Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule Apr 29, 2026 visibility 26 link 6 artists

Duo Who Sold Fake Warhol, Banksy Plead Guilty in $2M Fraud

A father and daughter from New Jersey, Erwin Bankowski and Karoline Bankowska, pleaded guilty in federal court on April 28 to running a counterfeit art scheme that sold fake works attributed to Andy Warhol, Banksy, Pablo Picasso, Richard Mayhew, and others. Between 2020 and 2025, they placed over 200 counterfeit pieces, many made by an artist in Poland, into galleries and auction houses across the U.S., defrauding buyers of at least $2 million. They fabricated provenance, forged gallery stamps and certificates of authenticity, and misrepresented Native American heritage works, violating the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. They face up to 20 years in prison, restitution of at least $1.9 million, and deportation after serving their sentences.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 27, 2026 visibility 18 link 8 artists

The Art Trade Is Taking Calculated Risks With A.I.

The article examines how the art trade is cautiously experimenting with artificial intelligence, noting that while AI tools are being developed to attract newer collectors, the industry remains heavily reliant on trust and personal relationships that technology cannot replicate. It also reports on Fair Warning's new 'No Warning' sealed-bidding auction format, reflecting a rise in private auctions, and highlights a Sotheby's New York sale of the Jean and Terry de Gunzburg collection that set a U.S. record for design auctions at $96 million, led by a set of 15 mirrors by Claude Lalanne for Yves Saint Laurent that sold for $33.5 million.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 25, 2026 visibility 23 link 5 artists

How Art Firms Are—or Should Be—Using A.I. Right Now

Art firms are increasingly experimenting with artificial intelligence, but concrete use cases remain limited and industry-specific tools are still in their infancy. A new partnership between Bonhams and tech company ARTDAI aims to apply AI to market analytics, valuation, and specialist research, while companies like Artsy and Artnet are integrating AI capabilities into their platforms. Industry experts, including former Art Basel chief Marc Spiegler, note that the art market's small size has historically discouraged tech development, but AI now makes high-performance tools accessible to smaller businesses.

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article news schedule Apr 22, 2026 visibility 17 link 5 artists

Berlin Museum Oversees Digital Resurrection of Hundreds of Paintings Destroyed During World War II

Berlin's Gemäldegalerie is digitally reconstructing hundreds of Old Master paintings by artists like Rubens, Veronese, van Dyck, and Caravaggio that were destroyed in fires near the end of World War II. The project uses high-resolution scans of glass negatives, primarily photographed by Gustav Schwarz between 1925 and 1944, to create detailed online renderings that will be publicly accessible for viewing and download later this year.

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article local schedule Apr 22, 2026 visibility 17 link 11 artists

Pittsburgh Shows Off New Public Art Projects in Advance of NFL Draft

Pittsburgh has unveiled over 35 new public art installations across its downtown area in preparation for the influx of visitors for the NFL Draft. The projects, funded by the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, include light installations, murals, and window displays by local artists, designed to revitalize empty storefronts and underused blocks.

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article news schedule Apr 22, 2026 visibility 18 link 5 artists

Caravaggio and Rubens works destroyed by fire in Second World War are brought back to (digital) life

The Gemäldegalerie in Berlin has completed the digitization of its high-resolution glass-negative archive, which documents hundreds of Old Master paintings destroyed in a fire at the end of the Second World War. The collection includes lost works by Caravaggio, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Paolo Veronese, which were stored in a flak tower for protection and burned in May 1945.

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article news schedule Apr 21, 2026 visibility 15 link 1 artist

Has A.I. Solved the Mystery of This El Greco Painting?

