Art News. Vasari Codex

trending_up market schedule Nov 28, 2025 visibility 22 link 11 artists, 2 galleries

who was andrew crispo

Artnet News reports that David Hockney's 1968 double portrait *Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy* sold for $44.3 million at Christie's on November 17, becoming the artist's third-most expensive work at auction. The painting had previously failed to sell at Sotheby's in 1985, bought in at $570,000. Artnet's reporting revealed that the Christie's catalogue omitted the name of Andrew Crispo, a once-prominent New York dealer, from the painting's provenance. The article details Crispo's meteoric rise from a troubled youth in Philadelphia to a savvy art dealer who championed American Modernism, his important clients including Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, and his dramatic fall due to tax fraud, a prison sentence, and the IRS seizure of his inventory.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 28 link 13 artists, 6 galleries

kohler announces 2026 residency industry moves

The ARTnews industry moves column for November 19, 2025 reports several gallery and institutional changes: Ortuzar partners with the Claire Falkenstein Foundation for a multi-year initiative including a booth at Art Basel Miami Beach and a 2026 exhibition at the San Diego Museum of Art; Jessica Silverman now co-represents GaHee Park with Perrotin; Gurr Johns appoints Robert Goff as president of private sales and Tabor Story as director of private sales; Tara Downs adds Diné/Tlingit artist Nizhonniya Austin to its roster; Kohler Arts/Industry announces its 2026 residency cohort of 12 artists; Upsilon Gallery names Camilla Previ managing director in Milan. The column also highlights the record-breaking $236.4 million sale of Gustav Klimt's 'Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer' at Sotheby's, the highest price for any modern artwork at auction.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 26 link 20 artists, 4 galleries

abu dhabi art 2025 scene frieze sales

Abu Dhabi Art (ADA) held its final edition at Manarat Al Saadiyat before transitioning into a Frieze franchise in November 2025. The fair featured 53 new galleries, a Focus sector highlighting art scenes from Nigeria, Turkey, and South Asia, and a new Emerge section offering discounted booth prices for works under $3,000 to attract emerging collectors. The shift comes as Abu Dhabi’s cultural landscape moves beyond its iconic Saadiyat Island museums—Louvre Abu Dhabi, Zayed National Museum, and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi—toward more grassroots ventures like the MiZa warehouse district, which hosts experimental spaces such as MamarLab and Iris Projects. Mega-gallery Pace returned after a 14-year absence, citing renewed energy in the Gulf market.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 17 link 7 artists, 1 gallery

warhol bardot clemente bar

Artnet News' Wet Paint column reports on a special auction held at Clemente Bar in New York, where Fair Warning—an app founded by former Christie's executive Loic Gouzer—sold an Andy Warhol portrait of Brigitte Bardot for $14.5 million ($16.7 million with fees). The event, hosted by Gouzer and curator-advisor Lolita Cros, featured former Christie's auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen and attracted a crowd of high-net-worth individuals, including Greek shipping magnate George Economou, dealer David Mugrabi, artist Tony Shafrazi, and other art-world figures. Bidding started at $7 million, and the winning bid came from an anonymous phone bidder.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 25, 2025 visibility 18 link 6 artists, 1 gallery

4 takeaways art business conference hong kong

Hong Kong's inaugural Art Business Conference brought together government officials, legal experts, and financiers to examine the city's strategic advantages as an art trading hub. Key takeaways included the need to maintain cultural exchange as a national strategy under China's 14th Five-Year Plan, with the West Kowloon Cultural District receiving over $6.5 billion in government funding. The Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting 2025, authored by Clare McAndrew, revealed that ultra-wealthy collectors are now allocating up to 20 percent of their wealth to art, up from 15 percent in 2024, as an estimated $83 trillion in intergenerational wealth transforms art trading into a sophisticated professional network.

