Art News. Vasari Codex

article policy schedule Feb 2, 2026 visibility 16 link 1 artist

government shutdown does not include smithsonian

A partial U.S. government shutdown occurred after the Senate passed a funding package but temporarily blocked additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Unlike the previous shutdown, this one does not affect major cultural institutions; the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) remain open because their funding was approved on time.

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person people schedule Jan 29, 2026 visibility 12 link 1 artist

lisa funderburke newark museum of art director

The Newark Museum of Art in New Jersey has appointed Lisa Funderburke as its new director and CEO, effective February 1. She succeeds Linda C. Harrison, who left the position seven months ago. Funderburke joins from the Artist Communities Alliance, a much smaller nonprofit focused on supporting artists and residencies.

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article news schedule Jan 21, 2026 visibility 6 link 1 artist

record archeological finds metal detecting british public

The British Museum announced that 2024 was a record year for archaeological discoveries made by the public in the UK, with 79,616 finds recorded. Of these, 1,540 were classified as "treasure" under the 1996 Treasure Act, the highest number ever in a single year and the third consecutive record-breaking year. Ninety-four percent of the discoveries were made by metal detectorists. The figures come from the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), a project jointly managed by the British Museum and Amgueddfa Cymru–Museums Wales. Notable finds include a hoard of silver pennies from Harold II's reign, a Roman vehicle fitting with a panther and severed human head, and early medieval gold and silver objects.

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article news schedule Jan 16, 2026 visibility 20 link 1 artist

metropolitan museum art workers largest museum unions

Nearly 1,000 salaried and hourly workers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art voted on Friday to join Local 2110 of the United Auto Workers (UAW), creating one of the largest museum unions in the United States. The vote passed 542-172, covering staff across 50 departments including curators, conservators, librarians, and archivists. Roughly 100 ballots remain sealed due to a management challenge, to be resolved through arbitration after certification by the National Labor Relations Board. The union drive had been brewing for over four years, driven by concerns over job security, pay equity, and transparency.

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article news schedule Jan 15, 2026 visibility 12 link 3 artists

stolen louvre jewels parking garage

Police have identified a parking garage in Aubervilliers, a Paris suburb, as the last known location of the jewels stolen from the Louvre in a $102 million heist on October 19. Surveillance footage shows two suspects handling some of the stolen pieces less than an hour after the robbery. Four men have been arrested—including a former YouTube stunt rider known as “Doudou Cross Bitume”—and a fifth suspect, a woman, remains at large. The jewels themselves have not been recovered.

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article news schedule Jan 13, 2026 visibility 11 link 4 artists

art history teacher charlie kirk investigation florida

Hope McMath, an artist and art history teacher at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida, was removed from the classroom in September 2024 after posting about the assassination of Charlie Kirk on her private social media. An investigation by Duval County Public Schools found only a minor violation for profanity, but the district refused to reinstate her due to a concurrent state education board investigation. McMath is suing the school district, state officials, and Moms for Liberty, alleging her removal was politically motivated and violated her free speech rights.

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article news schedule Jan 5, 2026 visibility 13 link 2 artists

british museum treasure hunter stolen antiquities recovery

The British Museum is hiring a dedicated treasure hunter to recover hundreds of stolen antiquities, including gold jewelry and semi-precious stones allegedly taken by former curator Peter Higgs. Since the theft of some 1,500 objects was revealed in 2023, over a third have been recovered, but the museum is racing to find the remaining pieces before they are destroyed or melted down. The new role will focus on liaising with an international network of dealers, auction houses, and collectors, while also using open-source investigation and AI tools to track down items scattered globally.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 24, 2025 visibility 14 link 3 artists

moma cryptopunks chromie squiggles acquisitions

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has acquired eight CryptoPunks and eight Chromie Squiggles for its permanent collection, donated by multiple collectors including ARTnews Top 200 Collector Ryan Zurrer and others. The works, both generative NFT projects on the Ethereum blockchain, were added through MoMA's Media and Performance department and will be displayed alongside new media art. CryptoPunks, launched by Larva Labs in 2017, are considered the first major NFT collection, while Chromie Squiggles were created by Erick Calderon (Snowfro) as the first project on ArtBlocks.

