calder sale art detective

An Alexander Calder mobile, *Big Horizontal Red* (1956), estimated at $5–7 million, is set for auction at Christie’s on May 12. The work’s provenance traces through Perls Galleries, the Texas Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, and a private New York collection, but a source reveals that its 1997 purchaser, Patricia Halterman, was the granddaughter of Magda Goebbels, wife of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Christie’s declined to comment on the consignors but stated it conducted careful evaluation and diligence.

'First-of-its kind' Houston park reveals 6 murals by local artists

Untitled Art, the contemporary art fair, is returning to Houston for its second edition this October. To kick off plans, the fair has commissioned two artist projects that will be unveiled at the city's 39th annual Art Car Parade.

Review: “50th Anniversary Exhibition Part I” at Moody Gallery, Houston

Moody Gallery in Houston opened “50th Anniversary Exhibition Part I” on September 13, showcasing 38 artworks by gallery-affiliated artists. The show is deliberately non-chronological and non-comprehensive, featuring works ranging from 2006 to 2025, including pieces by Melissa Miller, William “Bill” Steffy, Michael Kennaugh, Dan Sutherland, Pat Colville, Tracye Wear, Al Souza, and the collaborative MANUAL (Ed Hill & Suzanne Bloom). The exhibition spans three spaces and highlights the gallery’s eclectic, open-minded approach and its commitment to promoting Texas-based artists.

Where to see art in Houston now: 9 fun new exhibits opening in July

Nine new art exhibitions are opening in Houston in July, spanning traditional paintings, sculptures, high-tech immersive shows, and textile works. Highlights include Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin's "Town Meeting 1978-2028" at Art League Houston, which uses wind-drawing techniques to explore pre-Stonewall queer histories; Jeffly Gabriela Molina's "Fragmentos de un sueño que yo también soñé," focusing on immigrant experiences of home and memory; and Lin Qiqing's "Every Fiber of Their Bodies," weaving narratives of gender, immigration, and human relationships. The Menil Collection also re-installs René Magritte paintings after their return from a major retrospective in Sydney.

Museum Exhibitions Coming to East & South Texas in Spring 2026

Several museums in East and South Texas have announced their spring 2026 exhibition schedules. The Beeville Art Museum will open a solo show of landscape painter William Anzalone in January. The Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi will present 'In Nature’s Studio: Two Centuries of American Landscape Painting,' a traveling exhibition from the Reading Public Museum. The Longview Museum of Fine Arts will host a retrospective of photographer Frank Armstrong. The International Museum of Art and Science in McAllen will open three shows: 'Piñatabstract' by Josuè Rawmirez, 'Voces del Arte Popular' featuring Mexican folk art, and 'Aviary,' a bird-themed exhibition. South Texas College will also present two exhibitions in January and February, including Leila Hernández's 'The Lessons of the Empress.'

Summer Exhibitions Coming to West Texas & the Panhandle

Art galleries and institutions across West Texas and the Panhandle have announced their summer exhibition schedules. Highlights include the El Paso Museum of Art's "From the Collection: Portraiture, 1903-2021," featuring works by César Martínez, Edward Curtis, and Andy Warhol; Ballroom Marfa's solo show "Raven Halfmoon: Flags of Our Mothers" with colossal stoneware sculptures; and The Grace Museum in Abilene's "Memory Painters: The Art of Memories," showcasing Texas intuitive painters. Other venues include the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts in Lubbock, and the Museum of the Southwest in Midland, with exhibitions spanning portraiture, student art, memory painting, and immersive installations.

History of soccer exhibition open at Arlington museum ahead of FIFA World Cup

The Arlington Museum of Art has opened "More Than a Match," a large-scale exhibition exploring the history of soccer through World Cup memorabilia, historic jerseys, maps, and contemporary art. The show features items on loan from the National Soccer Hall of Fame, the University of Texas at Arlington's Special Collections, and the National Football Museum in Manchester, England. Highlights include a replica of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Trophy, a jersey worn by Pelé, and artworks by Andy Warhol, Kehinde Wiley, and Darío Escobar, as well as a mural by Dallas-based artist Colton Canava depicting Lionel Messi, Jude Bellingham, and Virgil van Dijk as saint-like figures. The exhibition runs through August 2, 2026, and is located near AT&T Stadium, which will host nine World Cup matches.