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article news schedule Nov 18, 2025 visibility 27 link 27 artists, 6 galleries

paint drippings art industry news nov 14

This week's art industry roundup covers major developments across auctions, galleries, and art fairs. Highlights include $1.6 billion in art heading to auction at Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips in New York; the sale of the 'Mellon Blue' diamond for $25 million at Christie's Geneva; and the Vanderbilt jewels achieving $4.2 million at Phillips Geneva. In galleries, Sperone Westwater faces possible closure or transformation after 50 years, while Upsilon Gallery opens a new space in Milan. The IFPDA Print Fair expands to include drawings and rebrands, and Abu Dhabi Art will relaunch as Frieze Abu Dhabi next year. The Gallery Climate Coalition reports significant emissions reductions among its members.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 18, 2025 visibility 20 link 2 artists, 1 gallery

jeffrey epstein emails leon black picasso gagosian

Newly released emails from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein reveal that he discussed a plan by billionaire art collector Leon Black to purchase a Picasso painting from Gagosian gallery for $100 million. In a 2015 email to Melanie Spinella, a representative for Black, Epstein questioned the lack of a written contract for the overseas transfer, calling it 'fishy.' The emails also show Epstein advising Black on broader art purchasing strategies, including assigning agreements to family members, and offering opinions on Artspace, the online art marketplace acquired by Black's publishing house Phaidon.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 17, 2025 visibility 24 link 20 artists, 4 galleries

dirty looks fashion exhibition

A new London exhibition, "Dirty Looks: Desire and Decay in Fashion," opens at the Barbican Art Gallery, exploring how designers have used dirt, distress, and imperfection as acts of defiance and new forms of beauty. Curated by Karen Van Godtsenhoven, the show features over 60 designers from Alexander McQueen and Maison Margiela to emerging upstarts, tracing moments like the rise of anti-fashion in the 1980s and trends like bogcore. It runs until January 2026 and is the Barbican's first fashion-focused show in eight years.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 10, 2025 visibility 17 link 3 artists, 1 gallery

pace modigliani art basel paris restellini

Pace Gallery announced highlights for its Art Basel Paris presentation, including a major Amedeo Modigliani painting from 1918, *Jeune fille aux macarons (Young Woman with Hair in Side Buns)*, priced around $10 million. The work previews a new partnership between Pace and the Institut Restellini, founded by Modigliani scholar Marc Restellini. Restellini will collaborate with Pace on symposia in New York in 2026 and an exhibition in 2027, while his long-awaited Modigliani catalogue raisonné—authenticating 424 works—is set for publication in March 2025 by Yale University Press.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 10, 2025 visibility 22 link 10 artists, 3 galleries

george condo spruth magers skarstedt representation

Galleries Sprüth Magers and Skarstedt have announced joint representation of artist George Condo, ending his six-year partnership with Hauser & Wirth. Condo has a long history with both galleries: he first showed with Monika Sprüth in 1984 and was represented by Skarstedt from 2004 to 2019. The announcement comes after a two-venue exhibition earlier this year that involved both Sprüth Magers and Hauser & Wirth. Condo's market remains strong, with recent auction sales exceeding $6 million and a current retrospective at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 6, 2025 visibility 26 link 8 artists, 1 gallery

gagosian teams up with movie director wes anderson to reimagine joseph cornells new york studio in paris

Gagosian has partnered with filmmaker Wes Anderson to recreate the New York studio of Joseph Cornell at its Paris gallery space on 9 rue de Castiglione. The exhibition, curated by Jasper Sharp and titled “The House of Utopia Parkway,” will run from December 16 to March 14, 2026, transforming the gallery into a tableau that blends a time capsule with a life-size shadow box. It marks the first solo presentation of Cornell’s work in Paris in over four decades, featuring iconic glass-fronted “shadow boxes” such as *Pharmacy* (1943), *Untitled (Pinturicchio Boy)* (circa 1950), and *A Dressing Room for Gille* (1939).

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trending_up market schedule Nov 5, 2025 visibility 17 link 10 artists, 5 galleries

artissima art fair turin 2025 report

Italy's largest contemporary art fair, Artissima, opened its 32nd edition in Turin's Oval Lingotto arena with 176 international galleries from 36 countries. The fair is the first major international art event in Italy since the government slashed VAT on art sales from 22% to 5% in July, a move long sought by galleries and dealers. Early sales included works by João Gabriel, Silvia Capuzzo, and Simon Pasieka, and the fair attracted top curators like Hans Ulrich Obrist and Massimiliano Gioni, as well as prominent Italian collecting families. However, some gallerists noted a lack of American collectors, echoing trends seen at Art Basel in Switzerland.

