‘A once-in-a-generation opportunity’: Europe’s biggest exhibition of James McNeill Whistler in 30 years will open in London this week

Tate Britain in London is opening a major retrospective of James McNeill Whistler, the largest exhibition of his work in Europe in 30 years. Featuring 150 works spanning painting, drawing, printmaking, and design, the show includes iconic pieces like *Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1* (commonly known as *Whistler's Mother*) and *Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge*. For the first time, the exhibition examines Whistler's teenage years and also displays his personal notebooks, easel, paint palette, and collections of East Asian ceramics and Japanese prints. The exhibition runs from May 21 to September 27, 2026.

The most expensive Mark Rothko paintings ever sold at auctions

The article lists the most expensive Mark Rothko paintings ever sold at auction, highlighting record-breaking sales such as *No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red)* (1951), which fetched $186 million in 2014, and *Orange, Red, Yellow* (1961), which sold for $86.9 million in 2012. Other notable works include *No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue)* (1954) at $75.1 million and *No. 10* (1958) at $81.9 million, demonstrating the enduring high demand for Rothko's abstract expressionist canvases in the secondary market.

Modern Art + Design Draw Active Bidders At Eldred’s

Eldred’s auction house held its Modern Art + Design sale on May 7, featuring 245 lots of art, furniture, decorative arts, rugs and collectibles. The sale achieved a total of $221,740 with an 81% sell-through rate, driven by active phone, online, and absentee bidding. Top lots included a Tiffany Studios Nautilus table lamp that sold for $23,040 (more than three times its estimate), a Handel reverse-painted glass table lamp that reached $10,880 against a $800–$1,200 estimate, and Frank Stella’s “Aiolio” from his “Imaginary Places III” series, which fetched $17,920. An abstract oil on canvas by Manabu Mabe also performed strongly, selling for $14,080.

National Gallery takes art to town centres

The National Gallery is displaying high-quality reproductions of masterpieces by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, J.M.W. Turner, and Vincent van Gogh in town centres across the UK, starting with Croydon. The three-year initiative, called Art on Your Doorstep, places artworks in locations such as Croydon Minster and Queen’s Gardens, and will expand to Torquay, Derry, Birstall, and the Isle of Wight in 2026. Local residents help select the pieces and contribute creative responses, embedding the project within each community.

SeMA opens new retrospective on Yoo Young-kuk, modern master of the 'mountain within'

The Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) has opened a major retrospective on Korean abstract artist Yoo Young-kuk titled "A Mountain Within Me" at its Seosomun main branch. The exhibition, marking the 110th anniversary of the artist's birth, is the largest ever mounted on Yoo, featuring 178 works including 115 oil paintings and 15 canvases from the artist's family's private holdings shown publicly for the first time. Curated by Yeo Kyung-hwan, the show defies chronology, beginning in 1964 and moving backward through Yoo's Tokyo years and the lost decade after Korea's liberation, then forward through his geometric abstractions of the 1960s and 1970s, culminating in his late "mind-image abstraction" phase after 1980.

Taipei Fine Arts Museum unveils 'Surrealism: The World in Dialogue'

Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), in collaboration with the Institute for Cultural Exchange in Tübingen, Germany, has launched its major spring exhibition "Surrealism: The World in Dialogue." Featuring over 120 works by nearly 60 international artists, the exhibition marks a century since André Breton's 1924 "Surrealist Manifesto." It juxtaposes historical avant-garde works with contemporary practices, organized into sections such as "Collective Dreams," "Body of Desire," and "Absurd Play." Highlights include Yves Tanguy's dreamscapes, Lauren Moffatt's augmented reality installation, Max Ernst's scraping-method works, Patricia Piccinini's hybrid sculptures, and works by Man Ray, Meret Oppenheim, Sarah Lucas, Luis Buñuel, and Salvador Dalí.

The National Gallery x hololive DEV_IS ReGLOSS’s Juufuutei Raden Announce a World-First Crossover Collaboration, Launching May 20 | NEWS

COVER Corporation has announced a collaboration between hololive DEV_IS ReGLOSS VTuber Juufuutei Raden and The National Gallery, London, launching May 20, 2026. Titled “When Raden Meets Art – A Shared Art Journey”, the project features three masterpieces selected by Raden—J.M.W. Turner’s “Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway”, Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”, and Claude Monet’s “The Water-Lily Pond”—reimagined into exclusive merchandise including fragrance mists, scarves, and cup sets. Raden, a certified curator in Japan, also recorded an audio guide highlighting 20 works from the Gallery, and the entire ReGLOSS team visited the museum for a behind-the-scenes experience.