Don Brown & Max Cole’s art in ‘Postcards From Home’ exhibit

The Michelson Museum of Art in Marshall, Texas, recently debuted 'Postcards from Home,' a collaborative exhibition featuring the works of regional artists Don Brown and Max Cole. The opening reception drew a significant local crowd, including three generations of Cole’s descendants, to celebrate the legacy of two figures who captured the landscapes and history of East Texas. The show, which runs through July 4, was organized in partnership with the Harrison County Historical Museum and the Meadows Museum of Art.

photographer maryam eisler alexei riboud interview

Photographers Maryam Eisler and Alexei Riboud, former high school classmates in Paris nearly 40 years ago, reunited in 2023 through a WhatsApp group and embarked on a creative challenge: photographing the same American Southwest landscapes side by side without sharing their images until the trip ended. The result is "West West," a book and exhibition at Pierre Yovanovitch's Manhattan gallery (June 12–July 11), curated by historian Carrie Scott and gallerist Howard Greenberg, featuring their work alongside iconic photographers like Diane Arbus, Joel Meyerowitz, and Ansel Adams.

Martha Invitational 2026

The Martha Invitational returns for its second edition on May 29–30, 2026, at RULE Gallery in Marfa, Texas. Originally conceived in 2023 by Marfa-based artists Martha Hughes, Diana Simard, and Leslie Wilkes as a small, self-organized, low-budget exhibition in Hughes' studio, the event expands this year to include a fourth artist, Bettina Landgrebe. The show features works by all four artists, with Hughes presenting selections from her Garden series, Landgrebe showing her Strange Bloom assemblages, Simard offering landscape-inspired paintings and prints, and Wilkes exhibiting geometric paintings. The opening reception takes place Friday evening from 5–7 PM, with artists present both days.

Ayala Malls turns Makati into an open-air gallery with Art Walk rollout

Ayala Malls has launched Art Walk by Ayala Land, a public art initiative transforming several of its Makati shopping centers into open-air galleries from January 30 to February 8. The program places contemporary artworks by Filipino and international artists in high-traffic mall environments, featuring large-scale installations, digital works, performance art, and wearable pieces across locations like Ayala Malls Circuit, Greenbelt, Glorietta, and One Ayala.

People and places

Elisa Contemporary Art Riverdale Gallery will open a new group exhibition titled "People and places" on May 20, 2026, running through September 2. The show features works by six artists: Betty Ball, Carol Bennett, Sherry Karver, Mitch McGee, Dean Moore, and Jeffrey Palladini, with a focus on uplifting summer themes including water scenes, poolside figures, and bright yellow elements. The exhibition includes new works from Ball's Land & Sea series and introduces Sherry Karver as a new gallery artist.

Exhibition at the Sarasota Art Museum uses shadows to explore the way identity changes based on experiences

Sarasota Art Museum presents 'Penumbra,' a solo exhibition by textile artist Maria A. Guzman Capron. The show features 10 works, including traditional wall hangings and a suspended 15-foot textile sculpture titled 'Sombra,' all exploring how identity shifts based on context and experience. Curator Lacie Barbour explains that the title refers to the penumbra—a liminal space between light and dark—serving as a metaphor for the multiplicity of identities. Capron, who was born in Milan to Peruvian and Colombian parents and later moved to Texas, draws on her own cross-cultural experiences, using hand-dyed, painted, and screen-printed fabrics to create layered portraits of multi-faceted figures.

