Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule Jun 24, 2025 visibility 9 link 2 artists

banksy mural lawsuit bethnal green

A legal dispute has erupted over a Banksy mural, *Yellow Lines Flower Painter* (2007), painted on the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club in east London. The club’s trustees have filed a lawsuit against employee Warren Dent and others, alleging the work was illegally removed and put up for sale in the US. The mural, depicting a workman and a giant flower emerging from double-yellow lines, is currently in Colorado. The club’s former accountant claims secretary Stephen Smorthit agreed to sell the piece to Dent for £20,000 in 2019, after which art restorer Chris Bull removed it and later loaned it to his father’s gallery in Aspen. The trustees argue they never authorized the sale and are demanding the work’s return.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 19, 2025 visibility 13 link 7 artists

david lynch collection auction

A collection of 450 objects owned by the late filmmaker David Lynch was auctioned by Julien's Auctions, achieving a white-glove sale totaling $4.25 million. The top lot was a group of scripts from Lynch's unrealized film project *Ronnie Rocket: The Absurd Mystery of the Strange Forces of Existence*, which sold for $195,000. Other notable sales included scripts for *Mulholland Drive* ($104,000), *Twin Peaks* pilot ($91,000), and *Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me* ($78,000), as well as Lynch's director chair ($91,000), a personal 35mm print of *Eraserhead* ($52,000), and his La Marzocco espresso machine ($45,500).

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article policy schedule Jun 17, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

frank lloyd wright hollyhock house facing closure city cuts

Hollyhock House, Frank Lloyd Wright's Los Angeles masterpiece, faced potential closure after Mayor Karen Bass proposed a budget on April 21 that cut $283,000 in city funding and eliminated three of four staff positions, threatening its operations and UNESCO status. The Department of Cultural Affairs warned the cuts would make the property inoperable, but after advocacy from the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and others, Bass fully restored funding, allowing the house to retain its two full-time staff and UNESCO designation.

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candle obituary schedule Jun 13, 2025 visibility 17 link 11 artists

graham gund architect art collector dead

Graham Gund, an architect and prominent art collector, died on June 6 at age 84. With his wife Ann, he built a significant contemporary art collection featuring works by Pablo Picasso, Kenneth Noland, Kiki Smith, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and Richard Serra. Gund designed and funded the Gund Gallery at Kenyon College, his alma mater, and was a longtime patron of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, where a gallery and the directorship endowment bear his name. He appeared multiple times on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list.

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article news schedule Jun 12, 2025 visibility 22 link 8 artists

jeffrey deitch sunk low hee280s curating douchebag property developers coney island

Jeffrey Deitch is co-curating a street art exhibition in Coney Island this summer with Joseph Sitt, head of real estate developer Thor Equities. The show features artists including Crash, Lee Quinones, Futura, Kenny Scharf, Miss Van, Lady Pink, Swoon, and Icy Signs, and will debut alongside Smorgasburg Coney Island with 12 food vendors and live music. Deitch previously organized the controversial 2011 exhibition "Art in the Streets" at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, which drew large crowds but faced criticism for prioritizing entertainment over scholarship, and included the censorship of a mural by Blu.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 12, 2025 visibility 12 link 5 artists

francois xavier lalanne rhinoceros bar sothebys

Sotheby's design sale in New York achieved the second highest auction price ever for a work by French artist François-Xavier Lalanne, with his monumental sculpture desk *Grand Rhinocrétaire II* (1964) selling for $16.4 million—more than triple its $5 million high estimate. The piece, which opens into a fully functional writing desk, sparked a 13-minute bidding battle. Just weeks earlier, another Lalanne work, *Bar aux Autruches* (1967–68), sold for €11.1 million at Sotheby's Paris. The all-time record for Lalanne remains $19.4 million for *Rhinocrétaire I*, sold at Christie's Paris in 2023.

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article news schedule Jun 12, 2025 visibility 13 link 4 artists

moca los angeles closed anti ice protests

The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA) has closed its Geffen Contemporary space through the weekend due to nearby anti-ICE protests and increased military activity, including National Guard deployment. The closure affects an Olafur Eliasson exhibition and has postponed a durational performance by Pussy Riot's Nadya Tolokonnikova, who turned part of the venue into a prison cell-like installation. The protests began after ICE raids in Los Angeles, leading to arrests, a curfew, and vandalism of MOCA's facade.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 16 link 5 artists