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museum exhibitions schedule Oct 31, 2025 visibility 20 link 11 artists, 1 gallery

food bukahra biennial recipes broken hearts diana campbell

The article reports on the inaugural Bukhara Biennial in Uzbekistan, titled "Recipes for Broken Hearts," which opened in the historic 16th-century Khoja Gavkushon complex. Curated by Diana Campbell, the biennial features over 70 projects spanning 500 meters of public space, including works by artists Subodh Gupta, Laila Gohar, and Carsten Höller. The exhibition embraces the local environment—sun, wind, and dust—as collaborators, rejecting the sterile white cube model. Food is a central theme, with communal plov parties, performative cooking sessions, and installations like Gohar's edible rock sugar pavilion. The biennial runs through November 20.

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article news schedule Oct 24, 2025 visibility 17 link 1 artist, 1 gallery

louvre heist security experts prevent art theft

On Sunday at around 9:30 a.m., robbers broke into the Louvre's Apollo Gallery using a cherry picker and an angle grinder, stealing nine pieces of jewelry worth an estimated $102 million in less than eight minutes. ARTnews consulted security experts who noted that the theft exploited systemic vulnerabilities, pointing to a pattern of recent museum heists including the Natural History Museum in Paris, the Drents Museum in the Netherlands, and the Dresden crown jewels theft in Germany. The Louvre had previously faced staff walkouts over inadequate security staffing, and director Laurence des Cars has requested a police station be installed at the museum.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 23, 2025 visibility 17 link 7 artists, 1 gallery

gagosian reunites with richard diebenkorn

Gagosian has announced representation of the late American painter Richard Diebenkorn (1922–1993), marking the artist's return to the gallery more than thirty years after his final solo exhibition there during his lifetime. To celebrate, the gallery will mount a career-spanning exhibition at its Madison Avenue flagship opening November 8, curated by Jasper Sharp in collaboration with the Richard Diebenkorn Foundation. The show will feature works from every period of Diebenkorn's six-decade career, including early California landscapes, wartime watercolors, and the celebrated Ocean Park abstractions, with highlights such as a 1943 watercolor, a monumental 1960 canvas, and late works on paper.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 15, 2025 visibility 23 link 14 artists, 5 galleries

gulf art scene global force

The article reports on the rapid expansion of the Gulf art scene, with a packed calendar of events from November to March including Abu Dhabi Art, the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, Noor Riyadh, Desert X AlUla, Art Basel Qatar, Art Dubai, and the Sharjah Biennial. Institutional buying is surging as Abu Dhabi prepares to open its Guggenheim, Qatar Museums acquires for the Art Mill, and Saudi Arabia buys for multiple planned museums. The number of collectors is also growing, driven by a "Covid bounce" of high-net-worth individuals relocating from Europe and India to tax-efficient Dubai and Doha, with 6,700 millionaires moving to the UAE in 2024 alone.

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article news schedule Oct 6, 2025 visibility 20 link 10 artists, 2 galleries

david adjaye museums open without starchitect

René Magritte's surrealist masterpiece *La Magie Noire*, unseen on the market for nearly a century, will be auctioned at Sotheby's Paris later this month with an estimate over $8 million. The painting was originally purchased by the family of WWII resistance heroine Suzanne Spaak, who supported Magritte during a financially difficult period. Separately, three major museums designed by star architect David Adjaye—the Princeton University Art Museum, the Museum of West African Art in Benin City, and the Studio Museum in Harlem—are set to open this fall, but institutions are downplaying Adjaye's involvement following sexual misconduct allegations he denied in 2023. Other news includes Pace Gallery closing its Hong Kong space, Colnaghi opening in Riyadh, and the death of ARTnews owner Milton Esterow.

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person people schedule Oct 1, 2025 visibility 26 link 9 artists, 9 galleries

ppow owen fu nicola vassell na kim industry moves

P.P.O.W. gallery has taken on representation of artist Owen Fu, while Nicola Vassell Gallery now represents Na Kim, known for her book covers and paintings. Jessie Washburne-Harris has been named Global Director at White Cube, overseeing the gallery's U.S. growth. Chris Sharp Gallery added Mark A. Rodriguez to its roster, and Berry Campbell took on the estate of Louisa Chase. Mexico City dealers Misa Yamaoka and Yuna Cabon launched an artist residency program at Third Born gallery. The article also reports that combined evening sales at Christie's, Phillips, and Sotheby's in Hong Kong totaled $136 million, a significant drop from $208.6 million last fall, and highlights the rising market interest in 17th-century artist Michaelina Wautier.