New research using artificial intelligence has challenged the long-held belief that El Greco's altarpiece *The Baptism of Christ* was largely painted by his son and workshop assistants. A machine-learning model called Patch, developed by researchers at Western Reserve University, analyzed the painting's microscopic surface texture and found underlying connections suggesting El Greco himself painted the majority of the work, with only a small region at the bottom attributed to other hands.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 17, 2026 visibility 15 link 9 artists

Lost Bob Dylan Lyric Sheet Resurfaces After 60 Years—and Other Rare Finds Heating Up the Market

A rare, typewritten lyric sheet for Bob Dylan’s song “I’m Not There” has resurfaced after being hidden for nearly 60 years inside a first-edition book of poetry by Allen Ginsberg. The document, which was discovered by a book dealer handling the estate of Sally Grossman, is set to be auctioned by Omega Auctions with an estimate of £20,000–£40,000. Other high-profile collectibles hitting the block include Stephen Curry’s game-worn sneakers at Sotheby’s and a signed Albert Einstein etching.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 14, 2026 visibility 37 link 3 artists

Marc Restellini’s ‘atom bomb’ of a Modigliani catalogue raisonné is finally published

After nearly three decades of legal disputes and intense research, Marc Restellini has finally published his definitive catalogue raisonné of Amedeo Modigliani’s oil paintings. Released through the Institut Restellini and Yale University Press, the six-volume work utilizes forensic scientific analysis, spectrometry, and archival evidence to authenticate the artist's oeuvre. The publication includes 100 newly authenticated works while excluding 15 previously accepted paintings due to a lack of definitive evidence, marking a shift from connoisseurship to a fact-based methodology.

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trending_up market schedule Apr 13, 2026 visibility 28 link 10 artists

The Personal Collection of ‘Last Surrealist’ Enrico Donati Heads to Auction

Sotheby’s has announced the sale of the personal art collection of Enrico Donati, often referred to as the 'last Surrealist.' The 45-lot collection, titled "A Night in May," features works amassed by Donati and his wife Adele, including a rare 1909 Cubist portrait by Pablo Picasso, 'Arlequin (Buste),' estimated at $40 million. The auction marks the first time these intimate pieces—many acquired through direct exchanges with friends like Marcel Duchamp and Yves Tanguy—have been offered since the artist's death in 2008 and his wife's passing last year.

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gavel restitution schedule Apr 7, 2026 visibility 16 link 8 artists

$25 Million Modigliani Goes to Jewish Heir in Landmark Restitution Case

A New York Supreme Court judge has ruled that the estate of Jewish art dealer Oscar Stettiner is the rightful owner of Amedeo Modigliani’s 1918 painting "Seated Man With a Cane." The decision concludes an 11-year legal battle led by Stettiner’s grandson, Philippe Maestracci, against billionaire art dealer David Nahmad. The court found that the painting was unlawfully seized by the Nazis after Stettiner fled Paris in 1939 and that subsequent sales, including the 1996 purchase by Nahmad at Christie’s, did not extinguish the original owner's rights.

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gavel restitution schedule Apr 6, 2026 visibility 16 link 5 artists

nahmad lawsuit nazi looted modigliani 372020

The estate of Jewish art dealer Oscar Stettiner has filed a new lawsuit in the New York State Supreme Court against the Nahmad family, seeking the restitution of Amedeo Modigliani’s 1918 painting "Seated Man With a Cane." The suit alleges that the $25 million portrait was looted by the Nazis in Paris and is currently held by the International Art Center, which the plaintiffs claim is a shell company controlled by the Nahmads. This legal action follows a 2012 dismissal of a similar claim by Stettiner’s grandson, Philippe Maestracci, due to a lack of standing.

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gavel restitution schedule Apr 6, 2026 visibility 15 link 6 artists

david nahmad denies modigliani nazi loot 517082

Art collector David Nahmad has publicly denied allegations that Amedeo Modigliani’s "Seated Man with a Cane" (1918) is Nazi-looted property. Following revelations from the Panama Papers that Nahmad is the true owner of the painting via the International Art Center, he defended his provenance, claiming the work sought by the heirs of Jewish art dealer Oscar Stettiner is a different painting entirely. Nahmad asserted that if the work is definitively proven to be looted, he will return it, but he currently maintains that the historical documentation regarding a 1944 sale at Drouot refers to a self-portrait, not the work in his possession.

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article news schedule Mar 26, 2026 visibility 15 link 2 artists

The Art Consultancy Firm Saying No to the Attention Economy

Approximately Blue (AB), a contemporary art consultancy and brokerage, is deliberately operating without a public-facing brand, social media presence, or physical address. Founded by François-Luc Giraldeau and Emily Johnson, the firm focuses exclusively on primary market fine art prints and multiples, prioritizing deep research and direct, substantive relationships with collectors over visibility and hype.