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gavel restitution schedule Dec 23, 2025 visibility 12 link 2 artists

nanjing museum alleged art theft probe

Chinese authorities have launched multiple investigations into allegations that staff at the state-run Nanjing Museum secretly removed cultural treasures from the collection and sold them on the open market. The scandal erupted after a 16th-century Ming dynasty painting, *Spring in Jiangnan* by Qiu Ying, appeared in a Beijing auction catalog with an estimate of 88 million yuan ($12.5 million), despite being part of a 1959 donation by collector Pang Laichen. The museum claimed the work and four others were deemed forgeries in the 1960s, deaccessioned in 1997, and sold to a provincial relics store in 2001 for 6,800 yuan. An 80-year-old retired employee, Guo Lidian, accused former museum director Xu Huping of orchestrating a large-scale theft and smuggling operation, including falsely certifying authentic works as replicas. Xu has denied involvement.

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trending_up market schedule Dec 22, 2025 visibility 9 link 7 artists

adelaide labille guiard self portrait versailles

A previously unaccounted-for self-portrait by 18th-century French artist Adélaïde Labille-Guiard sold at Tajan auction house in Paris for €843,800 ($988,785), far exceeding its estimate of €300,000–€500,000. After the hammer fell, a representative of the Palace of Versailles invoked France's droit de préemption law to claim the 1782 pastel work for the national collection, preventing its private sale.

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gavel restitution schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 13 link 3 artists

france dinosaur skeleton return mongolia

France returned an extremely rare 70-million-year-old Tarbosaurus bataar skeleton and 30 other paleontological finds to Mongolia on Monday. The fossils were looted from the Gobi Desert by a European trafficking network, smuggled via South Korea, and confiscated by French customs in 2015. At a ceremony in Paris, French Public Accounts Minister Amelie de Montchalin handed the items to Mongolia’s Culture Minister Undram Chinbat. The cache includes dinosaur eggs and the prized skeleton, worth over $800,000 at the time of seizure and now valued two to three times higher.

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article news schedule Dec 11, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

uk police seek suspects in high value burglary at bristol museum

UK police have released CCTV footage of suspects in a high-value burglary at the Bristol Museum, where over 600 artifacts from the British Empire and Commonwealth collection were stolen on September 25. The stolen items include military memorabilia, jewelry, a carved ivory Buddha, a belt buckle from the East India Company uniform, bronze figurines, and geological specimens, taken from an archive in the Cumberland Basin area. Authorities withheld details until now to aid the investigation, which involves forensic analysis and significant CCTV inquiries.

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article policy schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 14 link 7 artists

what to know about the smithsonian

President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” targeting the Smithsonian Institution. The order tasks Vice President J.D. Vance with removing “improper ideology” from Smithsonian museums, supported by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and advisor Lindsey Halligan. Critics, including historian Raymond Arsenault, have described the move as totalitarian. The Smithsonian, a public-private partnership founded in 1846 with 21 museums and the National Zoo, faces potential loss of federal funding if it does not comply, echoing pressure applied to other institutions like Columbia University.

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article culture schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 8 link 3 artists

the hunt amarna letters diplomacy

The article explores the discovery and significance of the Amarna Letters, a collection of 382 clay tablets found in the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna. Initially dismissed as forgeries due to their unusual material (clay instead of papyrus) and language (cuneiform Akkadian, not Egyptian), the letters date to the 14th century B.C.E. and were written by vassal rulers and rival kings to the pharaoh, primarily Akhenaten. They document diplomatic correspondence, including reports on trade, governance, and military operations, as well as gift exchanges and marriage proposals between equal powers.

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gavel restitution schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 13 link 1 artist

looted 14th century english jug loan kumasi museum

The British Museum is reportedly considering a long-term loan of the Asante Ewer, a rare 14th-century English bronze jug, to the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi, Ghana. The ewer, which was looted by British forces from the Ashanti royal palace during the Fourth Anglo-Asante War in 1896, is the largest extant medieval English bronze vessel and was likely made for King Richard II. Ghana is expected to make a formal request for the loan, which would be long-term, and is not anticipated to demand full repatriation.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 17 link 2 artists

chanel power station of art contemporary art public library

Chanel has opened Espace Gabrielle Chanel, mainland China's first public library dedicated to contemporary art, at Shanghai's Power Station of Art (PSA). The 18,000-square-foot library, designed by Japanese architect Kazunari Sakamoto, holds over 50,000 books and audiobooks and includes an upgraded exhibition hall, a terrace overlooking the Huangpu River, and a 300-seat public theater. It will host the Archive of Chinese Contemporary Art. The library is part of Chanel's Next Cultural Producer program, launched at PSA in 2021 under the Chanel Culture Fund, which supports emerging practices in Chinese craft, architecture, and theater.