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person people schedule Sep 18, 2025 visibility 32 link 14 artists, 9 galleries

new gagosian director marian goodman edith dekyndt

Marian Goodman Gallery has taken on representation of artist Edith Dekyndt, whose multidisciplinary practice spans video, sculpture, installation, and performance, with plans to debut her work at Art Basel Paris in October. In other industry moves, Salon 94 now represents Raven Halfmoon, Timothy Taylor Gallery represents Martha Tuttle, Templon adds Martial Raysse, Acquavella Galleries represents Harumi Klossowska de Rola, and Gagosian has hired Aaron Baldinger as a director. Additionally, Jennie Goldstein has been named the inaugural Kippy Stroud Curator at the Whitney Museum, and Sotheby's will sell a tranche of artworks from the collection of the late Leonard Lauder, including Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, estimated at over $150 million.

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trending_up market schedule Sep 15, 2025 visibility 14 link 2 artists, 1 gallery

david lynch home studio sale

The Hollywood Hills home of the late filmmaker, musician, and artist David Lynch has been listed for sale at $15 million. The 2.3-acre compound, originally built in 1963 by Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright), was expanded by Lynch over his 35 years of residence to include two neighboring lots. It features 10 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, an art studio, a workshop, and a private screening room. The property served as both living quarters and workspace, and was even used as a film set for Lynch's 1997 movie *Lost Highway*. The listing shows that the home survived the recent destructive fires in the area, from which Lynch had evacuated shortly before his death in January 2025.

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trending_up market schedule Sep 12, 2025 visibility 31 link 40 artists, 16 galleries

frieze seoul 2025 sales report

The fourth edition of Frieze Seoul opened with strong collector turnout and solid first-day sales, despite a turbulent global art market. High-profile attendees included MoMA PS1 director Connie Butler, Hawai‘i Triennial 2025 cocurator Wassan Al-Khudhairi, and Top 200 Collectors Lonti Ebers, Yassmin Ghandehari, and Qiao Zhibing, alongside K-pop stars Lisa (BLACKPINK), RM (BTS), and The8 and Vernon (Seventeen). Major sales included Hauser & Wirth’s $4.5 million sale of Mark Bradford’s triptych "Okay, then I apologize" (2025) and a George Condo painting for $1.2 million, while White Cube, Thaddaeus Ropac, Pace Gallery, and others reported significant transactions. International blue-chip galleries with Seoul spaces are doubling down, presenting top-tier shows of star artists like James Turrell, Antony Gormley, and Lee Bul, with Korea’s private museums also mounting blockbuster exhibitions.

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article news schedule Jul 16, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists, 1 gallery

rashid johnson painting howard lutnick tequila video

United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick posted a video on social media showing off a new tequila bottle, but the backdrop featured a painting from Rashid Johnson's "Anxious Red" series. The artwork, confirmed by Hauser & Wirth as an authentic Johnson piece purchased on the secondary market, sparked criticism online due to the irony of Lutnick—a Trump appointee whose administration has cut public health funding—owning a work born from pandemic-era anxiety. The series originally supported the WHO's Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund through a 2020 charity auction, the same organization Trump withdrew the U.S. from on his first day in office.

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article news schedule Jul 16, 2025 visibility 24 link 17 artists, 2 galleries

andrew cuomo zohran mamdani mayoral campaign donations

Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo relaunched his New York mayoral campaign as a third-party candidate on July 14, after losing the Democratic primary to Zohran Mamdani by 12 points on June 24. A recent ARTnews data analysis reveals that prominent art world figures have donated to both campaigns, with Cuomo receiving contributions from Christie's executives, Phillips and Sotheby's staff, Gagosian directors, art dealers, and museum leaders, while Mamdani drew support from foundation directors, museum curators, gallery directors, and numerous artists. The pro-Cuomo super PAC Fix the City received $5 million from billionaire Michael Bloomberg and $250,000 from Top 200 collector Daniel Loeb, while the pro-Mamdani super PAC raised about $1.4 million.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jul 11, 2025 visibility 19 link 11 artists, 1 gallery

jenny saville national portrait gallery

British artist Jenny Saville has received her first major solo exhibition at a London museum, titled "Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting" at the National Portrait Gallery. The show spans three decades of her practice across some 50 paintings and drawings, tracing her evolution from a Young British Artist (YBA) known for vast, sensitive paintings of women's bodies to her recent digital-era heads. The exhibition will travel to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas in October. The article also highlights Saville's record-breaking 2018 sale of *Propped* for $12.4 million at Sotheby's London, which made her the highest-selling living female painter at the time, and notes recent auction results including *Juncture* selling for $7.3 million.