Each spring in Potomac, Maryland, over 24,000 flowers are planted on Jeff Koons’ 37-foot-tall sculpture, “Split-Rocker” — and bloom from May to October. This year’s planting occurred over seven days, according to the Glenstone museum. https://wapo.st/4woJ

Each spring, over 24,000 flowers are planted on Jeff Koons' 37-foot-tall sculpture "Split-Rocker" in Potomac, Maryland, which blooms from May to October. This year's planting took seven days, according to the Glenstone museum, which houses the work.

Helen Frankenthaler at Kunstmuseum Basel

Kunstmuseum Basel has opened a major exhibition of Helen Frankenthaler's work, running from April 18 to August 23, 2026, featuring over 50 large-format pieces spanning six decades. The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation loaned 37 works for the show. The article also notes recent auction results, including Christie's offering of 'The Last Minute in April' (1974) for an estimated $2–3 million, and Sotheby's sales of 'St. John' (1971) for $2.1085 million and 'Perseus' (1983) for $2.804 million. Previous European exhibitions of Frankenthaler's work are listed, including shows at Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Museum Folkwang, Palazzo Strozzi, and Museum Reinhard Ernst.

NGMA Delhi and Drents Museum bring Amrita Sher-Gil to the Netherlands

The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Delhi has partnered with the Drents Museum in the Netherlands to present a landmark exhibition of works by modernist painter Amrita Sher-Gil. Titled "Amrita Sher-Gil – Europe Belongs to Picasso, India Belongs to Me," the show marks the first time her art has been displayed in the Netherlands. NGMA Director General Dr. Sanjeev Kishor Goutam loaned 48 masterpieces for the exhibition, which includes nearly 60 paintings and photographs exploring Sher-Gil’s life and philosophy. The exhibition runs from May 14 to September 20, 2026, at the Drents Museum in Assen.

Spring Auction Photography

The German auction house Lempertz is set to host its spring photography auction, featuring 70 high-caliber works from the renowned collection of Miami-based philanthropist Martin Z. Margulies. This selection emphasizes socially relevant and humanistic photography, highlighted by a significant 76-image portfolio by Danny Lyon titled 'Conversation with the Dead,' which documents Texas prison life in the 1960s. The collection also spans influential American movements such as the New Topographic Movement and New Color Photography, featuring works by Lee Friedlander and Stephen Shore.

Remembering Willie Valentine, Marjane Satrapi, and John Claridge

This week's In Memoriam column honors five figures from the visual art world: Valentine Willie (1954–2026), a champion of Southeast Asian art who founded Valentine Willie Fine Art and helped organize the landmark traveling survey 'Faith + The City'; Marjane Satrapi (1969–2026), the Iranian-French artist and graphic novelist best known for her graphic novel 'Persepolis' (2000), which was adapted into an Oscar-nominated animated film; Khoo Sui Hoe (1939–2026), a celebrated Malaysian painter whose surrealistic works are held in major museum collections; John Claridge (1944–2026), a British photographer renowned for his intimate black-and-white portraits of London's East End; and Saâd Hassani (1948–2026), a Moroccan painter influenced by Art Brut and the Casablanca School.

Blue mushrooms, shy trees and glowing seas: Beaker Street science photography prize – in pictures

The article showcases the 12 finalists of the Beaker Street science photography prize, featuring images of blue bioluminescent seas, shy tree canopies, native wasps, and glowing mushrooms. The photographs will be exhibited at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery during the Beaker Street festival from August 6 to 17.

Coming Forth into Presence

Woody De Othello presents 'coming forth by day', an immersive solo exhibition at Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) featuring ceramic and wood sculptures, tiled wall works, and a monumental bronze installation. The Miami-born artist transforms everyday objects like mirrors, clocks, and telephones into anthropomorphic forms that carry emotional residue and draw on diasporic African spiritual traditions, including the concept of nkisi. The exhibition's title references the ancient Egyptian Book of Coming Forth by Day, and the show runs until 28 June 2026.

Willie Birch: Stories to Tell

The California African American Museum presents 'Willie Birch: Stories to Tell,' a sweeping retrospective spanning over five decades of the artist's career, from the late 1960s to the present. The exhibition features Birch's paintings, papier-mâché sculptures, charcoal drawings, and installations, all rooted in his exploration of Black cultural memory, community life in New Orleans, and what he calls 'retentions'—fragments of African heritage persisting across generations. Organized chronologically, the show highlights Birch's evolving visual language and his commitment to storytelling as a form of social practice.

The Louvre Heist Is Coming to a Cinema Near You

French publishing house Flammarion has sold the film rights for a feature adaptation of the 2025 Louvre jewel heist, in which thieves stole France's crown jewels worth over $100 million from the Apollo Gallery in broad daylight. French director Romain Gavras will direct the film, inspired by the investigative book "Main basse sur le Louvre" (2026) co-written by journalists from Le Parisien, Le Monde, and Paris Match. Documentary rights have also been sold to a British producer, even as the five suspects await trial and the stolen jewels remain missing.

