Let It Work If It Works. In Conversation with Rose Wylie by David Kohn

Rose Wylie, the first female painter to receive a solo exhibition at London's Royal Academy of Arts, discusses her career and the RA show in an interview with architect David Kohn. Wylie reflects on the historic nature of the invitation, crediting artist Cornelia Parker for championing the opportunity, but emphasizes that she wants her work to be judged as painting first, not through the lens of gender. She explains her choice of large-scale canvases as a response to the male-dominated art world when she returned to painting, and describes her decision to paint the RA's gallery walls white to maintain architectural coherence and avoid what she calls 'fashionable' colored interiors.

Ides Kihlen, Abstract Painter and Argentine Art Legend, Dies at 108

Ides Kihlen, the beloved Argentine abstract painter, died on April 14 at age 108. Her first solo exhibition came at age 85 in 2002 at the National Museum of Decorative Arts in Buenos Aires, after which her career blossomed with presentations at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo and the Emilio Caraffa Fine Arts Museum. Known for rhythmic compositions blending geometric forms, experimental line work, and collage on varied supports, Kihlen maintained a daily routine of painting from morning and playing piano after sunset, reflecting her lifelong dual commitment to art and music.

Pao Houa Her Captivates Midway Contemporary Art with New Exhibition Through May 2026

Hmong-American artist Pao Houa Her is currently presenting a solo exhibition at Midway Contemporary Art in Chicago, running through May 2, 2026. The show explores themes of displacement, identity, and cultural memory through Her's photographs and installations, which blend personal narrative with broader social commentary on the Hmong diaspora experience post-Vietnam War. Born in Laos and raised in Minnesota, Her's work challenges viewers to confront the complexities of migration and belonging, using staged portraits and intimate compositions to subvert expectations of representation.

NEXT in the Gallery: Preview Pittsburgh summer with a 'Pity Party,' dog sculptures and so much more art

NEXTpittsburgh's May 2026 gallery preview highlights a packed month of art events leading into the Three Rivers Arts Festival. Key offerings include the 59th Carnegie International at Carnegie Museum of Art, opening May 2 with works by 61 artists from 24 countries and four new commissions at local institutions. Other featured shows include 'Down to Earth: Revealing the Natural World' at James Gallery, Jody Shell's 'Shoebox Memories,' Dominique Swift's 'Uli Awakened,' and a three-artist exhibition at Irma Freeman Center featuring Laura Jean McLaughlin, James Simon, and Robert Qualters.

'Joan Semmel' at Xavier Hufkens, Rivoli, Brussels, Belgium on 22 Apr–27 Jun 2026

American painter Joan Semmel is debuting a dual-continent exhibition titled "Continuities," presented simultaneously at Xavier Hufkens in Brussels and Alexander Gray Associates in New York. The show features recent large-scale paintings, including works like "Here I Am" (2025) and "Red Breast" (2025), which utilize saturated hues and layered compositions to explore the artist's own aging body from her own perspective. By presenting related works across two cities, the exhibition mirrors the internal logic of Semmel’s paintings, which often employ doubling and shifting imagery to represent the body as a site of active presence.

On View: 'Danielle McKinney: Tell Me More' at Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University is Painter's First U.S. Solo Museum Exhibition

Danielle McKinney's first solo museum exhibition in the United States, 'Danielle McKinney: Tell Me More,' has opened at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. The show features 13 intimately scaled paintings created between 2021 and 2025, depicting Black women in dimly lit domestic interiors—lounging, reading, or smoking—often nude or in robes, with saturated colors and cinematic compositions. McKinney, born in Montgomery, Alabama, and based in Jersey City, began her career as a photographer and earned an MFA from Parsons School of Design before turning to painting in 2020 during the pandemic. The exhibition is curated by Gannit Ankori, the museum's director and chief curator, and runs from August 20, 2025, to January 4, 2026.

Susan Philipsz: East by West | June 13, 2025

Susan Philipsz is presenting a new exhibition titled "East by West" at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, opening June 13, 2025. The show features the artist's signature sound-based installations, exploring themes of geography, memory, and displacement through audio works that blend field recordings and musical compositions.

Mary Weatherford - The Surrealist - Exhibitions

Mary Weatherford presents a new body of work in her exhibition "The Surrealist," featuring large-scale abstract paintings that incorporate unconventional materials such as neon, coral, and starfish. The show includes works like "A Rose Tree" (2025), "Bonfire" (2025), and the titular "The Surrealist" (2024–2025), all executed in flashe on linen with mixed media elements.

