Art News. Vasari Codex

rate_review review schedule Jan 22, 2026 visibility 20 link 8 artists

Comment | Tate Britain’s Turner and Constable show got me thinking about Marxist art history

The author recounts traveling from Scotland to London to see Tate Britain's exhibition "Turner and Constable: Rivals and Originals," despite costly and slow train travel. The article also covers the Old Master sales at Sotheby's, Christie's, and Bonhams, noting mixed results: a Flemish triptych sold for £5.7m, a Hans Eworth portrait set a record at £3.2m, and a Gerrit Dou fetched £3.8m, while a Panini capriccio lost value since 2005.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Jan 19, 2026 visibility 22 link 6 artists

Winslow Homer’s mountaineer and Bob Ross's valley view: our pick of the January auctions

The article highlights five notable artworks heading to auction in January 2025, spanning sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonhams Skinner, and Heritage Auctions. Featured lots include Winslow Homer’s *A Mountain Climber Resting* (est. $1.5–2.5M) from the Max N. Berry Collection, Otobong Nkanga’s tapestry *The Pursuit of Bling: The Transformation* (est. £20,000–30,000), Bob Ross’s *Valley View* (est. $30,000–50,000), and Claes Oldenburg’s lithograph *Three Way Plug* (est. $3,000+). Each work comes with distinct provenance—from a Standard Oil heiress to a hardware pioneer—and reflects diverse market segments from blue-chip American painting to contemporary African art and pop-culture collectibles.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Jan 14, 2026 visibility 15 link 5 artists

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.

newspaper Valley News open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Jan 6, 2026 visibility 22 link 14 artists

In a ‘K-shaped’ economy, the art market's recovery could rely on the super-rich

Sotheby's and Christie's held a series of high-profile auctions in New York in late 2025, generating a combined $2.2 billion from major collections including the Leonard A. Lauder collection, the Cindy and Jay Pritzker collection, and the Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis collection. Star lots included Gustav Klimt's portrait of Elisabeth Lederer ($236.4m), a Vincent van Gogh still life ($62.7m), a Frida Kahlo self-portrait ($54.7m), and a Mark Rothko abstract ($62.2m). Despite these strong results, the total was still 30% below the equivalent sales in 2022, and the article notes a growing number of contemporary gallery closures in 2025.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Jan 5, 2026 visibility 25 link 13 artists, 2 galleries

How much should art cost? The pitfalls and paradoxes of pricing works

The article examines the current state of the art market, which is in its third consecutive year of contraction. It traces how low interest rates fueled speculative price inflation, leading to a boom in ultra-contemporary art that has now burst, with collectors shifting toward Old Masters. Dealers like Larry Gagosian are now advocating for lowering primary market prices, while private sales stall due to sellers' 'anchoring' to peak valuations. The piece highlights the disconnect between high prices and long-term value, using examples such as auction records being manipulated (e.g., Patrick Drahi's anonymous bidding on a Francis Bacon triptych) and the reality that most artworks in even celebrated collections depreciate.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Dec 19, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

A Calibrated Market: How 2025 Shaped the Landscape for Collectors in 2026

The article analyzes the art market in 2025, describing a year of divergence rather than a single trend. While aggregate sales remained below post-pandemic peaks, the year ended with a billion-dollar New York auction week, a record-setting Klimt portrait, and strong demand for exceptional works. Segments like Old Master auctions and the $1 million–$10 million band saw growth, while the ultra-contemporary segment struggled. Key events included the May marquee auctions in New York, the second edition of Art Basel Paris, and November sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, which demonstrated a split-level market with record highs at the top and discipline elsewhere.

newspaper observer.com open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Dec 19, 2025 visibility 27 link 7 artists, 11 galleries

Art market 2025 review: all eyes on the Gulf as Trump destabilises global order

The global art market continued to contract in 2025, with prominent galleries such as Blum, Clearing, Sperone Westwater, Tilton, Kasmin, TJ Boulting, Project Native Informant, Nir Altman, and Altman Siegel closing due to challenging macroeconomic conditions. However, a rebound emerged at the top end by autumn, driven by Sotheby's white-glove sale of the Pauline Karpidas collection, strong VVIP sales at Art Basel Paris, and New York's November auctions, where Klimt's *Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer* (1914-16) sold for $236.3 million and Frida Kahlo's *El Sueño (la cama)* (1940) for $54.7 million. Christie's and Sotheby's reported increased sales from 2024, with second-half auctions up 26% year-on-year, though recovery remains uneven and concentrated in classic secondary-market tastes.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Dec 10, 2025 visibility 12 link 2 artists