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article news schedule Nov 19, 2025 visibility 13 link 1 artist

palm springs art museum refutes report finances

A Los Angeles Times investigation has raised serious concerns about the financial management of the Palm Springs Art Museum, alleging significant accounting issues including improper reporting of endowment spending, inaccurate recording of donated and deaccessioned art values, and faulty admissions revenue tracking. The museum has publicly refuted these claims, asserting that its financial reviews have been thorough and that the Times' reporting relies on selective internal correspondence. The report notes that at least eight trustees have resigned, leaving the board short of its required 20 members, with one former trustee citing legal counsel for his departure and recommending the museum hire a forensic accounting firm.

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article news schedule Nov 6, 2025 visibility 7 link 1 artist

key louvre security password at time of heist

A French court report reveals that the Louvre museum's security system was severely compromised at the time of a major jewel heist, with the password for its key surveillance server set to "Louvre" and another system protected by the password "THALES." The report from France's Court of Auditors, leaked to the press, details how the museum repeatedly postponed security upgrades while prioritizing high-profile acquisitions and renovations, despite an annual operating budget of €323 million. The heist saw roughly $102 million in French crown jewels stolen, and only 432 CCTV cameras monitored 465 galleries in 2024, leaving 61% of galleries without surveillance.

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article news schedule Nov 5, 2025 visibility 11 link 1 artist

mowaa archeological project findings benin city nigeria

The Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) in Benin City, Nigeria, will open its MOWAA Institute next week, the first completed building of a planned 15-acre campus that will also include the Rainforest gallery and other facilities by 2028. In advance of the opening, Antiquity magazine published an updated report on the MOWAA Archeological Project (2022–2024), a collaboration among MOWAA, the British Museum, and Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, with Cambridge Archaeological Unit and Wessex Archaeology as delivery partners. The excavations, the first at the royal palace complex since the 1960s, used both digs and ground-penetrating radar, with radiocarbon dating revealing artifacts spanning from before the Benin Kingdom through its collapse and colonial and postcolonial eras.

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gavel restitution schedule Oct 30, 2025 visibility 21 link 1 artist

mfa boston david drake vessels restitution

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has restituted two large-scale ceramic vessels by David Drake, an enslaved potter, to his known descendants. The works—a "Poem Jar" and a "Signed Jar," both from 1857—were acquired by the museum in 1997 and 2011 respectively. On October 16, the MFA deaccessioned the jars and transferred ownership to Drake's descendants via the Dave the Potter Legacy Trust. The museum then repurchased the "Poem Jar," which re-entered the collection on October 23, while the "Signed Jar" remains with the family on long-term loan to the museum. The decision followed discussions prompted by the exhibition "Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina," co-organized with the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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article news schedule Oct 29, 2025 visibility 9 link 2 artists

bust of egyptian goddess satala turkey

Archaeologists excavating the ancient Roman military stronghold of Satala in northeastern Turkey have unearthed a bronze bust of the Egyptian goddess Isis. The eight-inch-tall sculpture, found in a necropolis, dates to the 2nd or 3rd century CE and depicts Isis atop a circular base with calyx-shaped leaves. The discovery was led by Elif Yavuz Çakmur of Karadeniz Technical University and marks the first sculpture found at the site since the Satala Aphrodite was unearthed in 1872.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 27, 2025 visibility 11 link 2 artists

okada museum sells art founder legal bill sothebys

Japan’s Okada Museum of Art is selling 125 works from its collection at Sotheby’s Hong Kong on November 22 to help its founder, Kazuo Okada, pay a $50 million legal bill. The bill stems from a long-running feud with casino magnate Steve Wynn, which began when the two co-founded Wynn Resorts in 2002 and later accused each other of improper payments. The collection includes Katsushika Hokusai’s iconic *The Great Wave Off the Coast of Kanagawa* (1830–32), a rare Qianlong “Eight Treasures” vase, and 16th-century screens by Kano Motonobu. Okada, an 83-year-old billionaire, lost a binding arbitration over the legal fees and must now sell the art.

