Eyecatchers and Discoveries

Eyecatcher und Entdeckungen

The 42nd edition of Art Brussels has scaled down to 138 exhibitors from 165 in 2025, responding to a sluggish contemporary art market and economic uncertainty. The fair introduces a new section called 'Horizonte,' curated by Devrim Bayar of Kanal Centre Pompidou, featuring six large-scale installations including Pao Hui Kao's delicate paper-and-lacquer refuge and Oswald Oberhuber's €380,000 panoramic painting 'Paradiesgarten.' Galleries are now consolidated into one hall, with fewer blue-chip participants but a continued focus on living artists (95% of the 500 shown). Notable presentations include Xavier Hufkens' solo show of Cassi Namoda, Krinziger's works by Marina Abramović and Monica Bonvicini, and Richard Saltoun's historical mix of Fernand Khnopff, Everlyn Nicodemus, and Suzanne Van Damme.

Why Helen Chadwick’s earthy, provocative art remains as vital as ever

Nearly 30 years after her death in 1996 at age 42, artist Helen Chadwick is receiving renewed attention with a major retrospective, "Helen Chadwick: Life Pleasures," at the Hepworth Wakefield. The exhibition spans two decades of her provocative work, including iconic pieces like "The Oval Court" (1984-86) and the chocolate fountain "Cacao" (1994). Chadwick was known for using unconventional materials—rotting organic waste, meat, hair, cleaning fluids—to explore identity, gender, and the sensuous body, often with irreverent humor. She was also a influential teacher at the Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths, Chelsea, and Central St Martins, mentoring artists such as Tracey Emin, Anya Gallaccio, Sarah Lucas, and Damien Hirst.

Louisa Buck

Louisa Buck, a prominent art critic and journalist, has been featured in a profile by The Art Newspaper, highlighting her career and contributions to art journalism. The article discusses her role as a columnist and critic, her insights into the contemporary art world, and her longstanding association with the publication.

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Museums and cultural institutions are participating in a viral social media trend where staff, often older guides or curators, deliver marketing scripts written entirely in Gen Z slang. The trend, which began with a video from England's Hever Castle in early September, has spread across TikTok and Instagram, with hundreds of organizations creating their own versions. Typical phrases include "no cap," "ate and left no crumbs," and "menty b," often accompanied by the "Millennial Pause" for comedic effect. The article highlights several examples, including the Poe Museum in Virginia and the New York Historical Society, and notes that the trend has expanded beyond the art world to include accountancy firms, donkey sanctuaries, and even the NYC Ferry.

Van Gogh’s love of Hiroshige, the Japanese master of the landscape, is reflected in a British Museum exhibition

The British Museum's exhibition "Hiroshige: Artist of the Open Road" (through September 7) showcases over 100 prints by the Japanese master Utagawa Hiroshige, including rare loans that highlight his influence on European avant-garde artists. A key display is Vincent van Gogh's own copy of Hiroshige's "The Plum Garden at Kameido" (1857), on loan from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, along with Van Gogh's squared-up tracing used for his painting. New research by British Museum senior scientist Capucine Korenberg reveals a short pencil line on the print that confirms Van Gogh used this exact copy as a guide for his tracing and subsequent painting.

Exhibition | Everlyn Nicodemus, 'Without History' at Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

Everlyn Nicodemus presents 'Without History' at Goodman Gallery in Cape Town, marking her first solo exhibition with the gallery and a rare return to the African continent since the 1980s. The show, organized in partnership with Richard Saltoun Gallery, features major bodies of work including the 'Woman in the World' cycle and the 'Wedding' series. These works, created while Nicodemus lived across Europe, explore themes of trauma, gender, and spiritual survival through a practice that blends painting with deep archival research and social anthropology.

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A long-lost portrait of Scottish poet Robert Burns by Sir Henry Raeburn has been rediscovered and is now on display at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh. The painting was found at a London house sale last year, consigned to Wimbledon Auctions with a low estimate of £300–£500, but sold for £68,000 after intense bidding. It was purchased by Edinburgh-based art collector William Zachs, who had it restored and brought to Scotland, where experts confirmed it as an authentic Raeburn. The work is a copy Raeburn made in 1803 of a 1787 portrait by Alexander Nasmyth, commissioned by London publishers Cadell & Davies but lost shortly after completion.

