Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule Jan 21, 2026 visibility 18 link 1 artist

philadelphia art museum board firing director daniel weiss

Daniel H. Weiss, the new director of the Philadelphia Art Museum, gave his first extensive interview to the Philadelphia Inquirer, defending the museum's board after the controversial firing of his predecessor, Sasha Suda. Suda was terminated in November for alleged misappropriation of funds, including a $39,000 salary increase over two years, which she claims was authorized and is now the subject of a lawsuit. Weiss, formerly president and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, stated the board does not need radical restructuring but acknowledged the museum faces a financial deficit and needs to address its widely ridiculed rebrand from the Philadelphia Museum of Art to the Philadelphia Art Museum (acronym PhAM). He has begun a listening tour with staff to assess problems, and the marketing chief who led the rebrand has since resigned.

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article news schedule Jan 20, 2026 visibility 13 link 1 artist

louvre robbery footage french television

French broadcaster France Télévisions aired previously unseen footage of the October 2025 robbery at the Louvre Museum, in which thieves stole crown jewels worth approximately €88 million ($102 million). The four-minute video, shown on the investigative program Complément d'enquête, captures the thieves smashing display cases with their fists and an angle grinder while security guards remain largely motionless nearby. One guard briefly confronts the thieves with a rope stanchion before backing down, and another makes a phone call. The footage corroborates findings from a security audit that deemed the museum's system "outdated and inadequate," with a severe lack of functioning cameras. Louvre director Laurence des Cars had previously stated that the sole camera covering the gallery was facing the wrong direction, and it took guards eight minutes to access the correct feed during the break-in.

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person people schedule Jan 18, 2026 visibility 7 link 1 artist

alexis sablone inducted skateboarding hall of fame

Artist, designer, architect, and Olympian skateboarder Alexis Sablone has been inducted into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame as part of its Class of 2026, announced on January 15. The 18 inductees were selected for shaping skateboarding culture and global impact, with the ceremony set for May 15 at Vans Headquarters in Costa Mesa, California. Sablone is known to the art world for skateboarding down the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's spiral ramp in 2023 to promote her first sneaker design for Converse, and for creating skateable public art like 'Lady in the Square' in Sweden and 'Candy Courts' in New Jersey.

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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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gavel restitution schedule Dec 23, 2025 visibility 15 link 1 artist

looted artworks returned turkey met museum manhattan da

On December 8, 2025, a repatriation ceremony in New York saw 43 looted antiquities returned to Turkey, including a 2nd-century marble head of Demosthenes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a Roman bronze statue of an emperor from collector Aaron Mendelsohn, and 41 terracotta reliefs from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The returns resulted from a years-long investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit into networks that plundered archaeological sites in Turkey and sold items with forged provenance.

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gavel restitution schedule Dec 23, 2025 visibility 14 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 10 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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article news schedule Dec 17, 2025 visibility 14 link 1 artist

walkout louvre staff unions vote continue strike

Unionized staff at the Louvre Museum in Paris voted unanimously to continue a strike that began on Monday, with hundreds of workers walking out to protest deteriorating working conditions, insufficient staffing, and a proposed dual pricing system for non-EU visitors. The strike has forced partial closures, with the museum offering only a limited 'masterpiece route' featuring works like the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. Unions rejected a Culture Ministry offer to cancel a planned €5.7 million budget cut, recruit more staff, and raise pay, deeming the proposals insufficient. Workers also oppose a plan to raise ticket prices for non-EU visitors from €22 to €32 to fund renovations, and criticize the use of funds from a brand licensing deal with Abu Dhabi.

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article news schedule Dec 15, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists

guggenheim new art prize catherine telford keogh winner

The Guggenheim Museum has announced a new biennial art prize, the Jack Galef Visual Arts Award, endowed by the estate of Jack Galef with a $50,000 honorarium. The first recipient is Catherine Telford Keogh, a sculptor whose work explores found materials, environmental contamination, and the global economy. Keogh plans to use the award to support projects examining microbial life in Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal and a solo exhibition in Portland tracing the history of instruments that regulate eating.

