Art News. Vasari Codex

trending_up market schedule May 15, 2025 visibility 9 link 12 artists, 3 galleries

pharrell williams joopiter marketplace 2644229

Pharrell Williams has launched a new buy-it-now extension called Joopiter Marketplace, an offshoot of his existing auction platform Joopiter. The marketplace offers collectibles from Williams's personal archive—including Vivienne Westwood hats, KAWS sneakers, Gucci and Levi's jackets, and items from his fashion labels ICECREAM and Billionaire Boys Club—alongside pieces from other cultural figures. Additional sellers include artist Tom Sachs, gallerist Easy Otabor, jewelry designer Lorraine Schwartz, and music executive Steven Victor, with proceeds from some sales benefiting nonprofits like the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Rebuild Foundation, and the Virgil Abloh Foundation.

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valparaiso university sold brauer museum artworks 2645354

Valparaiso University in Indiana has finalized the sale of two valuable paintings from the Brauer Museum of Art—Childe Hassam's *The Silver Veil and the Golden Gate* (1914) and Georgia O'Keeffe's *Rust Red Hills* (1930)—and is in the process of selling a third, Frederic Edwin Church's *Mountain Landscape* (c. 1849). The sales, collectively valued at up to $20 million, are intended to fund renovations of freshman dormitories amid budget shortfalls. The decision has sparked vocal protests, a lawsuit, and a vote of no confidence from the faculty senate against university president José Padilla, who announced his retirement. Moody's Ratings downgraded the school's credit rating to junk status, partly due to the controversy.

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article culture schedule May 15, 2025 visibility 9 link 10 artists

michelangelo 550 birthday headlines 2639169

Artnet News rounds up recent headlines involving Renaissance master Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni as institutions prepare to celebrate his 550th birthday in 2025. The article highlights three stories: a scene in HBO's *The White Lotus* season three finale that echoes Michelangelo's *Pietà*; the ongoing scholarly debate over whether Michelangelo himself forged the ancient sculpture *Laocoön and His Sons*; and the restoration of Michelangelo's family tomb at the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence ahead of his birthday.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 15, 2025 visibility 7 link 7 artists

olga de amaral wove her own path at 92 the art world is catching up 2640409

The nonagenarian Colombian fiber artist Olga de Amaral, now 92, is the subject of a major retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, following its debut at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris in 2024. The exhibition, on view through October 12, 2025, features works spanning her entire career, from the 1950s to the present, and includes pieces that blend ancient and futuristic aesthetics, often incorporating gold shimmer and woven density. Curated by Marie Perennès and Stephanie Seidel, the show highlights Amaral's pioneering role in textile art, a medium historically marginalized as craft rather than fine art.

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gavel restitution schedule May 15, 2025 visibility 7 link 4 artists

valparaiso university brauer museum can sell paintings 2531663

The Porter County Superior Court has approved Valparaiso University's plan to sell three valuable paintings from the Brauer Museum of Art—works by Frederic Edwin Church, Childe Hassam, and Georgia O'Keeffe valued at around $20 million—to fund renovations to freshman dormitories. The decision follows a year and a half of controversy, including a lawsuit from the museum's founding director Richard Brauer and condemnation from major museum professional organizations, who argue that deaccessioning art for non-collection purposes violates ethical standards.

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article culture schedule May 15, 2025 visibility 7 link 9 artists

theophile alexandre steinlen tournee du chat noir 2417712

The article explores the life and work of Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (1859–1923), the Swiss-born artist who created the iconic 1896 poster *Tournée du Chat Noir* for Rodolphe Salis’s legendary Parisian cabaret Le Chat Noir. It details how Steinlen, a resident of Montmartre, was introduced to the cabaret’s circle by fellow artist Adolphe Willette and went on to produce numerous commercial works featuring cats, including advertisements, exhibition announcements, and the artists' book *Des chats, dessins sans paroles*. The piece also highlights Steinlen’s involvement in leftist politics and his broader artistic output, which included landscapes, still lifes, and nudes shown at the Salon des Indépendants.