new institute of sexology celebrates history of erotic art film photography

The Wellcome Collection in London has opened a new exhibition titled "The Institute of Sexology," celebrating the history of erotic art, film, and photography. The show features a wide range of objects including archival material, ethnographic and medical artifacts, erotica, and works by contemporary artists such as John Stezaker, Sharon Hayes, Zanele Muholi, and Timothy Archibald. It highlights pioneers of sexology like Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, and Marie Stopes, and marks the first exhibition after the institution's £17.5 million expansion, inaugurating a new gallery for large, year-long shows.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 18 link 7 artists

the gates christo jeanne claude

Artist duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude developed 'The Gates' for New York City's Central Park in 1979, but the project faced over two decades of bureaucratic hurdles before finally being installed in 2005 under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The work consisted of 7,503 steel gates with orange nylon fabric along 23 miles of pathways, using 5,390 tons of steel. Now, on its 20th anniversary, a comprehensive survey titled 'Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Gates and Unrealized Projects for New York City' is being held at the Shed, accompanied by an augmented reality experience via the Bloomberg Connects app.

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article culture schedule Jun 10, 2025 visibility 12 link 9 artists

eureka max ernst grattage technique

The article explores how German Surrealist Max Ernst developed the techniques of frottage and grattage in the mid-1920s. Frottage—rubbing paper over textured surfaces like floorboards, leaves, and netting—allowed Ernst to create spontaneous, unconscious imagery, culminating in his 1926 publication *Natural History*. He later adapted the method to canvas as grattage, scraping layers of paint over textured materials to reveal abstract forms, drawing on influences from Leonardo da Vinci and memories of his childhood in the Rhineland.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 13 link 3 artists

lost turner auction sothebys london

One of J.M.W. Turner's earliest oil paintings, *The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock, Bristol*, painted when he was 17, will be auctioned at Sotheby's London with an estimate of £200,000–£300,000. The work had been misattributed for decades and sold last year at Dreweatts for just £600–£800 as a work by a follower of Julius Caesar Ibbetson, before cleaning revealed Turner's signature. The painting was originally exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1793 and had not been publicly displayed for 167 years.

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article news schedule Jun 9, 2025 visibility 12 link 7 artists

citigroup mexico bank

Citigroup is selling its Mexican retail banking operation, Citibanamex, along with a collection of approximately 2,000 Mexican artworks dating from the 18th century to the present. The collection includes works by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, Leonora Carrington, and Remedios Varo, and is considered the most important private painting collection in Mexico. Citibanamex has stated the collection is an integral and indivisible part of the sale and will not be sold separately.

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article news schedule Jun 6, 2025 visibility 13 link 4 artists

closed sfai campus casa artist residency center

The former San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) campus has been transformed into a privately funded nonprofit arts center called the California Academy of Studio Arts (CASA). Backed by philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, who purchased the Chester Street campus for $30 million last year, CASA will host 30 emerging artists annually in an unaccredited studio program. Artists will have access to private studios, shared workspaces, and professional mentors, with no tuition fees. The center is led by director Abbye Churchill and plans seminars for participants. SFAI, one of the oldest art schools in the U.S., suspended operations in 2022 and filed for bankruptcy after a failed merger with the University of San Francisco.

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trending_up market schedule May 28, 2025 visibility 19 link 4 artists

lost gustav klimt portrait african prince tefaf maastricht

A long-lost Gustav Klimt portrait of an African prince, missing since World War II, has resurfaced and is now on view at TEFAF Maastricht with a €15 million ($16.4 million) price tag. The painting, titled *Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona* (1897), was brought to W&K – Wienerroither & Kohlbacher Gallery in 2023 in poor condition, but a stamp from Klimt's estate led to its identification by catalog raisonné author Alfred Weidinger, who had searched for it for two decades. The work depicts an Osu prince from present-day Ghana, created after Klimt attended an ethnographic exhibition at Vienna's Tiergarten am Schüttel where Osu people were put on display. The painting had been owned by Ernestine and Felix Klein, Jewish collectors who fled the Nazis, and is now being shown after a restitution settlement with Klein's heirs.

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article policy schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 10 link 1 artist

smithsonians african american history museum removed objects

Two lenders to the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) reported that their objects were removed from the museum’s galleries earlier than expected, raising concerns about the influence of President Trump’s recent executive order targeting “anti-American content” in Smithsonian museums. Amos C. Brown, a civil rights activist and pastor, lent a 1880 book on Black history and his father’s Bible, which Martin Luther King Jr. carried during protests; the museum cited the loan’s May expiration as the reason for removal. Liz Brazelton, who lent the diary of her great-great-grandfather—a lawyer who worked on behalf of Solomon Northup—said the diary was returned in March, six months before a 10-year loan agreement was set to end in September, with the museum citing an “internal gallery rotation schedule.” At least 32 objects have reportedly been removed, though the museum denied planned removals.