Marquee May auctions in New York come at a volatile moment

New York's marquee spring auctions, beginning May 12, are facing significant headwinds from President Donald Trump's second-term policies, particularly the 'Liberation Day' tariffs and resulting stock-market volatility. Phillips deputy chairman Robert Manley confirms at least one eight-figure work was pulled from sale due to tariffs. The combined Modern and contemporary auctions at Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips carry an estimated $1.1bn to $1.5bn in art—the lowest total estimate for spring sales since 2010, roughly $250m lower than May 2024. No nine-figure-estimate lots have been consigned, and the number of catalogued lots is the lowest since 2007 (excluding pandemic and recession years). Single-owner collections dominate, with Christie's securing the $200m Leonard and Louise Riggio collection, including a Piet Mondrian estimated at $50m, and works from Anne and Sid Bass. Sotheby's offers collections from dealers Daniella Luxembourg and others.

Ten Highlights From New York’s Spring Marquee Auctions

New York's spring marquee auctions are set for May 2025, with Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips presenting strong lineups after a 25% drop in total public sales in 2024. Highlights include the $250 million Leonard and Louise Riggio collection at Christie's, featuring Piet Mondrian's *Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue* (est. $50 million), and Alberto Giacometti's *Grande tête mince* (est. over $70 million) at Sotheby's. Other top lots include Lucio Fontana's *The End of God*, Jean-Michel Basquiat's *Baby Boom*, a Rothko from the Bass mansion, Claude Monet's *Crepuscular Peupliers*, Olga de Amaral's evening sale debut, a trove of 40 Roy Lichtenstein works, and an Ed Ruscha piece. The sales test market resilience amid supply constraints and a cautious art market.

It’s Gabriele Münter’s World, We’re Just Living in It

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is hosting "Contours of a World," a retrospective dedicated to Gabriele Münter, a co-founder of the Blue Rider group. The exhibition moves beyond the shadow of her long-time partner Wassily Kandinsky, showcasing her distinct approach to German Expressionism through photography, intimate domestic scenes, and vibrant landscapes. Unlike her contemporaries who leaned toward total abstraction, Münter utilized bold outlines and layered compositions to create a dynamic, phenomenological experience of seeing.

The Unbearable Strangeness of Being

South African artist Cinga Samson makes his New York debut at White Cube with "Ukuphuthelwa," an exhibition of haunting, large-scale oil paintings. The works feature figures with distinctive white pupils engaged in enigmatic rituals within dark, crepuscular landscapes. Drawing from the isiXhosa concept of spiritual alertness during sleeplessness, Samson’s compositions blend the palpable with the unearthly, often depicting scenes that feel choreographed yet remain stubbornly illegible to the Western gaze.

Woman With Her Back to the Viewer in Gallery Photos Speaks Out

A satirical article features an exclusive interview with the fictional archetype "Woman With Her Back to the Viewer in All Those Gallery Photos." She describes her daily routine of posing ambiguously next to artworks, her artistic influences like Caspar David Friedrich, and the challenges of her unseen labor, including a lack of sales commission and the need for side hustles like making herself blurry in photos.

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A new exhibition titled “Picasso: Clay, Line and Legacy” has opened at the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens in West Palm Beach, produced in collaboration with Kahan Gallery. The show features an expansive collection of Pablo Picasso’s ceramics, linocuts, prints, drawings, and tapestries from his Vallauris period (mid-1940s to early 1970s), when he worked with the Madoura pottery workshop and the printmaking studio of Hidalgo Arnéra in Vallauris, France. Works on view include pieces like *Femme (A.R. 301)* (1955) and *Quatre Profils Enclases (A.R.87)* (1949), highlighting his experimentation with medium, composition, and form.

Nara's vampire-girl portrait sells for US$10m at Sotheby's, leading US$43m Hong Kong Evening Sale

Sotheby's Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction in Hong Kong on 28 September achieved HK$335 million (US$43.1 million), with a 95% sell-through rate across 40 lots. The top lot was Yoshitomo Nara's 2012 painting *Can't Wait 'til the Night Comes*, which sold for HK$79.9 million (US$10.3 million) to a private Asian collector. A group of five works by Roy Lichtenstein from the artist's personal collection also debuted at auction, collectively bringing HK$46.4 million (US$5.9 million).