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A long-lost portrait of Scottish poet Robert Burns, painted by Henry Raeburn in 1803, has been rediscovered after 200 years. The painting was found at a house clearance sale by Wimbledon Auctions in London, where it was estimated at just £300–£500 but sold for £68,000 after a bidding war. It has since been conserved and authenticated by the National Galleries of Scotland, and is now on public display in Edinburgh alongside the original 1787 portrait by Alexander Nasmyth, just in time for Burns Night celebrations.

David Zwirner inaugurates new gallery space with Michael Armitage exhibition.

David Zwirner is opening a new gallery building in Chelsea at 533 West 19th Street, inaugurated by an exhibition of new work by Kenyan-British artist Michael Armitage. Titled "Crucible," the show runs from May 8 to June 27, 2025, and features new paintings and bronze reliefs that explore the theme of migration, using Lubugo bark cloth as a support. This is Armitage's first solo show with the gallery since his representation was announced in 2022 and his first solo presentation in New York since 2019.

Sound and vision: artists take to the decks for Peter Doig’s Serpentine show

Peter Doig's exhibition 'House of Music' at Serpentine South in London centers on the relationship between visual art and sound, featuring paintings like 'Maracas' (2002-08) and 'Music of the Future' (2002-07) alongside a restored Western Electric/Bell Labs sound system from the late 1920s. The show includes a series of live Sunday events called 'Sound Service,' where Doig, Ed Ruscha, Arthur Jafa, and others play records, transforming the gallery into an immersive audio-visual experience.

How to see every painting by Leonardo da Vinci

This article guides readers on a global tour to see every surviving painting by Leonardo da Vinci, numbering around 16 works predominantly by the master himself, plus a few with his intervention. It traces his career through Florence, Milan, Rome, and France, highlighting key locations such as the Louvre, the National Gallery in London, the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, and museums in Washington, D.C., and Krakow. The piece also notes the disputed attribution and unknown whereabouts of the $450m Salvator Mundi.

German Expressionism at the National Gallery

The National Gallery in London will stage its first exhibition of modern German paintings, 'German Expressionism: Modern Painting 1900–1918', in spring 2027, before traveling to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin in autumn 2027. This is the first UK and Ireland exhibition since the 1960s to cover both key Expressionist groups, Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, featuring over fifty international loans from institutions such as Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie, Brücke Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago, alongside works from private collections.

Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund marks first decade

The Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund has announced support for 15 new exhibitions as it celebrates its tenth anniversary. This grant initiative provides regional and smaller UK museums with the necessary funding to cover logistical costs—such as insurance, transport, and security—required to borrow major works from national collections. Notable upcoming projects for 2026 include the return of John Constable’s 'The Hay Wain' to Suffolk and Joseph Wright of Derby’s 'An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump' to the artist's hometown for the first time in eight decades.

Art Fund celebrates decade of lending programme with Rossetti and Surrealist loans

The Art Fund is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its Weston Loan Programme by facilitating the loan of major masterpieces to 15 regional UK institutions. High-profile works, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s 'Beata Beatrix' and Joseph Wright of Derby’s 'An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump', will travel from national collections like the National Gallery and Tate to smaller galleries in Newcastle, Derby, and Ipswich. The program covers essential logistical costs such as insurance, transport, and security that are typically prohibitive for local museums.

‘The Hay Wain’ to go on show in Constable's home county for the first time

John Constable's iconic painting *The Hay Wain* (1821) will be exhibited in Suffolk, the artist's home county, for the first time in 2026 as part of the 250th anniversary of his birth. The work, on loan from the National Gallery in London, will be shown at Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich from 11 July to 4 October 2026, within the exhibition *Constable: Walking the Landscape*. It will be reunited with preparatory sketches from the Ipswich collection and accompanied by loans from the Tate, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Academy of Arts, and the National Galleries of Scotland. Two additional exhibitions at Christchurch Mansion—*Constable: A Cast of Characters* and *Constable to Contemporary*—also form part of the broader Constable 250 project, which is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and supported by the Weston Loan Programme.