AGAINST "SEX AND THE CITY": FÉLIX GONZÁLEZ-TORRES, BORIS TORRES, CARLOS MOTTA AND RAÚL DE NIEVES AGAINST THE MYTH OF NEW YORK

EN CONTRA DE “SEX AND THE CITY”: FÉLIX GONZÁLEZ-TORRES, BORIS TORRES, CARLOS MOTTA Y RAÚL DE NIEVES FRENTE AL MITO DE NUEVA YORK

This essay examines how four queer Latin American artists—Félix González-Torres, Boris Torres, Carlos Motta, and Raúl de Nieves—experienced New York City as a complex, ambivalent space, contrasting their realities with the glamorous, aspirational myth popularized by the TV series *Sex and the City*. For these migrants, New York was neither a promised land nor merely a site of exploitation; it was a place where desires suppressed in their home countries could find expression, yet also a terrain of constant negotiation with identity, precarity, exclusion, and belonging. The article traces how each artist navigated the city's social, economic, and political tensions while producing work that kept Latin America present as memory, materiality, and conflict.

Le Louvre choisit son entrée côté colonnade

Le Louvre has selected a joint proposal by Studios Architecture Paris and Selldorf Architects for its new entrance via the Perrault colonnade, part of the 'Louvre Nouvelle Renaissance' plan. The project, announced by Emmanuel Macron on January 28, 2025, aims to create a new eastern access to relieve overcrowding at the Pyramid, with two underground entrances, vegetated moats, new services, and a dedicated space for the Mona Lisa. The selection was announced by Culture Minister Catherine Pégard on May 18, despite controversies over funding, heritage constraints, a theft in the Galerie d'Apollon on October 19, 2025, and the departure of museum president Laurence des Cars.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Repatriates Two Khmer Sculptures to Cambodia

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has repatriated two sandstone Khmer sculptures to Cambodia: a 10th-century guardian deity (rākṣasa) from the Prasat Chen temple at Koh Ker and a 7th-century lintel featuring a kirtimukha dragon. The returns follow an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg into the late dealer Doris Wiener and her daughter Nancy Wiener, who pleaded guilty to trafficking looted artifacts in 2021. The sculptures were seized by the DA's office this year and formally transferred to Cambodia alongside a third sculpture surrendered by a private collector. The Met has previously returned looted objects to Cambodia in 2013 and 2023, linked to investigations into trafficker Douglas Latchford.

Ruth Borgenicht Links Thousands of Ceramic Rings in Elaborate Chainmail Sculptures

New Jersey-based artist and educator Ruth Borgenicht creates intricate ceramic sculptures that resemble chainmail, linking thousands of hand-formed stoneware rings into wall-hung and tabletop works. Inspired by a visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art's medieval exhibition nearly four decades ago, Borgenicht combines her background in mathematics with meticulous ceramic craftsmanship to produce pieces that are often kinetic, tapestry-like, or biomorphic, such as her 'Centipedes' series. She is currently preparing for an exhibition at NL=US Art in Rotterdam, opening in February 2027, which will incorporate 3D printing.

Dépendance, Maverick Brussels Gallery, Calls It Quits

Dépendance, the adventurous Brussels gallery known for its conceptually rigorous program, is closing after 23 years. Founded in 2003 by lapsed artist Michael Callies and banker-turned-collector Stephan Jaax, the gallery operated a single location in Brussels, supporting about 30 critically acclaimed artists including Josef Strau, Ed Atkins, Allison Katz, Oscar Tuazon, and Jana Euler. It maintained a modest art fair schedule of five or six per year. The gallery's final shows—by ReschWilleit at its project space View and by Alexandra Metcalf at the main space—close June 27, though the gallery remains reachable until August 2026.

‘The Edward Hopper of the Black Country’: the photographer whose epic shots captured Sikh life in Walsall

Billy Dosanjh's exhibition 'Paths You Walk' at the New Art Gallery Walsall features epic photographic reconstructions of Sikh life in Walsall during the 1960s-70s, using local residents as models and oral histories collected with a National Heritage Lottery Fund grant. The images capture Punjabi migrants working in foundries, socializing in pubs and cafes, and navigating the harsh winter of 1962-63, blending documentary authenticity with cinematic beauty reminiscent of Edward Hopper and Jeff Wall.