American Miners Photo Exhibition 'Beneath the Surface' Tour: National Gallery (DC)-Milwaukee Art Museum-Amon Carter Museum (Fort Worth, TX)

미국의 광부들 사진전 'Beneath the Surface' 순회: 내셔널 갤러리(DC)-밀워키미술관-에이먼카터미술관(포트워스, TX)

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., will present 'Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography' from May 23 to August 23, 2026, the first exhibition to focus exclusively on the relationship between resource extraction and American photography. Featuring 150 photographs by over 100 artists—including Richard Avedon, Walker Evans, Lewis Hine, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks—the show spans nearly 200 years, from early daguerreotypes of the California Gold Rush to contemporary large-scale works. After its Washington run, the exhibition will travel to the Milwaukee Art Museum (October 23, 2026–January 18, 2027) and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas (February 14–May 9, 2027).

Museum Exhibitions Opening This Summer in Central Texas

Museums across Central Texas are opening a slate of summer exhibitions, including the Blanton Museum of Art's "Art in Every Corner: The Works Progress Administration (1935-1943)," featuring prints and paintings by Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, and Dorothea Lange. The San Antonio Museum of Art will present "Microhistories of the Andes" with Andean artifacts, while the McNay Art Museum hosts "Garden Party: Nature on Paper" with works by René Magritte and Winslow Homer. Women & Their Work in Austin will showcase "MARK," a group drawing exhibition by 25 Texas women artists.

In conversation with Mia curator Tom Rassieur: 1940s Germany, modern art and its mirrors today

The Minneapolis Institute of Art has opened a major exhibition, 'Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910-1945: Masterworks from the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin.' The show, curated by Tom Rassieur, presents a chronological journey through German art from the Expressionist era through the World Wars, featuring key works by artists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Vassily Kandinsky, and Franz Marc. It highlights groups like Der Blaue Reiter and uses deliberate pairings, such as portraits of Jewish art dealers by Otto Dix and Lovis Corinth, to explore themes of societal tension, propaganda, and identity.

Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World

The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation has announced an exhibition titled "Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World," focusing on the German Expressionist painter Gabriele Münter. The show will explore her distinctive approach to landscape and portraiture, highlighting her role within the Blue Rider movement and her contributions to modern art.

Texas' First Modern Art Museum Is In A Gorgeous San Antonio Colonial Mansion

The McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, is highlighted as the state's first modern art museum, uniquely housed in a 1929 Spanish Colonial Revival-style mansion. Founded in 1954 by collector Marion Koogler McNay, the institution manages a collection of over 20,000 objects, including masterworks by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Georgia O'Keeffe, set across 25 acres of landscaped gardens.

Kimbell Art Museum’s free community programs this spring

The Kimbell Art Museum has announced an extensive lineup of free community programming for the Spring 2026 season. The schedule features a diverse array of events including gallery discussions, hands-on art-making workshops for children, live music performances, and scholarly lectures. A significant portion of the programming is designed to complement the special exhibition, "The Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum, Jerusalem," through documentary screenings and expert-led talks.

Talking Texas Art: The Panhandle

Glasstire has announced the second installment of its "Talking Texas Art" panel series, scheduled for April 23, 2026, at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (LHUCA) in Lubbock. Part of the publication’s 25th-anniversary celebrations, the event focuses on the Texas Panhandle's creative landscape. The panel features prominent regional figures including Judy Tedford Deaton of The Grace Museum, Jon Revett and Amy Von Lintel of West Texas A&M University, and Charles Adams of CASP, moderated by Glasstire’s William Sarradet.

Monet, Picasso & More: Houston's Newest Gallery Is Now Open And Is Completely FREE To Visit

Opera Gallery has officially opened its first Texas location in Houston’s River Oaks district, marking the 16th global space for the Singapore-founded network. The inaugural exhibition, running through April 19, 2026, features a high-caliber selection of Modern and Post-War masterworks by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and Marc Chagall alongside contemporary pieces by Yayoi Kusama and Kehinde Wiley. The gallery is free to the public and intends to host several curated exhibitions annually.

Houston Has a New Art Gallery with Picassos—and It’s Free

Opera Gallery has officially opened its first Texas location in Houston’s River Oaks District, debuting with a high-caliber exhibition featuring original works by masters such as Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and Yayoi Kusama. The space functions as a hybrid between a commercial gallery and a museum, offering the public free access to museum-quality pieces that are typically held in private collections or behind glass.