In the bag: Sotheby’s inaugural Abu Dhabi Collectors’ Week finds success with Birkins and bling

Sotheby’s inaugural Collectors’ Week in Abu Dhabi (2-5 December) achieved a total of $133.4m across five live auctions held on a beachfront stage. The sale featured luxury items including a Hermès Birkin Voyageur owned by Jane Birkin ($2.9m), a 31.68-carat pink diamond called The Desert Rose ($8.8m), and a Patek Philippe watch set that became the second most valuable watch sold in Sotheby’s history ($11.9m). No art was offered, but the auction house sold 50 items privately, including the world’s largest fancy deep green diamond. The sell-through rate was strong, with only one piece of real estate and a couple of cars unsold, outperforming Sotheby’s earlier Saudi Arabia sale.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

gavel restitution schedule Dec 5, 2025 visibility 20 link 2 artists

Did Qatar’s Courbet acquisition short-circuit French export licence process?

Qatar Museums has acquired Gustave Courbet's early self-portrait *Le Désespéré* (1843-45) from a French collector for €50 million, bypassing the standard French export licence process. The Musée d'Orsay revealed the purchase at a private event in October, announcing the painting will be lent to the museum for five years before moving to Qatar's future Art Mill Museum (opening by 2030). The sale was conducted without an export certificate, with the justification that the work will remain in France for most of the time, using temporary export licences for exhibitions in Doha. Critics, including heritage campaigner Julien Lacaze, argue this exemption is being misused, as it was intended for one-off exhibitions, not recurring rotations.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 26 link 6 artists, 8 galleries

Art Basel Miami Beach aims to ‘end the year on a high note’

Art Basel Miami Beach (ABMB) opens amid a still-sluggish global art market, with sales at live events yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels. Director Bridget Finn expresses optimism following strong sales at Art Basel Paris in October, noting that gallerists and collectors were energized. The fair introduces structural changes, including relocating the Nova and Positions sections to the east entrance to spotlight emerging galleries, and launching Zero 10, a platform for digital art. Seven local Miami galleries are participating, with Nina Johnson making her ABMB debut. Despite a few longtime exhibitors withdrawing, Finn attributes this to galleries being more selective across Art Basel's five global fairs, including a new Qatar edition in 2026.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Nov 21, 2025 visibility 22 link 17 artists

Frida Kahlo self-portrait sells for $54.7m at Sotheby's, breaking her auction record

Sotheby's held three back-to-back evening sales in New York on November 20, achieving a combined total of $252.9 million ($304.5 million with fees). The highlight was Frida Kahlo's self-portrait *El sueño (La cama)* (1940), which sold for $54.6 million with fees, setting a new auction record for the artist, for a Latin American artist, and for a female artist. The sales included 13 lots from the estate of Cindy and Jay Pritzker, a group of Surrealist works from an unnamed collection, and a multiple-owner Modern art sale featuring collections from the Bucksbaum family and Geri Brawerman.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 21, 2025 visibility 23 link 4 artists

Phillips Collection sells O’Keeffe and other masterpieces amid outcry from supporters

The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., sold three masterworks from its permanent collection at auction on Thursday evening for a combined $13,413,000. The deaccessioned works were by Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, and Georges Seurat. The sale proceeded despite strong outcry from some of the museum's influential supporters, who viewed the decision as a betrayal of the founders' vision and accused the director and board of prioritizing financial gain over the institution's mission.

newspaper The Washington Post open_in_new Read original

article news schedule Nov 21, 2025 visibility 18 link 9 artists

The $236m Klimt, Cop 30 and the art world, Caravaggio’s Victorious Cupid—podcast

This podcast episode from The Art Newspaper covers three major art-world stories. Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer" (1914-16) sold for the second-highest price ever at auction during Sotheby's New York sale of works from the late billionaire Leonard Lauder's collection, a "white-glove" auction that has sparked debate about a market recovery. Additionally, the episode discusses COP30-related art commissions appearing on posters across the UK and Brazil under the theme "It's Not Easy Being Green," alongside the Gallery Climate Coalition's new Stocktake Report on carbon emissions. The episode's Work of the Week is Caravaggio's "Victorious Cupid" (1601-02), which has traveled from Berlin's Gemäldegalerie to the Wallace Collection in London for an upcoming exhibition.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Nov 19, 2025 visibility 10 link 5 artists