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trending_up market schedule May 19, 2025 visibility 24 link 16 artists

at christies 13 6 million marlene dumas painting sets new record for living female artist at auction

Christie's 21st-century evening sale in New York on Wednesday night totaled $96.5 million, surpassing last year's $80.3 million, though the auction was characterized by caution, few fireworks, and a reduced number of lots. The headline event was Marlene Dumas's painting *Miss January* (1997) selling for $13.6 million with premium, setting a new auction record for a living female artist. The work, estimated at $12–18 million, was guaranteed and sold to a client bidding through Christie's deputy chairman Sara Friedlander; Miami collectors Don and Mera Rubell were the consignors. Other notable results included new records for Simone Leigh, Emma McIntyre, and Louis Fratino, while the top lot was Jean-Michel Basquiat's *Baby Boom* (1982) at $23.4 million. Four of 43 lots were withdrawn, and several works failed to sell, including an Ellsworth Kelly canvas with a $2 million low estimate.

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trending_up market schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 14 link 6 artists

decorative art sold 2024

Sales in the decorative-art category—including design objects, furniture, jewelry, and watches—dropped nearly 42% year on year in 2024, netting $3.3 billion, the lowest total in a decade. The average price of a decorative artwork at auction fell 39.5% to $13,010, also the lowest since 2014. Sotheby’s and Christie’s remained nearly tied, with Sotheby’s edging ahead by $72.9 million. Europe led regional sales with $1.3 billion, followed by Asia at $1 billion and North America at $898 million.

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article culture schedule May 16, 2025 visibility 13 link 9 artists

salvador dali mustache origin

Salvador Dalí's iconic mustache, voted the Most Famous Mustache of All Time in a 2010 Telegraph survey, originated in the 1940s after he initially sported a more subdued "Menjou" style in the 1930s. The artist developed his flamboyant upturned mustache, first appearing in his painting *Soft Self-Portrait with Grilled Bacon* (1941), and maintained it with meticulous daily grooming using date-based wax. Dalí treated the mustache as a personal logo and creative symbol, even co-authoring a 1954 book with photographer Philippe Halsman titled *Dalí's Mustache*, featuring 28 surreal photographs.

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trending_up market schedule May 14, 2025 visibility 11 link 2 artists

frank lloyd wright lamp sothebys auction

A rare Frank Lloyd Wright lamp, the Double-Pedestal lamp, sold at Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction on May 13 for $7.5 million, far exceeding its $3–5 million estimate after an 11-minute bidding war. Designed in 1902 for the Susan Lawrence Dana House in Springfield, Illinois, the lamp is one of only two surviving examples; the other remains in the house’s collection. The sale set a new auction record for a Wright work, surpassing the previous high of $2.9 million for a 1902 ceiling light sold in 2023.

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article culture schedule May 12, 2025 visibility 13 link 6 artists

art bites dali yoko ono blade of grass

The article recounts a bizarre anecdote from art history involving Salvador Dalí and Yoko Ono. After meeting in 1969 during Ono's honeymoon with John Lennon, Ono later requested a hair from Dalí's mustache, offering $10,000. Dalí, suspicious that Ono might use the hair for occult purposes, instead sent her a dry blade of grass in a pretty box, as recalled by his muse Amanda Lear.

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trending_up market schedule May 12, 2025 visibility 15 link 2 artists

art market minute may 12

New York's marquee auction season begins this week, headlined by Christie’s offering the $250 million art collection of Barnes & Noble founder Len Riggio, including Pablo Picasso’s *Femme à la coiffe d’Arlésienne sur fond vert (Lee Miller)*. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has released the grant application for the 61st Venice Biennale, introducing tighter deadlines and new ideological guidelines. Separately, Sotheby’s Hong Kong has postponed an auction of ancient Indian gemstones linked to the Buddha.

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article culture schedule May 9, 2025 visibility 14 link 4 artists

the art angle art frames

Artnet News published a podcast episode featuring writer and editor Katie White, who discusses her article "Bordercore: Why Frames Became the New Frontier in Contemporary Art." White explores how contemporary artists are reimagining picture frames as surreal, sculptural, and symbolic elements that actively comment on, disrupt, or extend the artwork beyond its traditional boundaries. She cites examples like Stephanie Temma Hier's 2021 work "Sparks and Tremors," which combines oil on linen with glazed stoneware sculpture, and notes that statement frames are increasingly appearing at art fairs and exhibitions after a long period of frameless display.