‘Overworked’: Çağla Ulusoy in Conversation With ArtReview

ArtReview and Dirimart London are hosting a conversation between artist Çağla Ulusoy and ArtReview editor Fi Churchman about Ulusoy's book 'Overworked', which features 83 selected abstract paintings and accompanying collages. The event takes place on 6 June 2026 at Dirimart's London gallery, coinciding with the group exhibition 'Colour is the Place', which includes Ulusoy's work alongside artists Hashel Al Lamki, Tala Worrell, and Berke Yazıcıoğlu. Ulusoy's practice integrates lived experiences from various cultures into abstract compositions using materials like acrylic, oil paint, sand, and wax.

Who are the members of the Venice Biennale jury?

Qui sont les membres du jury de la Biennale de Venise ?

The 61st Venice Biennale, opening May 9, 2026, has announced its international jury, which is composed entirely of women. The five members are Solange Oliveira Farkas (president), Zoe Butt, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Marta Kuzma, and Giovanna Zapperi, hailing from Brazil, Thailand, Spain, the United States, and Switzerland. Their backgrounds span the Global South, feminist studies, and transnational curatorial practices.

Sofiane Pamart: 'With my piano, I sculpt sound matter'

Sofiane Pamart : « Avec mon piano, je sculpte la matière sonore »

French pianist Sofiane Pamart discusses his creative process in an interview with Beaux Arts Magazine, explaining how his music is inspired by contemplative cinema, particularly the films of Takeshi Kitano and Wong Kar-wai. He describes his approach to composition as sculpting sound, drawing parallels to impressionist painting and the works of sculptors Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel. Pamart also expresses a preference for art that interacts with nature, citing the open-air museum of sculptor Anachar Basbous in Lebanon as an example.

From the beaches of Valencia to the gardens of Andalusia, the virtuoso Joaquín Sorolla celebrated by a luminous exhibition in Toulouse

Des plages de Valence aux jardins andalous, le virtuose Joaquín Sorolla célébré par une exposition lumineuse à Toulouse

The article announces a luminous exhibition in Toulouse celebrating the Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla (1863–1923), known for his radiant beach scenes and masterful use of light. Co-curated by Ana Debenedetti of the Bemberg collection and Enrique Varela Agüí, director of the Museo Sorolla in Madrid, the show features iconic works such as *Contre-jour, Maria à Biarritz* (1906) and *Sur le sable, plage de Zarautz* (1910), alongside a reconstruction of Sorolla’s studio. The exhibition highlights his unique style blending realism, impressionism, and luminism, with energetic brushwork, bold compositions, and photographic framing.

« L’Angélus » de Millet : une notification à l’humanité hors sol ?

Beaux Arts Magazine publishes a detailed visual analysis of Jean-François Millet's painting "L'Angélus" (1857–1859), housed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The article describes the scene of two peasants pausing their potato harvest to pray at dusk, examining the composition, color, and spiritual resonance of the work. It also traces Millet's biography—from his peasant origins in the Cotentin region to his training under Langlois and Paul Delaroche, and his early career painting portraits and nudes before turning to rural subjects.

Comment | We must avoid amputating art in the name of preservation

The article recounts the author's experience viewing Caravaggio's *Seven Acts of Mercy* (1607) in its original chapel in Naples, where the painting's crowded, dramatic composition directly mirrors the chaotic streets of the city, revealing its sacred meaning through context. In contrast, the author describes Caravaggio's *Flagellation of Christ* (1607), moved from the church of San Domenico Maggiore to the Museo di Capodimonte for security reasons, as a painting "marooned"—its spiritual purpose broken, reduced to a mere object for aesthetic appreciation.

Rising Artist Ding Shilun’s Sweet Paintings Mask Unsettling Truths

Artist Ding Shilun's career is accelerating, marked by a major auction record for his 2021 work 'The Adoption of the Maiden' at Phillips London and a current solo exhibition, 'Spectres in Rehearsal,' at Bernheim Gallery in Zurich. His large-scale paintings blend theatrical compositions, Goya-esque and manga influences, and narrative structures from Chinese zhiguai tales to create accessible yet complex scenes.