Klimt painting becomes most expensive modern art ever sold at auction

Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer" sold for $236.4 million at Sotheby's, becoming the most expensive work of modern art ever sold at auction. The sale occurred after a 20-minute bidding war that drew gasps and applause from the room, and it also set a record as the most expensive artwork ever sold by the auction house globally.

newspaper CNN open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Nov 19, 2025 visibility 14 link 9 artists

All you need to know about Klimt’s canvas that is now the most expensive modern artwork

Gustav Klimt's "Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer" (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer) sold for $236.4 million at Sotheby's first auction in its new Breuer building location in New York, becoming the most expensive modern artwork ever sold at auction. The 1914-1916 portrait depicts Elisabeth Lederer, daughter of Klimt's patrons Serena and August Lederer, and was previously owned by Estée Lauder heir Leonard A. Lauder, who died earlier this year. The painting was looted by the Nazis during World War II, returned to the Lederer family in 1948, and later sold in 1983.

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person people schedule Nov 6, 2025 visibility 19 link 7 artists

Sara Friedlander Appointed Chairman, Post-War & Contemporary Art, Americas - Christie's

Christie's has promoted Sara Friedlander to chairman of Post-War and Contemporary Art for the Americas, as announced by Global President Alex Rotter. Friedlander, a specialist and dealmaker with nearly 20 years at the auction house, will focus on works from the last 50 years. She has brought major collections to market, including the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art and the Edlis | Neeson Collection, and has achieved world-record prices for artists such as Joan Mitchell, Alice Neel, Ernie Barnes, Dorothea Tanning, and Marlene Dumas.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 3, 2025 visibility 13 link 4 artists

Star drawing from world’s largest private Rembrandt collection could bring $15m at auction

Billionaire entrepreneur Thomas S. Kaplan and his wife Daphne Recanati Kaplan are selling Rembrandt's drawing *Young Lion Resting* (circa 1638-42) from their Leiden Collection, one of the world's largest private holdings of 17th-century Dutch art. Sotheby's announced on November 3 that the work will be auctioned during its Old Masters sales in New York on February 4, 2026, with a pre-sale estimate of $15 million to $20 million. Proceeds from the sale will benefit Panthera, a wild-cat conservation organization co-founded by Kaplan and philanthropist Jonathan Ayers, marking the 20th anniversary of the organization's founding.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Oct 28, 2025 visibility 32 link 29 artists, 4 galleries

New York exhibition seeks to raise funds for LGBTQ+ youth centre

The Ali Forney Center (AFC), an LGBTQ+ youth organization facing a funding drop of over $400,000 from lost corporate sponsors, is holding a benefit exhibition titled "Toward the Light: Artists for the Ali Forney Center" at David Zwirner’s West 19th Street gallery in Chelsea from October 28 to November 1. Organized by art adviser Stephen Truax for the second year, the show features 38 works by artists including Doron Langberg, Jenna Gribbon, Jake Grewal, Ilana Savdie, Anthony Cudahy, Wolfgang Tillmans, Julie Mehretu, and Katherine Bradford, with proceeds supporting AFC’s housing and care for over 2,000 queer youth. Previous editions with Sotheby’s raised over $350,000 and $370,000 respectively.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Oct 17, 2025 visibility 18 link 2 artists

Rare wooden Alexander Calder mobile heads to Christie’s

Christie’s has secured the consignment of Painted Wood (1943), a rare wooden mobile by Alexander Calder, which will lead its 20th Century Evening Sale next month. Specialists estimate the work will sell for between $15 million and $20 million, the highest auction estimate ever placed on a Calder piece. The mobile comes from the collection of prominent Latin American art collector Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and was featured in Calder’s landmark 1943 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he became the youngest artist to receive a solo exhibition at the museum.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

article culture schedule Oct 17, 2025 visibility 21 link 5 artists

Frieze in London, Hypha Studios and a Renoir drawing for ‘The Great Bathers’—podcast