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museum exhibitions schedule Mar 26, 2026 visibility 24 link 1 artist

Who owns the seas? Shahzia Sikander's new animation on world trade beamed onto M+ museum facade

Artist Shahzia Sikander's new animated film, '3 to 12 Nautical Miles,' is being projected onto the digital façade of the M+ museum in Hong Kong. The work uses the historical expansion of territorial waters from 3 to 12 nautical miles as a framework to explore themes of maritime sovereignty, surveillance, and the legacy of colonial trade.

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trending_up market schedule Mar 26, 2026 visibility 18 link 4 artists

Dark Mode: Inside the Art Market’s Private Auction Playbook

A secret, invitation-only auction for a single Andy Warhol portrait of Brigitte Bardot was held at a private bar in New York on November 19, 2025, during the major public auction week. Organized by the online platform Fair Warning and presided over by former Christie's auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen, the event attracted elite collectors and resulted in a $16.7 million sale, making it the most expensive Warhol of the season.

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article news schedule Mar 25, 2026 visibility 20 link 3 artists

Long-Lost Photos of Chelsea Hotel Resurface, Revealing a Vanished New York

A collection of over 100 photographs by German photographer Albert Scopin, taken while he lived at New York's legendary Chelsea Hotel from 1969 to 1971, has been rediscovered and published in a new book. The images, long thought lost after being sent to a German magazine in the 1970s, were unexpectedly recovered by a gallerist in 2016 and capture the hotel's eclectic residents and vibrant countercultural scene.

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candle obituary schedule Mar 25, 2026 visibility 23 link 3 artists

egidio marzona dead avant garde collector archive 1234777644

Egidio Marzona, the influential German-Italian collector, publisher, and patron, has died at the age of 81 in Berlin. Renowned for his intellectual approach to collecting, Marzona focused on the 20th-century avant-garde, including movements such as Bauhaus, Dada, Fluxus, and Arte Povera. Unlike traditional collectors, he prioritized the preservation of archives, letters, and ephemera alongside physical artworks, viewing the "paper trail of ideas" as essential to understanding artistic history.

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museum exhibitions schedule Mar 23, 2026 visibility 23 link 4 artists

British artist Simon Fujiwara’s new Luxembourg exhibition tackles Guernica, syphilis and the death of a Japanese pornstar

British artist Simon Fujiwara has opened a major career survey, 'A Whole New World,' at Mudam Luxembourg. The exhibition features a reinterpretation of Picasso's *Guernica* using his cartoon character Who the Baer, alongside works addressing his personal experience with syphilis and a commemorative installation for Japanese gay porn star Koh Masaki. The show is structured as a thematic 'theme park' exploring contemporary issues.

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article news schedule Mar 16, 2026 visibility 17 link 2 artists

Newly Unearthed Letter Reveals Edvard Munch’s Influence on Paula Rego

A newly discovered 1951 letter reveals that a teenage Paula Rego was profoundly impressed by an Edvard Munch exhibition, specifically citing 'The Scream' and 'Inheritance.' This formative experience directly influenced her early work, such as her 1952 painting 'Drought,' which echoes Munch's style and themes. The letter, written to her mother, documents a pivotal artistic encounter she never publicly discussed.

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museum exhibitions schedule Mar 4, 2026 visibility 16 link 1 artist

frank lloyd wright martin house collecting ourselves 2749073

The Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo, a landmark of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie School architecture, has launched a new exhibition titled “Collecting Ourselves.” The show highlights the museum's decades-long, painstaking effort to track down and repatriate the original furniture and decorative objects designed specifically for the site. While the structural restoration of the complex was completed in 2017, the task of reuniting Wright’s holistic interior vision—including his iconic Barrel chairs and intricate art glass—remains an ongoing archival and curatorial challenge.

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trending_up market schedule Feb 5, 2026 visibility 11 link 3 artists

bob ross second bonhams auction 2736840

A trio of Bob Ross paintings sold for over $1 million at Bonhams' “Americana” auction on January 27, 2026, with proceeds benefiting American Public Television (APT). The top lot, *Change of Seasons* (1990), fetched $787,900—more than 13 times its high estimate—followed by *Babbling Brook* (1993) at $279,900 and *Valley View* (1990) at $203,700. The sale follows APT's record-breaking November auction and is part of a series of 24 Ross paintings to be offered throughout the year.