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trending_up market schedule May 13, 2025 visibility 6 link 6 artists

artnet auctions 20th century art 2 2617475

Artnet Auctions is hosting its '20th Century Art' sale, now live for bidding through March 19, 2025. The sale features a curated selection of portraits by leading 20th-century artists, including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso, Niki de Saint Phalle, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Alex Katz. Highlights include Saint Phalle's playful sculpture 'Tête de Femme' (1982), Picasso's abstract graphite drawing 'Homme au chapeau jouant de la guitare' (1914–1915), and Lichtenstein's Ben-Day dot print 'The Art Critic' (1996).

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museum exhibitions schedule May 12, 2025 visibility 10 link 14 artists

lupe fiasco ghotiing mit public art 2641135

Lupe Fiasco, the Grammy-winning rapper and MIT visiting scholar, has created "GHOTIING MIT," an audio tour featuring seven tracks improvised and recorded on-site at public artworks around the MIT List Visual Arts Center campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Using an iPad, microphone, and solar panels, Fiasco responds to sculptures by Alexander Calder, Antony Gormley, Jacques Lipchitz, and Jaume Plensa, among others, blending rap with field recordings to capture the immediacy of each piece. He terms this spontaneous creative process "ghotiing" (pronounced "fishing"), likening it to the Impressionist practice of painting en plein air.

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article culture schedule May 12, 2025 visibility 11 link 20 artists

7 art history facts 2639759

Frieze Week in New York has arrived, drawing tens of thousands of visitors to The Shed for displays from over 65 international galleries. The article offers a collection of art historical trivia to help attendees impress peers, including tales of a potentially fake Picasso gifted to Robin Williams by Disney, Piet Mondrian's fondness for Disney's *Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs*, and a legend that Raphael's pupil Giulio Romano created erotic frescos in the Vatican's Sala di Constantino out of anger over delayed payment from Pope Clement VII.

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article local schedule May 12, 2025 visibility 8 link 7 artists

stavros niarchos foundation cultural center 526778

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, a Renzo Piano-designed complex housing Greece's National Library and National Opera House, has completed construction in Athens after five years. The foundation is celebrating with a four-night free festival called "Metamorphosis" (June 23–26) featuring cultural, educational, and sporting events, including a video art survey curated by Robert Storr. The project, built on a former hippodrome site abandoned after the 2004 Olympic Games, cost nearly €600 million and was conceived by SNF co-president Andreas Dracopoulos during Greece's pre-crisis optimism.

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article news schedule May 10, 2025 visibility 8 link 16 artists

kim kardashian art world 2640208

Kim Kardashian, the media personality and billionaire entrepreneur, has increasingly intersected with the art world through high-profile purchases, legal disputes, and controversial photo shoots. She bought Jean-Michel Basquiat's painting "Both Poles" (1982) for $5 million at Christie's in 2017, later confirmed in 2024. She faced a lawsuit from the Donald Judd Foundation in 2024 for falsely claiming two tables were authentic Judd works. She also sparked outrage with a Tesla Cybertruck photoshoot for Perfect magazine during the "Tesla Takedown" protests, and engaged in a bidding war with Tom Brady over a George Condo artwork.

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trending_up market schedule May 9, 2025 visibility 8 link 8 artists

sothebys sets new world record for photography auction 199945

Sotheby's New York held a single-owner auction titled "175 Masterworks To Celebrate 175 Years of Photography: Property from Joy of Giving Something Foundation" on December 11 and 12, achieving a world record for a photography auction. The sale grossed $21,325,063, surpassing its presale estimate of $13–20 million and beating the previous record of $15 million set by a Sotheby's sale in 2006. The collection came from the late American financier Howard Stein, who founded the Joy of Giving Something Foundation in 1999. The auction had a strong sell-through rate of 90.3 percent by lot and 94.9 percent by value, with top lots including Alvin Langdon Coburn's "Shadows and Reflections, Venice" (1905) at $965,000 and August Sander's "Handlanger" at $749,000. Several female photographers set new records, including Tina Modotti, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Lee Miller.

