in the art market, while others noted the persistent gap between this price and those achieved by male artists like Leonardo da Vinci ($450.3 million) and Gustav Klimt ($236.4 million).

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article news schedule Nov 19, 2025 visibility 26 link 10 artists

school of art institute of chicagos video data bank

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) laid off three of five staff members of its Video Data Bank (VDB), including director Tom Colley, as part of 20 total layoffs across the institution. The cuts, announced on November 12, eliminated leadership and key distribution and digital management roles, sparking outcry from the new-media art community. VDB, founded in 1976, is a leading archive of video art with over 6,000 works by artists including Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, and Pipilotti Rist, distributed worldwide via subscription streaming.

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article culture schedule Nov 18, 2025 visibility 18 link 14 artists

coreen simpson aperture monograph

Coreen Simpson, an 83-year-old photographer born in Brooklyn in 1942, is the subject of a new eponymous monograph published by Aperture as part of its Vision and Justice Book Series. The book surveys five decades of her work, spanning street photography, fashion photography, studio portraits in Harlem, images of the early hip-hop scene, and later collage experiments. Simpson is known for merging fashion and social photography, capturing both celebrities like Muhammad Ali, Toni Morrison, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as unnamed individuals in her series “Nitebirds/Nightlife,” all with a frontal, confident gaze that emphasizes the subject's self-presentation.

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article news schedule Nov 17, 2025 visibility 15 link 2 artists

epstein files andres serrano

Newly released Epstein files, shared on the House Oversight Committee website, reveal direct email exchanges between artist Andres Serrano and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. In an October 2016 email, Serrano discussed voting for Donald Trump as a sympathy vote due to disgust over the outrage at Trump's sexist comments. Epstein responded briefly, and Serrano mentioned his exhibition "Torture" in Ireland. The pair had a prior acquaintance in the 1990s, and in 2018 they agreed to a trade: Serrano would photograph Epstein in exchange for a statue.

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article news schedule Nov 12, 2025 visibility 16 link 13 artists

preservationists petition to save wilbur building the sistine chapel of new deal art

Preservationists are petitioning to save Washington, D.C.'s Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, known as the 'Sistine Chapel of New Deal Art' for its 20th-century murals by Philip Guston and Ben Shahn. The Trump administration has listed the building for sale under an 'accelerated disposal' program, raising fears it could be demolished. The nonprofit Living New Deal launched a petition demanding transparency and public participation, as the building is one of 45 federal properties slated for swift sale. The structure, completed in 1940, houses ten New Deal-era artworks including frescoes, relief sculptures, and murals, and has been home to Voice of America since 1954.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 12, 2025 visibility 18 link 6 artists

judson memorial church peoples flag show anniversary

Three artists—Faith Ringgold, Jean Toche, and Jon Hendricks—organized "The People's Flag Show" at Judson Memorial Church in New York's Greenwich Village in November 1970, protesting the Vietnam War and challenging US flag desecration laws. The exhibition featured around 150 artists via open call, including Yvonne Rainer, Kate Millett, and the Guerrilla Art Action Group. On November 13, 1970, Ringgold, Toche, and Hendricks were arrested and fined $100 for flag desecration; their case was later dismissed with help from the American Civil Liberties Union. Now, 55 years later, Judson Commons—the church's nonprofit arts arm—is mounting a new version of the exhibition, again via open call, featuring over 60 artists and a week of programming in the Judson Gym.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 11, 2025 visibility 12 link 2 artists

gerrit dou headlines christies london old masters sale

Christie’s will offer Gerrit Dou’s "The Flute Player" (ca. 1636) as the leading lot in its Old Masters Evening Sale on December 2 in London. The painting, Dou’s first depiction of a musician, carries an estimate of £2 million to £3 million ($2.6 million–$4 million). It has been in an English collection for 125 years, previously owned by William Proby, Fifth Earl of Carysfort, and is appearing on the market for the first time in over a century.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 28, 2025 visibility 14 link 7 artists

sothebys records highest ever totals in france for surrealist and modern sales during art basel paris week

Sotheby's Paris achieved record-breaking totals for surrealist and modern art auctions during Art Basel Paris week, with combined sales of €89.7 million ($104 million) across its Surrealism and Its Legacy and Modernités sales—a 50 percent increase over the same event last year. The top lot was Amedeo Modigliani's *Elvire en buste* (1918-1919), which sold for €27 million ($31.3 million), the highest auction price for a painting by the Italian artist in France and the most valuable work ever sold by Sotheby's Paris. Other highlights included Modigliani's *Raymond* (1915) at €10.6 million, René Magritte's *La Magie Noire* (1934) at €10.7 million, and a complete set of Pablo Picasso's *Séries 347* etchings, which set a French auction record for any print by the artist.

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trending_up market schedule Sep 30, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

claude monet sale bankruptcy george allen weiss

Financier George Allen Weiss is seeking court approval to sell Claude Monet's painting *Nymphéas* (1914–17) for $36.5 million to an unnamed buyer, as part of his bankruptcy proceedings. Weiss filed for bankruptcy in June after a federal judge ruled he owed over $100 million in debt tied to his hedge fund, Weiss Multi-Strategy Advisers, which also filed for bankruptcy in 2024. The sale, handled through Weiss's GW Crown Holdings LLC, is intended to cover $123 million in debt to Bank of America, but Jefferies Strategic Investments has filed a limited objection demanding the buyer's identity be disclosed, citing a comparable Monet that sold for $65.5 million at Sotheby's.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 26, 2025 visibility 22 link 9 artists

suzanne duchamp retrospective zurich kunsthall schirn frankfurt

A new retrospective at Kunsthaus Zurich, soon traveling to Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, spotlights Suzanne Duchamp (1889–1963), a French artist often overshadowed by her brothers Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, and Jacques Villon. The exhibition, titled “Suzanne Duchamp: Retrospective,” showcases her highly individual painterly practice rooted in Cubism and Dada, featuring works like *Radiation of Two Solitary Separates Apart* (1916–20) and *Marcel’s Unhappy Readymade* (1920), which reappropriates her brother’s readymade concept. The show includes a new catalog commission by painter Amy Sillman, who created digital drawings inspired by Duchamp’s formal dynamics.

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