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article news schedule Oct 6, 2025 visibility 12 link 3 artists

egyptian tomb reopens two decade renovation

The tomb of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, one of the largest in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, has reopened to the public after a 20-year renovation led by a team from Waseda University in Tokyo. Discovered in 1799 by French engineers and looted in antiquity, the tomb features newly restored wall paintings depicting the pharaoh with ancient Egyptian gods, the structural frame of his sarcophagus, and burial chambers for his two wives. The reopening took place on October 4, 2025.

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article news schedule Sep 29, 2025 visibility 11 link 1 artist

orange county museum of art acquired by university of california irvine

The University of California, Irvine (UCI) has acquired the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) and will merge it with the UC Irvine Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art (Langson IMCA). The combined institution will be renamed the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. UCI will oversee OCMA's 53,000-square-foot, $98 million facility in Costa Mesa, California, and integrate its 4,500-object collection with approximately 9,000 works from the Irvine Museum Collection and the Gerald Buck Collection. Previously planned programming at both venues is expected to continue through 2026, and a national search is underway for an executive director to lead the new museum.

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article news schedule Sep 23, 2025 visibility 8 link 1 artist

unknown roman matron identified chersonesos taurica crimea

Researchers have identified a marble statue head unearthed in 2003 in Chersonesos Taurica, an ancient Roman colony in Crimea, as depicting a Roman matron named Laodice. The discovery, published in the journal Nature, was made by scientists at Poland's Adam Mickiewicz University, who matched the head to an inscribed pedestal found in the archives of the Archaeological Museum in Odessa, Ukraine. Laodice was the wife of city councilman Titus Flavius Parthenokles and was honored with the statue around 140 CE, when the city was granted eleutheria (self-governing status). The statue, carved from Parian marble and originally over six feet tall, is one of only five marble sculpture fragments found at the site in 200 years.

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article news schedule Sep 17, 2025 visibility 17 link 2 artists

adaa bloomberg connects digital guide

The Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) has launched a digital guide on Bloomberg Connects, a free arts and culture app developed by Bloomberg Philanthropies. The guide aggregates information on more than 200 member galleries across the United States, including exhibition listings, public programs, archival material, an interactive map, weekly openings, and interviews. The ADAA becomes one of the first national gallery associations to consolidate its programming on the platform, which already hosts guides from over 1,100 cultural organizations worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Storm King Art Center, and the Hammer Museum.

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person people schedule Sep 10, 2025 visibility 15 link 1 artist

claudia gould shaker museum director

Claudia Gould, who left the Jewish Museum in New York in 2023 after a twelve-year tenure, has been appointed director of the Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York. The museum, which holds one of the world's most significant collections of Shaker material culture, is building a new $30 million flagship space designed by Selldorf Architects, known for recent work on the Frick Collection. Gould expressed excitement about building a museum from the ground up, a challenge she described as different from restructuring an existing organization.

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article policy schedule Sep 5, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

museums association code of ethics fossil fuel sponsorships

The Museums Association (MA) in the United Kingdom has proposed a new code of ethics that, for the first time, explicitly mentions fossil fuel companies. The guidelines recommend that museums transition away from sponsorship by organizations involved in environmental harm, human rights abuses, or other activities misaligned with museum values, and instead seek ethical funding that serves community interests. MA members will vote on ratifying the changes from September 15 until the annual conference on October 7, with the last code updated in 2015.

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person people schedule Sep 3, 2025 visibility 17 link 2 artists

kim sajet milwaukee art museum director

Kim Sajet has been appointed as the new director of the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM), starting September 22. The announcement comes shortly after Sajet was ousted as director of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery for supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. During her 12-year tenure there, she doubled attendance, raised over $85 million, and oversaw major capital improvements. Sajet previously held leadership roles at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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article news schedule Aug 14, 2025 visibility 15 link 2 artists

bayeux tapestry france british museum

The Bayeux Tapestry, a 900-year-old embroidery depicting the Norman Conquest of 1066, will be loaned from France to the British Museum for a blockbuster exhibition running from September 2026 to July 2027. French officials reportedly lobbied for discounted or free entry for French citizens, a request British negotiators dismissed as a "try-on" that was "never going to happen." The loan, first proposed in 2018 by then-Prime Minister Theresa May, was delayed over fragility concerns and finally confirmed during President Emmanuel Macron's state visit. In exchange, Britain will send the Sutton Hoo treasures and the Lewis Chessmen to France. French negotiators also floated borrowing the Rosetta Stone, but that proposal failed as the artifact is considered immovable.

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