This episode of The Art Newspaper's podcast 'The Week in Art' covers three main stories. Host Ben Luke discusses the mood at the Frieze art fairs in London with art market editor Kabir Jhala, amid ongoing debate about the health of the art market. The episode also explores Hypha Studios, a UK initiative that provides free exhibition and studio space to unrepresented artists in vacant properties, which has just launched an online sales platform called Hypha Curates. Finally, the podcast features a 'Work of the Week' segment on a Renoir drawing from the 1880s, a study for 'The Great Bathers,' now on view at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York as part of the exhibition 'Renoir Drawings.'

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

article culture schedule Oct 14, 2025 visibility 24 link 16 artists, 9 galleries

Comment | Frieze galleries have committed to climate donations—now it's time for the art world to pack in its private jets

A new initiative called 10% Of launches at Frieze London and Frieze Masters, inviting galleries to donate 10% of the sale price of designated works to the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC), an international art world environmental charity. Nearly thirty galleries have signed up, including Gagosian, White Cube, David Zwirner, and Lisson, with works priced from £3,000 to £150,000. The scheme aims to reframe a standard art market gesture into collective climate action, with participating galleries displaying their GCC membership status on booth signs.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Oct 9, 2025 visibility 16 link 5 artists

$45 million Basquiat painting heads to auction for the first time.

Sotheby's will auction Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting *Crowns (Peso Neto)* (1981) in its contemporary evening sale in New York this November, with an estimate of $35–$45 million—the highest ever for a Basquiat work from 1981. The painting, making its auction debut, was featured in Basquiat's breakthrough solo show at Annina Nosei Gallery in 1982 and later exhibited at documenta 7 in 1983 and the artist's retrospective at Fondation Louis Vuitton in 2018. It will tour London and Paris before being presented at Sotheby's new New York headquarters in the historic Breuer building.

newspaper Artsy open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Oct 9, 2025 visibility 17 link 5 artists

Sotheby’s to sell painting from Jean-Michel Basquiat’s first solo show

Sotheby's will offer Jean-Michel Basquiat's early painting *Crowns (Peso Neto)* (1981) as the top lot in its Contemporary Evening Sale on 18 November, held at the auction house's new headquarters in the Breuer Building. The work, estimated at $35–40 million, was created in the basement of dealer Annina Nosei's gallery and featured in Basquiat's first solo show in 1982, marking a pivotal moment in his rise from street artist to market star. It comes from a European private collection and has never been auctioned before.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Oct 6, 2025 visibility 19 link 4 artists

From royal visitors to extortionate eBay sales: new book offers rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of Vermeer blockbuster

The Rijksmuseum's 2023 Vermeer exhibition, widely considered the most successful show of the century, drew 650,000 visitors and assembled 28 of the artist's 37 known paintings. A new book, *Closer to Vermeer: New Research on the Painter and his Art*, reveals behind-the-scenes details: the initial plan for a broader thematic show was abandoned in favor of a focused Vermeer-only presentation; nine paintings could not be borrowed, including *The Concert* (stolen in 1990) and *The Astronomer* (on loan to Louvre Abu Dhabi); the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum refused to lend *Girl with a Wine Glass*, even rejecting an offer of buses for schoolchildren. The book also discloses that the Dutch king and queen visited multiple times during regular hours, that a quarter of visitors felt context was missing, and that over 3,500 complaints were filed about photography. The most expensive resold ticket on eBay reached $2,724.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

article culture schedule Oct 3, 2025 visibility 17 link 10 artists

New documentary gives E.J. Hughes, painter of lyrical Canadian landscapes, his due

A new documentary titled *The Painted Life of E.J. Hughes*, directed by Vancouver filmmaker Jenn Strom, premieres at the Vancouver International Film Festival. The film explores the personal and professional life of the reclusive Canadian landscape painter E.J. Hughes (1913-2007), known for his dreamlike depictions of British Columbia's coastal life. It features interviews with art historians, curators, and locals, and includes footage of major works, such as *Entrance to Howe Sound* (1949), which is set for auction at Heffel with an estimate of C$1.25m–C$1.75m. The documentary was inspired by books by artist-author Robert Amos and took several years to complete due to the pandemic.