Mondrian Estate Teams With One-Time NFT Sensation Doodles

The estate of Piet Mondrian has partnered with Doodles, a web3 entertainment company known for its once-popular NFT avatars, to release a series of digital collectibles. The collaboration remixes five of Mondrian's iconic works—including *Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow* (1930) and *Victory Boogie Woogie* (1942–44)—by replacing his primary colors with pastel hues and inserting cartoon characters into his grid compositions. The NFTs are being sold on OpenSea starting June 3, with buyers also receiving physical prints and additional digital collectibles via the VeVe app.

Tiwani Contemporary, Major African Art Gallery, Is Closing Its Doors

Tiwani Contemporary, a leading gallery for contemporary African art and its diaspora, has permanently closed its London location and paused operations at its Lagos outpost. Founder Maria Varnava cited financial challenges, rising operational costs, and a difficult market for contemporary art as reasons for the closure. The gallery, founded in 2011 and named after a Yoruba phrase meaning "it belongs to us," had expanded significantly in recent years, including a two-story space on Cork Street in 2023 and a 2,000-square-foot Lagos space in 2022. Its roster included artists such as Alicia Henry, Dawit L. Petros, Umar Rashid, and Theo Eshetu, and it previously represented Joy Labinjo, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Kapwani Kiwanga, Simone Leigh, and Michaela Yearwood-Dan. The gallery was a regular participant at major fairs including Frieze, 1-54, Art Basel Miami Beach, and Art X Lagos, and had been scheduled for Liste in Basel before withdrawing.

Emerige ouvre un nouveau centre d’art

Emerige Group has opened a new art center called "Le Large" on Île Seguin in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. The 10,000-square-meter building, designed by RCR Arquitectes and CALQ, features 2,000 square meters of exhibition space and will showcase contemporary art, primarily by artists working in France. The center is free for visitors under 26 and is part of a larger cultural development called Pointe des Arts, which includes a cinema, a sculpture park, and a hotel. The inaugural exhibition, "Moteur imaginaire," curated by Cecilia Alemani, pays homage to the Renault factories that once occupied the island.

Saving Alice’s Adventures in New York. Her Mural Traveled a Rabbit Hole Too.

The Museum of the City of New York has opened the exhibition “Another Wonderland: Abram Champanier’s Alice Mural,” featuring 16 painted panels that form the only surviving Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) mural originally created for a hospital children’s ward. The mural, based on Lewis Carroll’s *Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland*, was painted by artist Abram Champanier and has been preserved and reassembled for public display.

Art Gallery Shows to See in June

Will Heinrich reviews several art gallery shows in Los Angeles for June, including Charles Ray’s strangely lifelike sculptures, James Harrison’s flower-themed works, and a group show. The dispatch highlights the diversity and vitality of the city’s current exhibition scene.

For the first time in 400 years, Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus is complete

Per la prima volta in 400 anni il Codice Atlantico di Leonardo da Vinci è completo

The Museo Galileo in Florence has digitally reunited Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus for the first time in 400 years, reversing a 16th-century ideological division imposed by sculptor Pompeo Leoni. Leoni had separated Leonardo's artistic drawings from his technical and scientific writings into two albums, with the technical portion (the Codex Atlanticus) remaining at the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan and the artistic section entering the UK's Royal Collection Trust. Using the digital platform Leonardotheka 2.0, the museum has reconstructed the original 1,119-page manuscript by studying dimensions, materials, and watermarks, recovering lost works such as a horse drawing linked to the equestrian monument for Francesco Sforza.

The major exhibitions to see in Basel in spring 2026 (also during the Art Basel fair)

Le grandi mostre da vedere a Basilea nella primavera 2026 (anche durante la fiera Art Basel)

The article previews major art exhibitions in Basel and its surroundings during the spring of 2026, timed around the Art Basel fair. Highlights include a large Helen Frankenthaler retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Basel, the thematic show "The First Homosexuals" exploring queer identity in art from 1869 to 1939, Cao Fei's first solo exhibition in Switzerland at the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Pierre Huyghe's site-specific show at the Fondation Beyeler, and Angelica Mesiti's "Reverb" at the Tinguely Museum. The guide also mentions emerging artists and a special path dedicated to color in art and life.

In Rome there is an exhibition where painting wants to become an echo of the natural world

A Roma c’è una mostra in cui la pittura vuole diventare eco del mondo naturale

Imogen Allen, a British artist born in Newlyn, Cornwall in 1997, presents her solo exhibition 'Echo' at Monti8 in Rome. The show features her recent paintings that explore the relationship between human consciousness and the natural world, using enlarged, blurred depictions of plants, fungi, lichens, marine organisms, and butterfly wings. Allen, who graduated from Camberwell College of Arts in 2020, develops a pictorial language that oscillates between figuration and abstraction, inviting viewers into a sensory, almost synesthetic experience of nature.