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article local schedule Dec 12, 2025 visibility 15 link 4 artists

sylvester stallone rocky balboa sculpture philadelphia

Sylvester Stallone is reclaiming one of his two Rocky statues from Philadelphia after a city commission vote. A second bronze sculpture by Auldwin Thomas Schomberg, which Stallone bought at auction in 2017 and loaned to the city in December 2024 for RockyFest, will be returned to the actor in 2026. Meanwhile, the original 1980 statue—currently at the foot of the Philadelphia Art Museum steps—will be moved inside the museum for the exhibition “Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments” celebrating the franchise’s 50th anniversary, then relocated to the top of the steps where it originally stood in the 1980s. A third Schomberg Rocky statue was recently unveiled at Philadelphia International Airport.

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article news schedule Dec 8, 2025 visibility 10 link 1 artist

louvre staff vote with unanimity to strike

Louvre staff voted unanimously to strike starting December 15, following a meeting of 200 employees from three unions. The unions filed a strike notice with France’s Ministry of Culture, citing a museum in “crisis” with “increasingly deteriorated working conditions” and describing the visitor experience as a “real obstacle course.” The strike could force closures during the busy holiday period. This action follows a year of turmoil at the museum, including a January leaked memo from director Laurence des Cars warning of water leaks and overcrowding, a June wildcat strike over working conditions, and an October theft of $102 million in French royal jewels that exposed outdated security systems. Structural issues recently forced closure of the Sully wing, and a water leak damaged 400 books in the Egyptian antiquities library.

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article news schedule Dec 3, 2025 visibility 13 link 2 artists, 4 galleries

sharon stone rogues gallery

Sharon Stone has created a new series of figurative paintings titled "Rogues Gallery," which she describes as channeling the spirits of historical figures from different eras and locations, including an enslaved individual who drowned in the East China Sea and Iranian freedom fighter Mahsa Amini. The works, made in 2025, mark a shift from her earlier abstracted landscapes and floral motifs, and were produced in her Los Angeles home studio. Stone, who began painting seriously around 2020 and has previously exhibited at C. Parker Gallery, Allouche Gallery, and Galerie Deschler Berlin, approaches the portraits as a medium for healing and confronting difficult histories, including her own family's potential involvement in enslavement.

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museum exhibitions schedule Dec 2, 2025 visibility 14 link 1 artist, 2 galleries

gail morris bonner david galleries

Artist Gail Morris presents "Blue Note," a solo exhibition at Bonner David Galleries in New York, featuring bold abstract paintings that explore the emotional and psychological experience of light, space, and music. The show's title references the musical concept of a "blue note," which Morris reinterprets as a compositional strategy to create tension and balance in her works. While starting from physical landscapes—such as natural sites, urban parks, or islands—Morris obscures specific details, using titles like "Down By the River" (2025) and "Bird of Paradise" (2025) to evoke universal moods rather than literal scenes. The exhibition runs through November 29, 2025.

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article news schedule Nov 29, 2025 visibility 14 link 1 artist

palace of westminster dig 6000 years history

Archaeological excavations at the Palace of Westminster in London have uncovered Neolithic flint tools and flakes dating back over 6,000 years, predating the earliest mounds at Stonehenge. The digs, led by the Museum of London Archaeology and overseen by the Houses of Parliament Restoration and Renewal Delivery Authority (R&R), also revealed the remains of Lesser Hall, a 12th-century royal dining space, along with Roman altar fragments, medieval tiles, and 19th-century artifacts. The excavations, running through 2026, are part of a £13 billion restoration project addressing the Palace's deteriorating condition.

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article news schedule Nov 26, 2025 visibility 11 link 2 artists, 1 gallery

artists former staffers accuse london gallery nonpayment

Artist Brittany Fanning has publicly accused London-based Pictorum Art Group of failing to pay her for works sold in a group show three years ago. She and other artists, including Finn Johnson who obtained a court judgment, claim they are owed money. Former staffers also report unpaid wages. The gallery, which operated on Portman Square, was dissolved in July, and attempts to reach its directors, brothers Jackson Navin and Matthew Navin, were unsuccessful. Fanning, who has shown at galleries like Mindy Solomon and Steve Turner, says she is owed around $9,140 total, including for the painting *Shark Lover*.