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article news schedule Jul 8, 2025 visibility 24 link 17 artists, 5 galleries

paint drippings art industry news jul 7

This week's art industry news covers major auction results, gallery changes, and restitution developments. At Christie's Old Masters evening sale in London, Canaletto's "The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day" set a new auction record for the artist at £31.9 million ($43.9 million), leading the sale to a total of £60.8 million. Sotheby's Old Masters evening sale brought in £14.5 million, with three new records including Diana de Rosa's "Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist" selling for £317,500. A rare early watercolor by Man Ray, "Nude Playing Musical Instrument" (1913), resurfaced after decades and will be auctioned at Dreweatts. In gallery news, Blum gallery laid off most of its staff and plans to cease brick-and-mortar operations, while Waddington Custot announced a new Paris space, and Company Gallery hired Subhas Kim Kandasamy as executive director. White Cube now represents Firenze Lai, and JD Malat Gallery launched a new initiative for UAE artists. In restitution, the Netherlands returned 119 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, transferred two Benin works to the Oba of Benin.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 24, 2025 visibility 24 link 11 artists, 1 gallery

phillips tests lichtenstein market vandalized painting priced 20 million

Phillips New York is offering Roy Lichtenstein's 1994 painting *Nudes in Mirror* with a $20 million estimate this fall, despite—or perhaps because of—its history of vandalism. The work, from the Rush Family Collection, was slashed by a mentally unstable woman while on loan to the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria in 2005, leaving four 12-inch gashes that have since been expertly restored. Phillips is openly embracing the attack as part of the painting's mythology, detailing the incident in its catalogue and comparing it to other famous acts of art vandalism.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 16, 2025 visibility 26 link 7 artists, 2 galleries

christies design sale june 2025 tiffany studios window

Christie's June 2025 design sales totaled $23.6 million across two auctions, led by the 'American Avant-Garde: The James D. Zellerbach Residence by Frances Elkins' single-owner sale ($8.1 million) and the broader Design sale ($15.4 million). The top lot was the Goddard Memorial Window by Tiffany Studios, which sold for $4.285 million with fees to an online bidder, marking the second-highest price ever for a Tiffany Studios work. Other highlights included two Alberto Giacometti bird sculptures selling for nearly $2.9 million each, a Claude Lalanne chandelier at $1.865 million, and her sculpture 'L'Enlèvement d'Europe' at $1.134 million.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 11, 2025 visibility 20 link 9 artists, 2 galleries

claudia alarcon silat weaving venice biennale james cohan

Claudia Alarcón, a Wichí artist from Argentina, learned the traditional yica stitch from her mother and grandmother at age 12. Her weavings, created in collaboration with the all-female collective Silät, were a standout at the 2024 Venice Biennale, earning critical praise from Barry Schwabsky in The Nation. The works are now featured in a solo show at James Cohan Gallery in New York, as well as in Brazil’s Bienal do Mercosul, and will travel to the De La Warr Pavilion in England, the Museo de Arte de São Paulo, and the Guggenheim Bilbao.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 19 link 5 artists, 2 galleries

francis bacon pope

The Nahmad family sold a Francis Bacon painting titled *Pope* (1958) for $15 million at the VIP opening of Art Basel. The work, which had been purchased by Helly Nahmad gallery for $6.6 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 2019, was the second-highest known price at the fair, trailing only a $40 million Louise Bourgeois *Spider* sold by Hauser & Wirth.

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article news schedule Jun 5, 2025 visibility 22 link 10 artists, 1 gallery

omai portrait joshua reynolds national portrait gallery fundraising campaign

The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London is in a last-minute push to raise £50 million ($60 million) to acquire Joshua Reynolds's 1776 portrait of Omai, a Polynesian visitor to Britain, before a temporary export ban expires on March 10. Despite raising roughly £25 million through a grassroots campaign involving public donations, a £2.5 million grant from the Art Fund, and £10 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the NPG remains short of its goal and is reportedly in secret talks with the Getty Museum to jointly purchase the painting.

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