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A small marble sculpture by Auguste Rodin, titled *Despair (Le Désespoir)* (1892), that had been missing since 1906 was rediscovered and sold at auction for €860,000 ($1 million). The 11-inch figure of a seated woman was initially thought to be a copy but was authenticated by the Comité Rodin after a months-long investigation by auctioneers Aymeric and Philippe Rouillac. The sale took place on June 8 as part of the 37th Garden Party Auction at Château de Villandry in France.

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Hilda Trujillo Soto, former director of the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera museums in Mexico City, has publicly accused the trust overseeing these institutions of years of mismanagement. In a blog post published in early April, Soto alleged that trustees failed to address discrepancies in records, with Kahlo and Rivera works possibly missing and later appearing in private U.S. collections. She also claimed that materials from Kahlo’s personal diary and artworks catalogued in 1957, including *Frida in Flames* and *The Abortion*, have been misplaced or illegally sold. The trust, established by Rivera in 1955 and now administered by Mexico’s central bank Banxico, denied Soto’s claims, stating she never officially reported concerns during her tenure from 2009 to 2020.

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President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he had fired Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., citing her as a "highly partisan person" and a "strong supporter of DEI." Sajet had led the museum since 2013, and her termination follows a series of executive orders targeting the Smithsonian Institution, including one in March that criticized "anti-American ideology" at its museums. The museum currently features the exhibition "America’s Presidents," which includes a portrait of Trump with a caption referencing his impeachments and the January 6 Capitol attack. The National Portrait Gallery did not respond to requests for comment, and no replacement has been named.

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The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, has acquired Jean Siméon Chardin's 1760 painting *The Cut Melon* directly from the descendants of Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild. The work had previously sold for $30.3 million at Christie's France in June 2024 to Italian investor Nanni Bassani Antivari, who failed to pay, leading Christie's to sue him. The museum, which was the underbidder at auction, announced the acquisition on Wednesday, and the painting goes on view Thursday in the Louis I. Kahn building.

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A major exhibition titled "Caravaggio 2025" at Rome's Palazzo Barberini brings together two dozen of the artist's roughly sixty known works, drawn from Italian and international collections. The show spans Caravaggio's career from his arrival in Rome in 1595 to his death in 1610, and includes rediscovered paintings such as *Ecce Homo* (c. 1606–1607), which resurfaced at a Spanish auction in 2021, and a newly attributed portrait of Maffeo Barberini (c. 1595). Visitors can now see nearly two-thirds of Caravaggio's surviving oeuvre in a single trip to Rome, with the exhibition running through July 6.

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The article is a gallery show guide for San Francisco timed to the FOG Design + Art Fair, highlighting five must-see exhibitions. Featured shows include Tara Donovan's "Stratagems" at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (now at the Transamerica Pyramid Annex Gallery), Samia Halaby's "Kinetic Paintings" at SFMOMA, Rose B. Simpson's "Lexicon" at the De Young, Heather Day's "Blue Distance" at Berggruen, and Christian Marclay's eponymous show at Fraenkel Gallery. Each entry provides dates, location, and a brief description of the artist's work.

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The article reviews several notable art events and exhibitions from 2025, beginning with Cameron Rowland's controversial work "Replacement" at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, where the French flag was replaced with the flag of Martinique, leading to the artwork being deemed potentially illegal. It also covers Johanna Fateman's review of Rowland's "Properties" at Dia Beacon, Ross Simonini's reflection on Joseph Beuys and the Eaton fire in Los Angeles, John Vincler's critiques of Cady Noland at Gagosian and Nicole Eisenman at 52 Walker, and Fateman's year-end roundup including figures like Anne Imhof, Laura Owens, and Jack Whitten.

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Alex Da Corte has resurrected his inflatable sculpture "Kermit the Frog, Even" for Art Basel Paris, displayed at Place Vendôme through October 26. The work references the 1991 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade incident where the Kermit float was deflated by a lamppost or tree, leaving its head sagging. Da Corte first debuted the piece in Buenos Aires in 2018 for the Art Basel Cities exhibition curated by Cecilia Alemani. The artist, known for mining children's media like Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street, also activated the sculpture with performers for the first time in Paris, navigating wind and rain during the performance.

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Florence Bonnefous, co-founder of Air de Paris gallery, is profiled in a feature that traces the gallery's 35-year history from its founding in Nice with poet Edouard Merino to its current industrial space in Romainville, a northern Paris suburb. The gallery, named after Marcel Duchamp's readymade, launched with a legendary 1990 exhibition featuring Philippe Parreno, Pierre Joseph, and Philippe Perrin, and has since become known for championing underground conceptual and challenging art. Bonnefous is described as a preeminent gallerist-curator who prioritizes artistic integrity over profit, representing estates of avant-garde female artists like Sturtevant and Dorothy Iannone, and maintaining close bonds with artists such as Liam Gillick and Flint Jamison. The gallery is exhibiting at Art Basel Paris but recently withdrew from Art Basel in Basel over a booth placement dispute.