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gavel restitution schedule May 8, 2025 visibility 4 link 6 artists

32 million klimt sale falls through 2637831

The record-setting $32 million sale of Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Fräulein Lieser" (1917) has fallen through after a restitution settlement failed to resolve gaps in its provenance. The painting, discovered in early 2024 and sold at Im Kinsky auction house in Vienna to an anonymous Hong Kong buyer in April, was mired in controversy over its history during the Nazi era. The work's whereabouts between 1925 and 1961 were unknown, a period including Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany. The auction house proposed the work was commissioned by Henriette Lieser, who was deported and murdered at Auschwitz, but conflicting theories about the sitter's identity and the painting's path through a Nazi party member's family complicated restitution efforts. A new potential legal heir emerged after the sale, and the buyer ultimately pulled out.

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article policy schedule May 8, 2025 visibility 6 link 3 artists

frankenthaler warhol foundations fund projects nea cuts 2640695

The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation and the Andy Warhol Foundation are jointly providing $800,000 in emergency grants to replace funding lost when the Trump administration abruptly cut the National Endowment for the Arts' Challenge America grants in February 2025. The grants, each worth $10,000, will support 80 small and medium-sized visual arts programs across the country that had been promised NEA funding for underserved communities, including the Kids & Art Foundation, Allentown Art Museum, Free Arts for Abused Children, InToto Creative Arts Forum, and Latinitas.

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article news schedule May 7, 2025 visibility 5 link 3 artists

femen stage protest musee dorsay 1908260

The feminist activist group FEMEN staged a topless protest at Paris's Musée d'Orsay on Saturday, September 12, 2020, after the museum barred a woman named Jeanne from entering the galleries unless she covered up her low-cut dress. About 20 activists gathered in the sculpture gallery, removed their shirts, and painted slogans such as "obscenity is in your eyes" and "this is not obscene" on their torsos, standing alongside classical nude statues. They chanted in protest and later moved outside the museum. The museum issued an apology to Jeanne but did not address accusations of sexism or discrimination.

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article culture schedule May 7, 2025 visibility 9 link 5 artists

eva hesse documentary 456167

A comprehensive new documentary on Eva Hesse, the innovative 1960s artist, will premiere in New York in April. Directed by Marcie Begleiter, the film explores Hesse's life as a German-born American who fled Nazi Germany, her difficult childhood as an immigrant, and her rise in New York's art scene. It features interviews with artists like Robert Mangold and examines her pioneering use of materials such as plastic, latex, and fiberglass. Hesse's career was cut short when she died of a brain tumor at age 34 in 1970, but her legacy has grown through posthumous retrospectives at major museums.

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gavel restitution schedule May 7, 2025 visibility 6 link 2 artists

emergency stay art institute of chicago schiele restitution case 2640195

The Art Institute of Chicago has been granted an emergency stay by an appellate judge, pausing the restitution of Egon Schiele's drawing "Russian War Prisoner" (1916) to the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, a Jewish cabaret performer and art collector who died in a Nazi concentration camp. The museum is appealing a New York Supreme Court judge's April 23 order to surrender the artwork, which has been off view since September 2023 when it was seized by the Manhattan District Attorney's office. The museum disputes that the work was looted, citing evidence that Grünbaum's sister-in-law recovered the collection after the war and sold it to a dealer.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 6, 2025 visibility 9 link 17 artists

medardo rosso invented modern sculpture 2628760

The article highlights Medardo Rosso, an Italian sculptor largely overlooked despite his pioneering role in modernist sculpture. A new exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel, "Medardo Rosso: The Invention of Modern Sculpture," showcases 50 of his works alongside pieces by over 60 artists including Rodin, Degas, and Brancusi, aiming to reassert his influence. Rosso's radical approach rejected monumentality for materiality and process, embracing subjects from society's fringes and anticipating 20th-century art developments. The show also revisits his bitter rivalry with Rodin, whom Rosso accused of borrowing his signature tilting effect.