Gwen John: Strange Beauties

The article announces 'Gwen John: Strange Beauties,' a major exhibition running from July 30 to November 28, 2027, that brings together the artist's celebrated oil paintings with rarely seen drawings and watercolors. Spanning her early student days to her immersion in French modernism, the show is the most comprehensive survey dedicated to Gwen John in over 40 years, organized by Amgueddfa Cymru in partnership with National Galleries of Scotland, the Yale Center for British Art, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Hidden picture beneath Vermeer’s ‘Girl with the Red Hat’ may be the artist’s only existing male portrait, research reveals

New research using advanced imaging techniques suggests that the hidden male portrait beneath Johannes Vermeer's 'Girl with the Red Hat' (c. 1664-69) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., may have been painted by Vermeer himself, rather than an unidentified artist as previously thought. Earlier studies had dismissed the underpainting as the work of another hand due to its loose brushwork, but recent analysis indicates Vermeer's initial paintwork was typically looser and quicker. The male figure's costume dates the composition to 1650-55, which would make it Vermeer's only known male portrait and predate his earliest known work, 'Christ in the House of Mary and Martha' (1654-55).

Comment | I used to think it wasn’t cool to like Andy Goldsworthy—now I see how he helps us appreciate the natural world

Mia maxima culpa. For many years I felt it wasn’t cool to like Andy Goldsworthy. The British artist’s interventions in and workings with nature, while highly skilful and often very beautiful, seemed out of kilter with an increasingly hardcore, conceptually underpinned and urban-orientated art world. It also didn’t help that most of his work could only be experienced at one remove. Books and photographs were the only record of the ephemeral pieces he’d created from ice, leaves, sticks and stones; as well as of the more lasting installations—walls, sheepfolds, cairn paths and giant arches—he’d make in situ, usually in remote locations across the world.

10th Weston Loan Programme sees national collections in 15 regional museums

The Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund has announced its tenth round of support, facilitating 15 exhibitions at regional museums across England, Scotland, and Wales through 2027. This initiative funds the logistical costs—including transport, insurance, and security—required to move masterpieces from major national institutions like the Tate, the National Gallery, and the V&A to smaller local galleries. Notable upcoming highlights include the return of Joseph Wright’s 'An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump' to Derby for the first time in eight decades and a landmark Leonard McComb exhibition in Birkenhead.

Long lost portrait of Scotland’s great poet Robert Burns goes on show for first time

A long-lost portrait of Robert Burns by Henry Raeburn, painted in 1803, has gone on public display for the first time at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, just in time for Burns Night on 25 January. The painting resurfaced in a house clearance in Surrey and was auctioned in Wimbledon in March 2025 with a guide price of £300–£500; collector and Burns enthusiast William Zachs purchased it for £68,000 after a tense bidding war, gambling on the Raeburn attribution. Experts including Patricia Allerston and Duncan Thomson have since confirmed the work is authentic, and it is now exhibited alongside Alexander Nasmyth's 1787 portrait of Burns.

Rare oil painting depicting scene from famous Robert Burns poem could fetch £20k at auction

A rare oil painting by the late Scottish artist Alexander Goudie, titled 'The First Drink' and depicting a scene from Robert Burns's poem 'Tam o' Shanter', is set to be auctioned by McTear's in Glasgow. The painting, created in the late 1990s, is estimated to fetch between £10,000 and £20,000 at the Scottish Contemporary Art Auction on February 26th.

Scotland and Wales to return to Venice Biennale after years-long break

Scotland and Wales will return to the Venice Biennale in 2026 after a years-long pause. Scotland will be represented by the Glasgow-based artist duo Bugarin + Castle, whose work is curated by Mount Stuart Trust and commissioned by Scotland + Venice. Wales will be represented by artist Manon Awst and critic Dylan Huw in collaboration, with support from the Arts Council of Wales. Both countries will participate as official collateral events rather than as national pavilions.

New National Galleries of Scotland chair to lead opening of Edinburgh’s The Art Works

The National Galleries of Scotland has appointed Catherine Muirden as the new Chair of the Board, effective 1 November 2025, for a four-year term. Muirden brings extensive experience from corporate roles at Barclays, Marks & Spencer, the John Lewis Partnership, and The Co-operative Group, alongside two decades of arts board service in Scotland, including as Vice Chair of Scottish Ballet and Chair of the Fruitmarket Gallery. She succeeds Benny Higgins, who led the board through a period of significant challenges. Director-General Anne Lyden expressed enthusiasm for working with Muirden to advance The Art Works, a new state-of-the-art facility in North Edinburgh that will serve as a community space, conservation center, and art storage hub, enabling broader public access to Scotland's national collection.