Andrea Karnes, Museum Curator

Andrea Karnes, a longtime curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, provides an inside look at the evolving role of a contemporary art curator. Having spent her entire career at the institution, Karnes describes the transition from being a traditional 'caretaker of objects' to an intellectual architect who constructs arguments through exhibitions. She details the multi-year process of organizing shows, which involves extensive studio visits, international travel to biennials, and complex negotiations with collectors to secure loans for major retrospectives.

New York art exhibit highlights Port Arthur's Robert Rauschenberg

The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is hosting a major retrospective titled "Robert Rauschenberg: Spreading Viaducts," which places a significant focus on the artist's formative years in his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas. The exhibition explores how the industrial landscape and unique coastal environment of the Gulf Coast influenced Rauschenberg’s revolutionary approach to materials and his development of the "Combine" paintings.

Blanton show reimagines American modernism through private collection of H-E-B chairman Charles Butt

The Blanton Museum of Art has unveiled a new exhibition featuring approximately 80 works of American modernism drawn from the private collection of H-E-B chairman Charles Butt. Curated by Carter Foster, the show eschews a "trophy collection" approach in favor of intimate, transitional works by canonical artists such as Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, and Alma Thomas. The exhibition is organized thematically, focusing on urban life, precisionism, and the evolution toward abstraction, presenting these works together in a single gallery for the first time.

Opera Gallery Houston Grand Opening

Opera Gallery has officially opened its 14th international location in Houston’s River Oaks District, marking a significant expansion of its global footprint. The new space debuted with a high-profile presentation featuring masterworks by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and Marc Chagall, alongside contemporary pieces by Yayoi Kusama and Kehinde Wiley. Led by Director Gregory Lahmi and Deputy Director Kara Przybyl McIver, the gallery plans to host several curated exhibitions annually focusing on Modern and Post-War art.

UNT cancels prominent street artist's exhibit on campus featuring ICE-related work

The University of North Texas (UNT) abruptly canceled and removed the exhibition 'Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá' by street artist Victor 'Marka27' Quiñonez from its College of Visual Arts and Design gallery. The university terminated its loan agreement with Boston University Art Galleries, which organized the show, and covered the gallery windows with brown paper without providing a public reason for the cancellation.

The Kimbell Art Museum presents The Holy Sepulcher: Treasures From the Terra Sancta Museum, Jerusalem

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth is presenting 'The Holy Sepulcher: Treasures From the Terra Sancta Museum, Jerusalem,' an exhibition of opulent 17th-century liturgical objects from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The collection, featuring gifts from European rulers like King Louis XIII of France and King Philip IV of Spain, includes gold, silver, and jewel-encrusted pieces such as vestments, a throne, and a sanctuary lamp, and is on view from March 15 to June 28.

Art Notes: Hood Museum's exhibitions reflect on America's 250 years

The Hood Museum of Art in Hanover, New Hampshire, has mounted a dozen exhibitions drawn entirely from its own collection to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence. Curators began planning in 2022, opting for a series of smaller, collaborative shows rather than a single large exhibition. Highlights include "Always Already: Abstraction in the United States," featuring works by Frank Stella and Nampeyo; "American Pop," with Ed Ruscha's "Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas" and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith's "The Rancher"; and "Art Histories/Art Futures," which pairs May Stevens' "Big Daddy Paper Doll" with Michael Naranjo's "He's my brother." The exhibitions reflect the museum's ongoing effort to include art and artists historically left out of the art-historical canon.

National Museum of African American History and Culture To Open Exhibition Featuring Collections From Five HBCUs

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) will open a new traveling exhibition titled “At the Vanguard: Making and Saving History at HBCUs” on January 16, 2026. The show features artifacts, artwork, historical documents, and multimedia from five historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs): Clark Atlanta University, Florida A&M University, Jackson State University, Texas Southern University, and Tuskegee University. Highlights include first editions of Margaret Walker’s works, Tuskegee Institute pottery, early scientific journals, archival photographs by Doris Derby and Chester Higgins, and a rare color video of George Washington Carver.