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gavel restitution schedule May 6, 2025 visibility 6 link 6 artists

nazi looted egon schiele art return 366428

A Manhattan judge has blocked London-based art dealer Richard Nagy from selling or transporting two watercolors by Egon Schiele, which were on display at his booth during the Salon of Art + Design fair at the Park Avenue Armory. The works—Woman in a Black Pinafore and Woman Hiding Her Face—are claimed by the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, a Jewish Holocaust victim and cabaret performer who died at Dachau. The heirs, Timothy Reif and David Fraenkel, filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court, alleging the paintings were among 400 artworks surrendered to the Nazis by Grünbaum's wife. Nagy disputes the claim, arguing the works were sold legally by Grünbaum's sister-in-law in 1956 and that previous arbitration boards found no evidence of Nazi looting.

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article culture schedule May 5, 2025 visibility 5 link 7 artists

art bites jan van eyck oil paint 2631103

The article debunks the long-held myth that Flemish painter Jan van Eyck invented oil painting, tracing the origin of the technique back to 7th-century Afghanistan. It recounts how Giorgio Vasari's 1550 biography "Lives of the Artists" falsely credited van Eyck with the invention after a story about the artist seeking a sun-proof medium. In reality, oil-based paints were used by Buddhist artists in the Bamiyan valley caves centuries earlier, and ancient Egyptians also combined oils with pigments for cosmetics.

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art bites frank lloyd wright imperial hotel lincoln logs 2630005

Lincoln Logs, the iconic wooden construction toy that has entertained American children for over a century, was designed by John Lloyd Wright, the second-eldest son of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. John conceived the toy while in Japan with his father between 1916 and 1917, inspired by the interlocking wooden foundation Frank Lloyd Wright designed for the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo to make it earthquake-resistant. The toy, named after Abraham Lincoln, went on to become a classic, inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1999.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 5, 2025 visibility 9 link 5 artists

tanda francis the met 2639389

Artist Tanda Francis created the bespoke mannequin heads for the Costume Institute's spring 2025 exhibition "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition, organized by guest curator Monica L. Miller in collaboration with Andrew Bolton, explores how Black communities across the Atlantic diaspora have used fashion and suiting as tools of self-definition, resistance, and storytelling from the 18th century to today. Francis based her mannequin on Congolese political thinker André Matsoua, a figure associated with militant Black dandyism and the Sapeur movement.

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trending_up market schedule May 5, 2025 visibility 10 link 10 artists

sfmoma gift pamela joyner alfred giuffrida 1950427

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) has received a landmark gift of 31 paintings, sculptures, and drawings from the Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida Collection, which focuses on abstract works by artists of the African diaspora. The donated pieces, created by 20 American artists born before 1930—including Elizabeth Catlett, Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis, and Richard Mayhew—are intended to fill historical gaps in the museum's collection. Joyner, who became an SFMOMA trustee in 2020, selected works that represent the earliest generation of artists in her collection, aiming to support a more inclusive art-historical narrative.

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georgia okeeffe herman miller furniture 2639652

Herman Miller has launched the New Mexico Collection, a limited-edition furniture line inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe's desert home in Abiquiú, New Mexico. Created in collaboration with the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, the collection includes the Eames Wire Chair Low Base (300 pieces, $1,995) and the Girard Snake Table (100 pieces, $895), both drawing on O'Keeffe's friendship with textile designer and architect Alexander Girard. The chair reimagines a prototype gifted to O'Keeffe by Charles and Ray Eames, while the table is based on a never-produced Girard design from the 1950s.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 3, 2025 visibility 10 link 15 artists