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The article is a first-person diary chronicling the author's experiences during Armory Art Week in New York City in September. It begins at the Fulton Transit Center for the launch of artist Chloë Bass's public sound work "If you hear something, free something," presented by Creative Time and MTA Arts & Design, which features recorded announcements in five languages playing across 14 subway stations. The author then visits galleries in Chinatown, including Matthew Kirk's show at Fierman and Ohad Meromi's exhibition at 56 Henry, encountering notable art-world figures like Jerry Saltz, Issy Wood, and Naomi Fry along the way.

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Cultured magazine's Hamptons issue features an interview between designer Robin Standefer and Charlie Marder, the East End horticulturalist known as the 'tree whisperer.' Marder, who co-founded an eponymous Bridgehampton nursery with his wife Kathleen—dubbed 'a horticultural MoMA' by the New York Times—has assembled a sprawling field of massive geological specimens across from the nursery. The rocks, some weighing 10 tons, are salvaged from development sites and quarries. Standefer, who purchased one of Marder's boulders for her birthday, discusses with Marder the ethics of placement, the personalities of stones, and the human urge to give new life to ancient matter.

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Lisa Yuskavage is set to have a major exhibition of her works on paper at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, running through January. The show features dozens of drawings spanning over three decades, many of which have never been publicly shown before, discovered in her flat files by her registrar. The exhibition places her provocative figurative work—known for its vulgar, humorous, and desire-laden imagery—in dialogue with the museum's renowned Old Master drawing collection.

Diane Keaton’s Iconic Wardrobe and Art Collection Head to Auction

Bonhams auction house, in collaboration with the Fine Art Group, is organizing a four-part, 550-lot sale of Diane Keaton's personal belongings. The sales, taking place online and in New York from late May to mid-June, will include her iconic wardrobe, Hollywood memorabilia, home furnishings, and a significant portion of her art collection, featuring works by artists like Robert Rauschenberg and Ed Ruscha, as well as her own mixed-media collages.

Giacometti Meets the Gods in the Met’s Temple of Dendur Show

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced a landmark exhibition titled "Giacometti in the Temple of Dendur," which will place the Swiss sculptor’s slender, modernist figures within the museum’s iconic 1st-century B.C.E. Egyptian temple. Opening in June, the show features fourteen loans from the Fondation Giacometti alongside works from the Met’s permanent collection, including the placement of "Walking Woman (I)" inside the temple’s offering hall to mimic ancient cult statuary.

How New York City Shaped Harry Winston’s Dazzling Legacy

The luxury jeweler Harry Winston continues to expand its 'New York' collection, a high-jewelry suite first launched in 2018 that pays homage to the founder's birthplace and the city's architectural landmarks. The collection translates iconic New York City motifs—including the hand-carved facades of Upper West Side brownstones, the neon glow of the Broadway theater district, and the neo-Gothic spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral—into intricate diamond and gemstone arrangements.

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An anonymous graffiti artist known as Acer 444 successfully tagged the third-story facade of the New Museum on New York’s Bowery. The large-scale piece, featuring black lettering against a red background, was placed in a precarious, high-visibility location directly above Glenn Ligon’s neon installation. Despite the museum's security measures and its specialized aluminum mesh exterior, the artist managed to complete the work undetected before maintenance crews began removal efforts the following morning.

Beeple's Robot Dogs to Roam Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie

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Digital artist Beeple is set to make his German institutional debut at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie with "Regular Animals" (2025), an installation featuring ten robotic dogs with heads modeled after tech moguls like Elon Musk and iconic artists like Pablo Picasso. The sculptures, which gained viral fame at Art Basel Miami Beach, use AI to process their surroundings and "defecate" stylized prints for visitors. The 11-day pop-up presentation will place Beeple’s work in dialogue with Nam June Paik’s "Andy Warhol Robot" (1994), exploring the intersection of art, media, and mechanical reproduction.

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Gustav Klimt's final portrait, 'Dame mit Fächer (Lady With a Fan),' sold for £85.3 million ($108.4 million) at Sotheby's London, setting a new record for the most expensive work of art ever auctioned in Europe. The painting, which was still on Klimt's easel when he died in 1918, surpassed its pre-sale estimate of over £65 million after a ten-minute bidding war.

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The Metropolitan Opera is considering selling its two iconic Marc Chagall murals, 'The Sources of Music' and 'The Triumph of Music,' which have been appraised at $55 million. The institution's general manager, Peter Gelb, has proposed a sale with the condition that the buyer agrees to leave the works in place at Lincoln Center, with a donation plaque.

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Artnet News is searching for a permanent writer for its Wet Paint gossip column, with guest writers like Janelle Zara filling in temporarily. The column focuses on speculating about the identity of the anonymous Instagram account @artnotnet, which posts humorous, all-caps commentary on art world headlines, and notes the rise of art sales on platforms like Facebook Marketplace.