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gavel restitution schedule Nov 24, 2025 visibility 12 link 1 artist

msk ghent declines to return nazi looted painting

The Museum of Fine Arts (MSK) in Ghent has refused to return Gaspar de Craye's Nazi-looted *Portrait of Bishop Triest* to the heirs of its original owner, Samuel Hartveld. An independent commission found the painting was sold under duress after the German occupation of Belgium in 1940, but concluded that Hartveld and his family were later financially compensated by the city, leading MSK to retain the work. Jewish groups EJA and JID are contesting the decision, arguing that international principles mandate restitution regardless of compensation.

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museum exhibitions schedule Nov 24, 2025 visibility 13 link 3 artists, 2 galleries

craig boagey internet meme digital culture paintings

British artist Craig Boagey's solo exhibition "Spirit Economy" is on view at Amanita gallery in New York's Lower East Side. The show presents lush, meticulously executed paintings that assemble internet ephemera—memes, diagrams, YouTube stills, and references from online subcultures like nu-spiritualism and Remilia—into compositions that blend cute, feminine, and aspirational imagery with machinic, masculine, and esoteric elements. Works like "The All Thing" (2025) incorporate AlphaGo's famous Move 37, Christian iconography, and a memex, treating disposable digital content as cultural documents.

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trending_up market schedule Nov 24, 2025 visibility 10 link 3 artists

cia kryptos sculpture code auction

An anonymous bidder has won the solution to the final unsolved puzzle of Kryptos, a famous encrypted sculpture at CIA headquarters in Virginia, for $962,500 in an online auction by R.R. Auction. The artist, Jim Sanborn, offered the handwritten code for the fourth message (K4) along with other unpublished items and a prototype, far exceeding the presale estimate of $300,000–$500,000. The sale came after the solution was accidentally leaked to journalists Jarett Kobek and Richard Byrne, who discovered the plaintext in Sanborn's papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, though they have agreed not to release it.

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person people schedule Nov 21, 2025 visibility 14 link 1 artist

philadelphia art museum daniel weiss director controversy

The Philadelphia Art Museum has appointed Daniel H. Weiss, former president and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as its new director and CEO, effective December 1. Weiss, who led the Met for eight years until 2023 and most recently served as a professor and senior adviser at Johns Hopkins University, will guide the museum through at least 2028. His appointment follows the abrupt ouster of previous director Sasha Suda, who was terminated for cause on November 4 and has since sued the museum, alleging board members falsely accused her of misusing funds. The museum’s board chair, Ellen Caplan, praised Weiss’s leadership experience but did not address Suda’s dismissal.

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article news schedule Nov 18, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

artist epstein clinton painting

Australian-born artist Petrina Ryan-Kleid's 2012 student painting *Parsing Bill*, depicting Bill Clinton in a blue dress, went viral after the Daily Mail revealed it had been owned and prominently displayed by convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The work, created as a satirical thesis piece at the New York Academy of Art, was intended to critique how opposition parties caricature presidents, referencing Monica Lewinsky's blue dress. Ryan-Kleid, who sold the painting for about $1,300 at the 2012 Tribeca Ball fundraiser, has since distanced herself from the political narrative, expressing discomfort and clarifying the piece's original intent.

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article culture schedule Nov 12, 2025 visibility 10 link 2 artists

high potential tv series art heist

The ABC television series *High Potential* aired a midseason finale episode titled “The One that Got Away,” in which protagonist Morgan Gillory, a cleaning lady turned police consultant, investigates a museum heist involving a $20 million Rembrandt painting, *Young Girl Leaning on a Windowsill*. The fictional theft—executed via a skylight rope descent, laser security disabling, and smoke bomb—eerily mirrored a real-life Louvre heist that occurred just a week after the episode was written, where thieves used a cherry picker and angle grinder to break through a window. The episode also touches on Nazi-looted art and a possible serial art thief named John Baptist.

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article policy schedule Oct 31, 2025 visibility 15 link 1 artist

spain acknowledgement injustice pain colonization mexico

Spanish foreign minister José Manuel Albares inaugurated an exhibition titled “Half the World: Women in Indigenous Mexico” at the Cervantes Institute in Madrid, featuring over 400 works on loan from the Mexican government. At the press conference, Albares acknowledged that Spain's colonization of Mexico caused “pain and injustice” toward indigenous peoples, but stopped short of issuing a full apology. This follows a 2019 letter from former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador demanding an apology from Spain and the Catholic Church for the conquest, which Spain rejected. Current Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has reiterated the demand, calling the original letter “very diplomatic” and criticizing Spain's response as “undiplomatic.”

