Art News. Vasari Codex

article news schedule Jun 5, 2025 visibility 9 link 10 artists, 1 gallery

omai portrait joshua reynolds national portrait gallery fundraising campaign 2268648

The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London is in a last-minute push to raise £50 million ($60 million) to acquire Joshua Reynolds's 1776 portrait of Omai, a Polynesian visitor to Britain, before a temporary export ban expires on March 10. Despite raising roughly £25 million through a grassroots campaign involving public donations, a £2.5 million grant from the Art Fund, and £10 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the NPG remains short of its goal and is reportedly in secret talks with the Getty Museum to jointly purchase the painting.

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article news schedule Mar 4, 2026 visibility 8 link 5 artists

brooklyn museum removing overpainting erotic gauguin relief panel 1234775759

The Brooklyn Museum is preparing to investigate the restoration of Paul Gauguin’s relief panel, *Te Fare Amu*, which was recently gifted to the institution by the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation. The artwork features a crouching nude figure whose genitals were painted over with green pigment by the collector Henry Pearlman in 1954 to bypass U.S. Customs indecency laws. While a 2017 conservation assessment at the Art Institute of Chicago deemed the overpainting too risky to remove, Brooklyn Museum conservators plan to re-evaluate the piece when it arrives for exhibition this fall.

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article museums schedule Mar 4, 2026 visibility 9 link 2 artists

Obscured Gauguin nude sculpture may be revealed in its entirety following museum donation

A polychromed wood relief by Paul Gauguin, titled 'Te Fare Amu', is set to undergo conservation to remove overpaint that has obscured the figure's genitals for seven decades. The sculpture was partially painted over in 1954 by American collector Henry Pearlman, who feared the work would be seized by US Customs as 'obscene' or 'indecent' upon its import from Paris. The piece is part of a major 63-work promised donation from the Pearlman family foundation to the Brooklyn Museum, LACMA, and MoMA.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 29, 2025 visibility 3 link 1 artist

The Met opens reimagined Arts of Oceania galleries showcasing works from the Pacific

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is reopening its Galleries of the Arts of Oceania to the public for the first time since 2021, following a major renovation that allowed curators to reimagine the presentation of art from the vast Pacific region. The galleries feature more than 600 artworks from Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia, Australia, and New Zealand, including the iconic Kwoma ceiling installation from Papua New Guinea, which has been reconfigured with input from the artists' descendants to accurately reflect clan groupings. The renovation is part of a broader $70 million overhaul of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, which also houses collections from the ancient Americas and Africa.

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article news schedule Aug 20, 2025 visibility 1

rapa nui easter island moai statues sea levels flooding 1234749640

A new study published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage warns that rising sea levels will impact Chile’s Rapa Nui National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, by 2080. Coastal flooding threatens at least 51 culturally significant artifacts, including the iconic Moai statues—nearly 1,000 volcanic tuff figures created by a native Polynesian tribe over 500 years ago, some weighing up to 80 tons. Researchers from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa used advanced computer models to simulate wave patterns and map projected flooding, overlaying this data with the locations of cultural assets provided by local partners.

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article local schedule Apr 29, 2026 source 2 sources visibility 7 link 2 artists

Leslie Powell Gallery to open multiple art exhibitions in May

The Leslie Powell Gallery in Lawton, Oklahoma, will open two art exhibitions in May 2026. "Beauteous Maximus" features paintings by New Zealand-born Polynesian artist Tania Landers, whose work explores memory, identity, and generational storytelling through vibrant colors and collage. "Between the Front Door and the Kitchen Sink" showcases artwork by Texas artist Abigail Rainey, focusing on themes of home, inheritance, and the sacred within the mundane. Both exhibitions open with a reception on May 16 and run through June 26.

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article culture schedule May 28, 2025 visibility 3 link 3 artists

Arts of Oceania

The article explores the rich artistic traditions of Oceania, emphasizing how the vast network of islands and ocean passageways fostered a dynamic exchange of cultures, materials, and ideas over millennia. It describes Oceanic art as vessels for metaphysical journeys, with objects like fishhooks, stick charts, and carved figures serving as tangible expressions of ancestral power and cultural knowledge. The text highlights the role of artists as chiefs and orators who manipulate local materials to manifest spirits, and traces the region's entanglements with European colonial powers from the sixteenth century onward.

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museum exhibitions schedule May 2, 2026 visibility 7

Henderson City Hall hosts exhibit to preserve siapo art

Henderson City Hall is hosting an exhibition titled 'Siapo: Continuing a Siapo Legacy Art Exhibition,' showcasing the traditional Samoan art of siapo across four generations of artists. The exhibit features works by master artist Kuulei Jakubczak, who learned from her grandmother Mary Pritchard, a key figure in preserving this dying art form. The display includes both freehand siapo mamanu and rubbed siapo 'elei, along with pieces created by students from Liberty High School during a workshop led by Jakubczak.

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