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Two nearly identical portraits of George Washington by Charles Peale Polk, depicting him after the 1777 Battle of Princeton, will be auctioned on consecutive days in New York. Christie’s offers a 1793 version (number 53) on January 23, estimated at $200,000–$300,000, which was selected by Jackie Kennedy for the White House in 1962 and remained there until 1992. Sotheby’s offers a 1790–93 version (number 30) on January 24, estimated at $400,000–$600,000, previously sold at Christie’s in 1971 and at Sotheby’s in 2010 for $458,500. Both paintings have passed through Hirschl and Adler Galleries and depict Washington in uniform with Princeton’s Nassau Hall in the background.

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Louise Bonnet, a Los Angeles-based painter known for her cartoonish yet sophisticated depictions of the female nude, discusses her latest work ahead of two major exhibitions. Her two-person show with Elizabeth King, titled "De Anima," opens at the Swiss Institute in New York, focusing on shared approaches to figuration that balance objecthood and liveliness. Bonnet also created a new series for the next edition of the SITE Santa Fe International biennial, opening in June. In an interview with ARTnews editor Emily Watlington, Bonnet explains her shift to tighter cropped compositions emphasizing routine gestures like tying shoelaces or fastening bras, inspired by World War II British spies and films like Rosemary's Baby.

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David Hockney has unveiled a major exhibition at London’s Serpentine North, featuring the UK debut of his nearly 300-foot-long iPad frieze, 'A Year in Normandie'. The exhibition also showcases ten brand-new paintings from 2025, including intimate portraits of his inner circle and a series of abstract compositions that playfully reference the styles of Mark Rothko and Gerhard Richter.

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Photographer Dan Bannino has created a series titled "Still Diet," in which he photographs bizarre celebrity fad diets in the style of Old Master still life paintings. The series features diets associated with figures such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Charles Saatchi, Beyoncé Knowles, Henry VIII, and others, using carefully arranged food items and props to mimic classical compositions.

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London's auction houses held seven sales of Modern British art this week, achieving £22.3 million (including buyer's premium) against a presale estimate range of £21.3 million to £31.7 million. A total of 547 of 705 lots sold, a 77.6% sell-through rate. Bonhams struggled, with half its top lots unsold, including a Henry Moore bronze estimated at £1–2 million, but Pyms gallery and art adviser Wentworth Beaumont bought key works below estimate. Sotheby's raised £6.4 million, led by Edward Burra's *Striptease, Harlem* (1934) at £842,500, and a Paul Nash watercolor tripled its estimate to £212,500. Christie's achieved the highest total at £12 million, topped by Barbara Hepworth's *Figure (Sunion)* (1960), bought by Pyms gallery for over £800,000.

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Christie’s spring marquee auctions in New York brought in a combined $489 million with fees across two evening sales: the Leonard & Louise Riggio: Collected Works sale and the 20th Century sale. The Riggio collection, featuring 39 works heavy on Surrealism, modernism, and Minimalism, achieved $272 million with buyer’s premium, led by Piet Mondrian’s Composition With Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue (1922) at $47.56 million and René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (1949) at $34.9 million. The 20th Century sale included major canvases by Monet, Rothko, and Warhol, but the hammer total of $409 million fell below the $446 million pre-sale low estimate, indicating the auction house did not meet expectations.

Andy Warhol | Cow II.11A (1971) | For Sale

Andy Warhol's screenprint "Cow II.11A" (1971) is being offered for sale by Composition.Gallery, priced at $15,200. The work is a color screenprint on wallpaper, printed by Bill Miller's Wallpaper Studio, Inc., New York, and published by Factory Additions, New York, for a Warhol exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art from May 1 to June 13, 1971. It is part of a limited edition of 100, stamped by the artist's estate, and includes a certificate of authenticity.

Remembering James Hayward, LA’s Adored Cowboy Painter

Abstract painter James Hayward, known for his monochromatic oil and wax impasto works, died last week at age 82. A legendary figure in the LA art scene, Hayward was equally celebrated for his magnetic personality, ribald humor, and storytelling. He rose to prominence in 1977 when included in the group show "Less is More" at Sidney Janis Gallery in New York, and was admired by art-world giants such as Dave Hickey, Chris Burden, Nancy Rubins, Ed Moses, and Mike Kelley. Hayward also taught at colleges across the country, including a guest seminar at the University of Southern California, and was a longtime supporter of the LA contemporary art magazine Artillery.