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trending_up market schedule Jan 29, 2026 visibility 15 link 4 artists

public television richer bob ross auction 1234771312

Three paintings by Bob Ross sold for up to thirteen times their high estimates at a Bonhams Skinner auction, raising $1.3 million for American Public Television. The top lot, 'Change of Seasons' (1990), painted live on his TV show, fetched $787,900, setting a new high for Ross at a traditional auction house.

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article news schedule Jan 20, 2026 visibility 13 link 3 artists

archeologists uncover vitruvius basilica italy 1234770292

Italian officials announced the discovery of a 2,000-year-old basilica attributed to the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, uncovered in the town of Fano (ancient Fanum Fortunae) and completed in 19 BCE. The structure, the only known building by Vitruvius, was found using his own descriptions from the treatise *De architectura*, with archaeologists led by Andrea Pessina confirming an "absolute match" after locating columns exactly where predicted. The discovery was hailed by Italy's culture minister Alessandro Giuli as "the Tutankhamun of the 21st century."

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article news schedule Jan 16, 2026 visibility 17 link 13 artists

joan mitchell foundation 2026 artists in residence 1234770065

The Joan Mitchell Foundation has announced the 31 artists selected for its 2026 residency program at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. The residencies, lasting six or 14 weeks across three seasons, will host no more than nine artists at a time, beginning February 2. The cohort includes 17 local New Orleans artists and participants from cities such as New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta, ranging in age from 27 to 75. Notable participants include Edra Soto, who also won a United States Artists Fellowship, and two leaders of New Orleans’s Black Masking Indian tradition, Kelly Pearson Boles and Efrem Z. Boles. The selection was made by a jury of artists, curators, and academics.

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article news schedule Jan 8, 2026 visibility 14 link 1 artist

leonardo da vinci dna finding 1234769273

Scientists from the Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project (LDVP) have extracted DNA from a chalk sketch titled *Holy Child*, which may be by Leonardo da Vinci. In a preprint paper posted Tuesday, researchers suggest genetic links between the artwork and a letter from one of Leonardo's cousins, indicating a shared Tuscan ancestry. However, the findings are preliminary and not yet peer-reviewed, with experts cautioning that proving a direct connection to Leonardo himself is extremely difficult due to the lack of confirmed DNA from the artist and the disputed attribution of the drawing.

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article news schedule Dec 23, 2025 visibility 18 link 4 artists

christmas identical new banksy murals london housing crisis 1234767781

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 22, 2025 visibility 19 link 6 artists

banksy new mural queens mews centrepoint london 2733570

A new Banksy mural appeared on a wall in west London on Monday, December 22, 2025, depicting two children in winter clothing lying on their backs and gazing at the sky. The stenciled artwork, located on Queen’s Mews in Bayswater near Notting Hill, was officially claimed by Banksy via Instagram. An identical version was also spotted outside the Centre Point tower in central London, though not yet claimed. The piece has sparked widespread speculation about its meaning, with interpretations ranging from a commentary on childhood imagination and wonder to a satirical critique of consumerism and the replacement of sacred values by utility.

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

amenhotep iii colossi of memnon restoration 2729898

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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trending_up market schedule Nov 29, 2025 visibility 12 link 6 artists

sothebys london lifts lid on its old master and 19th century evening sale with half of works unseen for a century 1234764098

Sotheby's London has announced the full lineup for its Old Master and 19th century evening sale on December 3, featuring 31 works defined by exceptional scholarly significance and rare discoveries. Half of the lots have been hidden from public view for over a century, and 12 have not appeared on the secondary market in 40 years. Top lots include Hans Eworth's portrait of Thomas Howard (estimate £3 million), Pieter Brueghel the Younger's The Census at Bethlehem (£5 million), a rediscovered Peter Paul Rubens oil sketch (£3 million), and a Rembrandt portrait of Saint John on Patmos (£7 million). The sale also includes works from the collection of Dr Hinrich Bischoff, such as Lucas van Valckenborch's Autumn: Landscape with Archduke Matthias of Austria (£800,000).

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