vladimir kanevsky frick collection porcelain 2633706

The Frick Collection has reopened after a $220 million, five-year renovation, featuring a new installation called "Porcelain Garden" by Ukrainian-born artist Vladimir Kanevsky. The display includes over 30 handcrafted porcelain floral pieces, such as a lemon tree, lilies of the valley, and a wild artichoke, placed alongside masterpieces by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Goya, and Bellini. Kanevsky, a 74-year-old Jewish-Ukrainian émigré who moved to New York in 1989, originally trained as an architect and turned to porcelain as a side project, which unexpectedly became his career. All the flowers at the Frick have been sold, with prices ranging from $5,000 to $500,000, though his secondary market remains minimal.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 3, 2025 visibility 8 link 14 artists

the first homosexuals queer art show 2637891

An exhibition titled "The First Homosexuals" has opened at Wrightwood 659 in Chicago, curated by queer art historian Jonathan David Katz and associate curator Johnny Willis. Spanning over 300 artworks, the show traces how the coining of the term "homosexual" by Hungarian writer Karl-Maria Kertbeny in 1868 reframed artistic expressions of identity and sexuality, featuring works by artists such as Hokusai, Utamaro, Bertel Thorvaldsen, George Catlin, Saturnino Herrán, Richmond Barthé, Romaine Brooks, and Tamara de Lempicka. The exhibition includes sections on pre-colonial indigenous cultures, colonialism and resistance, and queer art icons.

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article news schedule May 2, 2025 visibility 6 link 1 artist

the ashes tudor lodge wall paintings 2635562

Rare 16th-century wall paintings depicting fantastical beasts, heraldic rabbits, and Grotesque heads have been uncovered at the Ashes, a Tudor hunting lodge in Inglewood Forest, Cumbria, U.K. Built in the 1560s during Elizabeth I's reign, the two-story building originally housed William Simpson, a bailiff of Castle Sowerby Manor. The paintings, created using the secco technique on dry plaster, were found in stages—first on the second story in the 1970s, then on the ground floor during excavations in the 2010s and 2020s. The most recent discoveries, made by owners Jen and Richard Arkell, reveal elaborate decorative panels likely inspired by textile designs, reflecting the cosmopolitan tastes of the period.

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trending_up market schedule May 2, 2025 visibility 7 link 8 artists

rachofsky house dallas for sale 2635863

The Rachofsky House, a landmark contemporary art residence in Dallas designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier, has been quietly listed for sale off-market by Compass agent Faisal Halum. The 9,000-square-foot home at 8605 Preston Road has been owned for decades by prominent collectors Howard and Cindy Rachofsky, who annually hosted the Two x Two gala there, raising over $130 million for amfAR and the Dallas Museum of Art. Howard Rachofsky confirmed the sale, citing his age (81) and ongoing estate planning.

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person people schedule May 2, 2025 visibility 11 link 18 artists

collector reinhard ernst on championing the legacy of helen frankenthaler 2635543

German collector Reinhard Ernst, 79, opened Museum Reinhard Ernst in Wiesbaden last year to house his collection of nearly 1,000 abstract works. The museum recently launched “Helen Frankenthaler. Move and Make,” the first major solo show of the Abstract Expressionist painter in Germany in two decades, featuring works from Ernst’s extensive Frankenthaler holdings. Ernst, who built his wealth through high-precision gear manufacturing, discusses his collecting journey, noting that 80% of his purchases come from auctions.

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trending_up market schedule May 2, 2025 visibility 8 link 8 artists, 2 galleries

anna weyant gagosian tefaf new york 2636874

Gagosian Gallery will present a new body of work by artist Anna Weyant at TEFAF New York, featuring intimately scaled paintings of jewelry rendered with trompe l’oeil precision. The booth, designed with lavender walls and pine-hued carpet, showcases pieces like "Pearl Earrings" (2025) and "Pearl Bracelet (Sold)" (2025), some with cheeky price tags and red dot stickers. Weyant, represented by Gagosian since 2022, has seen her market soar, with her auction record set at $1.6 million for "Falling Woman" (2020) at Sotheby’s in 2022.

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