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New York's Metropolitan Opera announced it may sell its two iconic Marc Chagall murals, *The Sources of Music* and *The Triumphs of Music*, which have adorned the building's Grand Tier since 1966. The proposal includes a caveat that the paintings must remain in place at the opera, with the owner recognized on a plaque. Sotheby's valued the artworks at a total of $55 million within the past year. The financially beleaguered institution has drawn $120 million from its endowment and reduced its performance schedule since the pandemic, and previously used the Chagalls as collateral for a $35 million loan from J.P. Morgan in 2009.

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Artist Ai Weiwei will unveil a new exhibition titled “Button Up!” at Factory International in Manchester, England, opening July 2. The show features monumental installations made from 30 tons of buttons he rescued from a shuttered British factory in 2019, along with over 3.5 million Lego pieces. Highlights include eight flags sewn with 9,000 buttons each, referencing the Eight-Nation Alliance that invaded China during the Boxer Rebellion, and a new version of his Lego work *History of Bombs*. The buttons were secretly shipped to China, where artisans assembled the works over 281 days.

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A time capsule designed by British architect Norman Foster has been buried in Washington D.C. to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence. The titanium box features 13 facets and stars representing the original colonies, and contains letters from King Charles III and President Donald Trump, along with soil from George Washington's ancestral home. It was presented by Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin and U.K. officials to the U.S. Department of Interior, and is not to be opened until July 4, 2276.

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Seven notable art historical rediscoveries from 2025 are highlighted, including an early Eva Hesse painting found at a Goodwill thrift store that sold for $107,100 at Christie's, a previously unknown John Singer Sargent portrait unveiled at the Musée d'Orsay, a Salvador Dalí watercolor bought for $186 that fetched $61,400 at auction, and a John Constable drawing resurfacing after 200 years. Other finds include works by post-minimalist and old master artists uncovered in attics, estate sales, and private collections, often identified by sharp-eyed dealers or lucky amateurs.

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The Morgan Library and Museum in New York will open "Caravaggio’s Boy with a Basket of Fruit in Focus" on January 16, centered on a landmark loan of Caravaggio's titular painting from the Galleria Borghese in Rome. The exhibition, organized through the Foundation for Italian Art and Culture (FIAC) led by Alain Elkann, features 13 artworks by artists who preceded and succeeded Caravaggio, curated by John Marciari to provide context on the artist's influences and legacy.

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Kim Sajet, former director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery (NPG), has been appointed as the new director of the Milwaukee Art Museum, starting September 22. She left the NPG in June after a high-profile clash with President Donald Trump over diversity initiatives and funding. Sajet brings extensive experience from museums in the Netherlands and Australia, and during her 12-year tenure at the NPG, she doubled attendance and raised $85 million. She replaces Marcelle Polednik, who departed in May after nine years.

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France's historic loan of the Bayeux Tapestry to the British Museum has sparked controversy over the proposed £800 million ($1.1 billion) insurance cover, which critics argue is unsuitable for such a fragile, 950-year-old textile. Art historians and conservators have raised concerns that the U.K.'s Government Indemnity Scheme does not cover damage from preexisting conditions or inherent vice, and that no sum can adequately insure an irreplaceable heritage object. A French petition calling on President Emmanuel Macron to cancel the loan has garnered over 75,000 signatures, but the U.K. government has proceeded with plans, including a practice "dry run" using a facsimile and a custom crate designed to minimize vibrations.

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Artnet News has compiled a guide to holiday art shows in New York City for December 2025. The featured exhibitions include the Metropolitan Museum of Art's annual "Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche" (November 25–January 6), the American Museum of Natural History's "Origami Holiday Tree" (November 24–January 20) inspired by its dinosaur extinction exhibition, the Morgan Library and Museum's display of Charles Dickens's original manuscript of "A Christmas Carol" (November 25–January 11), and the New York Public Library's "Best Friends Forever: Holiday Greeting Cards" (December 3–January 4). Each venue offers a unique artistic take on the holiday season, from 18th-century Neapolitan figurines and thousands of origami animals to literary history and vintage greeting cards.

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Helen Frankenthaler, the pioneering Color Field painter known for her luminous, stain-soaked canvases, is the subject of a renewed wave of exhibitions. The Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao recently hosted a major survey of her work, while the Museum of Modern Art in New York is currently presenting "Helen Frankenthaler: A Grand Sweep" in its atrium. Next year, the Kunstmuseum Basel will open the largest exhibition of her art in Europe to date, marking her first solo museum show in Switzerland. The article also recounts her biography—her privileged upbringing on the Upper East Side, her studies at the Dalton School and Bennington College, her relationships with Clement Greenberg and Robert Motherwell, and her invention of the soak-stain technique in 1952, which helped birth Color Field painting.

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On January 7, 2025, the Palisades and Eaton Fires erupted in Los Angeles, fueled by drought and Santa Ana winds exceeding 90 mph, destroying over 12,000 structures. The fires devastated Pacific Palisades and Altadena, including the homes and studios of numerous artists, collectors, and art professionals. The Getty Center and Getty Villa were under evacuation but remained safe. Artist Paul McCarthy lost three family homes and his son's editing studio, while many others like Christina Quarles, Analia Saban, and Ruby Neri also suffered losses.