newspaper The Art Newspaper open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Oct 3, 2025 visibility 15 link 11 artists

SILSILA: Highlights from the Dalloul Collection Including Modern & Contemporary Middle Eastern Art - Christie's

Christie's will hold a live auction titled 'SILSILA: Highlights from the Dalloul Collection including Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art' on 6 November 2025 at King Street, London, with an online sale running from 28 October to 11 November. The evening sale features 20 exceptional works from the esteemed Dalloul Collection in Beirut, Lebanon, led by masterpieces from artists such as Mohamed Melehi, Mahmoud Saïd, Dia Al-Azzawi, Marwan, Huguette Caland, Paul Guiragossian, Samia Halaby, and Kamal Boullata. A preview will be held at Christie's Dubai from 3-10 October, showcasing highlights including Guiragossian's 'Automne (Autumn)', El Rayess's 'Soukhour Meyrouba', and Said's 'La colline de Mekarzel'.

newspaper Press center open_in_new Read original

museum exhibitions schedule Oct 1, 2025 visibility 17 link 3 artists

Exhibitions Celebrate Mead’s 75th Anniversary

The Mead Art Museum celebrated its 75th anniversary with a fall installation featuring three distinct exhibitions: Swapnaa Tamhane's immersive textile work "Spaces That Hold," "A Contentious Legacy: Paintings from Soviet Ukraine," and "Re/Presenting: An Activity Gallery." The opening transformed the museum into an interactive space where visitors could lie down, sit, or sing among hanging block-printed textiles, challenging traditional gallery norms. Tamhane's "Mobile Palace" (2020–2021), created with artisans Salemamad Khatri and Mukesh Prajapati, reinterprets Le Corbusier's Mill Owners' Association building as an ornament, while the Soviet Ukraine exhibition presents paintings from the 1960s–1980s that navigated propaganda and creative expression under state censorship.

newspaper The Amherst Student open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Oct 1, 2025 visibility 16 link 1 artist, 2 galleries

Hong Kong’s latest art auctions see turnover lingering at 8-year low

Hong Kong's major auction houses—Christie's, Phillips, and Sotheby's—held their seasonal modern and contemporary art evening sales over the past weekend, with total turnover lingering at an eight-year low. Despite the overall downturn, a handful of records and last-minute withdrawals improved the success ratio, and several lots drew vigorous bidding, such as Salvo's "Mattino di primavera (Spring Morning)" which sold for HK$4 million (five times its low estimate) and Firenze Lai's "Basic Knot" which fetched HK$477,300 (nearly four times its low estimate).

newspaper South China Morning Post open_in_new Read original

trending_up market schedule Sep 26, 2025 visibility 17 link 6 artists

Picasso Achieves HK$197 Million Breaking Artist's Asia Auction Record at Christie's Hong Kong Evening Sale - Christie's

Christie's Hong Kong held its 20th/21st Century Evening Sale on 26 September 2025 at The Henderson, achieving a total of HK$565,649,000 (US$73,038,183). The top lot was Pablo Picasso's *Buste de femme*, which sold for HK$196,750,000 (US$25,404,911) after over 15 minutes of bidding, setting a new auction record for the artist in Asia. Zao Wou-Ki's *17.3.63* also performed strongly, achieving HK$85,200,000. The sale saw 92% of lots sold, with the overall hammer price 116% above the low estimate, and works by Chinese, Southeast Asian, Korean, and Japanese artists all sold out.

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museum exhibitions schedule Sep 26, 2025 visibility 18 link 10 artists

Dallas Museum of Art to Host “International Surrealism” Exhibition

The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) will present "International Surrealism," a major exhibition in collaboration with Tate London, opening November 2, 2025, and running through March 22, 2026. Marking the centenary of the first Surrealist exhibition in 1925, the show features over 100 works from Tate’s collection, including pieces by René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Lenora Carrington, Wifredo Lam, Malangatana Ngwenya, Alberto Giacometti, Dorothea Tanning, and Jackson Pollock. The exhibition aims to decentralize Surrealism by presenting works from around the world, alongside printed ephemera and publications from the early 1900s. Tickets go on sale October 7, 2025, with early access for DMA members on October 6.

newspaper Glasstire open_in_new Read original