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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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trending_up market schedule Oct 14, 2025 visibility 15 link 3 artists, 7 galleries

perrotin relocating hong kong gallery

Emmanuel Perrotin announced that his gallery is relocating from K11 Atelier Victoria Dockside back to Central, Hong Kong’s business district, where it first opened in Asia in 2012. The gallery vacated Dockside on October 1 after six years, citing the need to better serve its community, enhance accessibility, and reduce operational costs. The move follows Pace Gallery’s announcement that it will close its H Queen’s location by the end of October, and comes amid a broader shake-up in Hong Kong’s gallery scene, with other blue-chip dealers like Lévy Gorvy Dayan also shuttering spaces.

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article policy schedule Oct 9, 2025 visibility 13 link 1 artist

unesco new chief gaza and ukraine us exit anti israel bias

UNESCO's executive board has nominated Khaled El-Enany Ezz as its sole candidate for the next director-general, following a decisive vote during the organization's meetings at United Nations High Week. El-Enany, a 54-year-old Egyptian professor of Egyptology and former minister of tourism and antiquities, previously oversaw the construction and renovation of more than 20 museums, including the Grand Egyptian Museum. He will be the first Arab to lead UNESCO, replacing outgoing director-general Audrey Azoulay.

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trending_up market schedule Oct 2, 2025 visibility 12 link 1 artist

sothebys sells york avenue hq weill cornell breuer move

Sotheby's has sold its longtime New York headquarters at 1334 York Avenue to Weill Cornell Medicine, marking the final step in a major real estate transformation. The auction house will lease back floors 7–10 under a long-term lease while relocating its global headquarters to the Breuer Building at 945 Madison Avenue, which opens November 8 with a blockbuster exhibition. Sotheby's also acquired Gantry Point, a 240,000-square-foot complex in Long Island City, in 2023. CEO Charles Stewart stated the sale proceeds will reduce debt and invest in core business.

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article news schedule Sep 18, 2025 visibility 12 link 1 artist

cairo officials launch hunt for a pharaonic bracelet missing from egyptian museum

Cultural authorities in Cairo have launched a nationwide search for a 3,000-year-old solid gold bracelet that disappeared from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square. The artifact, once owned by King Amenemope of the 21st Dynasty, features blue lapis lazuli beads and was last seen in the museum's restoration laboratory. It was being prepared for the upcoming "Treasures of the Pharaohs" exhibition in Rome. Authorities have distributed images of the bracelet to all Egyptian airports, seaports, and land border crossings to prevent smuggling, and a specialist committee will inventory all artifacts in the laboratory.

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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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gavel restitution schedule Aug 21, 2025 visibility 20 link 3 artists

petition to block loan of bayeux tapestry to londons british museum garners 50000 signatures

Nearly 50,000 people have signed a petition to block the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry from France to the British Museum in London. The petition, launched in July by French art historian Didier Rykner, cites warnings from textile restorers that transporting the 1,000-year-old embroidered linen could cause irreparable damage. The tapestry is scheduled to be displayed at the British Museum from September 2026 to July 2027 while its home, the Bayeux Tapestry Museum in Normandy, undergoes renovation. The loan was announced by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. Prominent French cultural figures, including former Bayeux Tapestry Museum director Isabelle Attard, and British conservation watchdog ArtWatch UK director Michael Daley have voiced concerns. Rykner hopes to unite French and British opposition to stop the exchange, which also includes Anglo-Saxon and Medieval objects from the British Museum moving to France.

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gavel restitution schedule Aug 7, 2025 visibility 14 link 2 artists

manhattan das office returns over 30 antiquities to spain italy and hungary

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office, led by Alvin Bragg and the Antiquities Trafficking Unit under Matthew Bogdanos, has repatriated over 30 antiquities to Spain, Italy, and Hungary. The returned objects include a 1st-century CE marble head of Alexander the Great as Helios, a 1675 Jesuit manuscript stolen during World War II, and several 6th-century Visigoth pendants trafficked by Robin Symes and sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1990. The items were seized from traffickers including Giacomo Medici, Giovanni Franco Becchina, Robin Symes, Robert Hecht, Eugene Alexander, and Edoardo Almagià, who is awaiting extradition from Italy.

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