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article news schedule May 8, 2025 visibility 13 link 1 artist

smith partner art investment firm 11m fraud

Smith and Partner, a London-based art investment firm, has been accused of defrauding over a thousand investors out of $11 million through a scheme involving high-pressure sales of limited edition art prints with promises of future returns that rarely materialized. The company, founded by Austrian citizen Peter Paul Adam in 2015, faced complaints from 2020 onward, leading to its bank freezing accounts and an investigation by British Trading Standards. Liquidators are seeking $17 million in compensation, and a High Court judge has upheld asset freeze orders against former director Luke Sparkes and his company Zeno Fine Art, which allegedly inflated print prices by nearly 500 percent.

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article news schedule May 5, 2025 visibility 12 link 3 artists

frank lloyd wright price tower legal saga over

An Oklahoma bankruptcy court ruled on April 28 that Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, will be sold for $1.4 million to McFarlin Building LLC. The sale concludes a two-year legal saga involving previous owner Cynthia Blanchard, who acquired the building for $10 in 2023 but failed to follow through on promised renovations, leading to a bankruptcy auction with no additional bids beyond McFarlin's baseline offer. The new owner, Macy Snyder-Amatucci, plans to revive the building as a hotel and residences.

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trending_up market schedule May 5, 2025 visibility 19 link 6 artists

lalanne auction london

A rare complete set of Claude Lalanne's green-painted 'Ginkgo' dining suite will be auctioned at Christie's London on June 5, 2025, as part of a single-owner sale from the collection of Baron Diego von Buch. The 12-piece set, sold as four individual lots, is expected to fetch over £1 million ($1.4 million) total, with individual estimates ranging from £100,000 to £300,000 per lot. The sale includes 100 lots from von Buch's homes across Europe, featuring works by François-Xavier Lalanne, Fernand Léger, Fernando Botero, and Lee Ufan.

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article news schedule Apr 30, 2025 visibility 16 link 9 artists

natalie white arrested political protest

Artist Natalie White was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for vandalizing federal property after painting “ERA NOW” in red letters on the pavement of the US Capitol building in Washington, DC. The protest followed a 16-day, 250-mile Equal Rights Amendment march from New York to DC. White surrendered to Capitol Police earlier this month and spent 14 hours in jail. Her lawyer, Ronald Kuby, arranged the surrender and noted that because the cleanup cost was under $1,000, the charge remained a misdemeanor. White faces up to a year in prison.

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person people schedule Apr 30, 2025 visibility 15 link 3 artists

amalia ulman magic farm film art

Amalia Ulman, who gained fame in 2014 for her Instagram performance "Excellences and Perfections," is now an accomplished filmmaker. Her second feature, "Magic Farm," starring Chloë Sevigny, follows a crew of American journalists traveling to Argentina to record an episode about a musician, only to encounter locals affected by pesticide pollution. The film is an absurdist satire of American hipsters, continuing Ulman's pivot from visual art to cinema after her debut dark comedy "El Planeta" (2021).

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gavel restitution schedule Apr 25, 2025 visibility 16 link 3 artists

switzerland buhrle foundation settlement manet jewish heirs

The foundation overseeing the Emil G. Bührle collection has reached a settlement with the heirs of Jewish collector Max Silberberg over Édouard Manet's painting *La Sultane* (c.1871), allowing the work to remain on view at the Kunsthaus Zurich. Bührle, a German Swiss industrialist who profited from arms sales to Nazi Germany and used slave labor, amassed a collection now known to include many Nazi-looted artworks. The settlement follows a 2021 report by Raphael Gross finding that over a quarter of the 205 loaned works likely belonged to Jewish owners, sparking public protests and artist Miriam Cahn's withdrawal of her works from the museum.

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article culture schedule Apr 24, 2025 visibility 10 link 3 artists

hard choices marina abramovic longevity method

Art-world consultants Chen & Lampert have published a satirical quiz in Art in America that lampoons Marina Abramović's wellness line, the Longevity Method. The quiz presents ten multiple-choice questions mocking the artist's foray into selling tinctures and elixirs, such as Energy Drops and Immune Drops, which she claims contain ancient secrets for living well. The questions parody Abramović's performance art history and the commercialization of her brand, with options referencing her past works and the high cost of her products.

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article news schedule Apr 22, 2025 visibility 10 link 3 artists

mural rialto venice restoration

A rare 16th-century mural has been discovered on an apartment building near the Rialto Bridge in Venice, hidden for centuries beneath layers of plaster. The painting, featuring three life-sized allegorical figures by an unknown artist, was uncovered during a routine restoration of the building on Riva del Ferro. After being reported to Venice’s Superintendency for Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape, a major restoration project was undertaken by the private company Seres srl. Conservators cleaned the heavily deteriorated work, removing dirt, calcium oxalates, and a modern convenience store sign, revealing the mural's vivid palette and dynamic composition.

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