Picasso Painting That Cost S. I. Newhouse a MoMA Board Position Heads to Christie’s for $55 M.

Christie’s New York will auction 16 masterpieces from the collection of late Condé Nast magnate S. I. Newhouse on May 18, with an estimated total of $450 million. The highlight is Pablo Picasso’s Cubist painting *Homme à la guitare* (1913), estimated at $35–55 million, which Newhouse acquired in 2000 for $10 million after MoMA sold it from its collection. Newhouse, then a MoMA board member, violated museum policy by buying the work and subsequently resigned from the board.

100 Masterpieces to See at the Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago has released a curated guide to 100 essential masterpieces within its massive one-million-square-foot campus. The selection spans global art history, ranging from ancient Egyptian mummies and Greek statues to iconic American sculptures like Edward Kemeys’s bronze lions and Narcissa Niblack Thorne’s intricate miniature rooms. The list is designed to help visitors navigate the museum's vast collection by grouping works by their physical location within the galleries.

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The article reports that US artists are increasingly expected to self-fund institutional projects, as illustrated by Dominican American artist Lucia Hierro's 7.5-foot chair commission. Fabrication costs exceeded the museum's budget, forcing her to seek grants from a residency program's fund, which had only $125,000 available against $1.8 million in applicant requests. Separately, over 65 artists have been announced for the third edition of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale in Saudi Arabia, titled "In Interludes and Transitions," with artistic directors Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed emphasizing locally rooted histories. Other news includes artist Thomas McKean using cut-up MetroCards for sculptures, Kenny Schachter reporting a van Gogh private sale above $190 million, an Iron Age carnyx discovery in Norfolk, and critic Ben Luke's critique of uninspired contemporary painting at recent art fairs.

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Sotheby's held a marathon double sale at its new Breuer Building location, selling Gustav Klimt's portrait of Elisabeth Lederer for $236.4 million—the second highest price ever paid for an artwork at auction. The evening featured works from the collection of the late cosmetics heir Leonard Lauder, totaling $527.5 million, far exceeding its low estimate. The subsequent "Contemporary and the Now" sale brought in $178.5 million, with a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting selling for $48.3 million. Overall, the night generated $706 million, with multiple auction records set for artists including Cecily Brown, Antonio Obá, Yu Nishimura, Jess, and Noah Davis.

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A 14-foot-wide Yves Klein painting, *California (IKB 71)*, sold at Christie’s Paris for €18.4 million ($21.4 million), setting a new auction record for the artist in France. The work, the largest format Klein made in his signature International Klein Blue, was the cover lot of the house’s *Avant-garde(s) including Thinking Italian* sale and had been in the same New York collection since 2005. Christie’s recently uncovered that the painting stopped in New York en route from Paris to California, where it appeared in a show with dealer Leo Castelli.

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Christie’s has secured a monumental Yves Klein painting, *California (IKB 71)*, for its October 23 sale in Paris. Measuring 14 feet wide, it is the largest format the artist ever made in his signature International Klein Blue (IKB) and carries an estimate of €16–25 million ($18–29 million). The work was created in 1961 and has a newly uncovered provenance: after being shown in Los Angeles at Virginia Dwan’s gallery, it stopped in New York for an exhibition with dealer Leo Castelli before returning to Paris. It has been in a New York collection since 2005 and was on long-term loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 2005 to 2008.

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The article examines the revival of Yasmina Reza's play "Art" on Broadway, which centers on three men arguing over a seemingly blank canvas purchased for a high price. The new production updates the painting's cost from 200,000 francs (about $60,000) to $300,000, reflecting today's inflated art market. The play's themes of aesthetics versus market value resonate with current debates about speculative hype and irrational pricing in contemporary art.

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Takashi Murakami opened his latest exhibition, “JAPONISME → Cognitive Revolution: Learning from Hiroshige,” at Gagosian New York, building on a 2024 presentation at the Brooklyn Museum. A second show, “Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow,” opens later this month at the Cleveland Museum of Art, expanding on a 2022 iteration at the Broad in Los Angeles with new works and a monumental installation reimagining a Japanese Buddhist temple. In an interview with ARTnews, Murakami discusses his process of copying historical works—from Hiroshige’s ukiyo-e prints to Monet and Van Gogh—as a method of cultural excavation, incorporating UFOs as symbols of awareness.

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A new exhibition titled "Presence in Absence: The Art of BTS Chapter 2" opens at Taxa Seoul on June 21, featuring 20 fan artists from around the world whose works celebrate the K-pop group BTS. Curated by Jieun Seo and Yvette Wohn of 25th Hour Collective, the show includes artworks created between 2022 and 2025, a period when BTS members were fulfilling mandatory military service, leading fans to channel their devotion into creative expression. The exhibition highlights diverse styles and media, from solo portraits to surreal scenes, reflecting the global reach of BTS fandom.

from artemisia gentileschi in paris to yoshitomo naras u k debut 9 must see european museum shows in 2025 2578017

Artnet News highlights nine must-see European museum exhibitions opening in 2025, spanning from Amsterdam to Zurich. Featured shows include Noah Davis's first U.K. museum survey at the Barbican in London, a dual Anselm Kiefer exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Tracey Emin's first major Italian retrospective at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, and a dedicated Artemisia Gentileschi show at Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris. Other notable exhibitions cover Marlene Dumas, Yayoi Kusama, and Yoshitomo Nara, among others.

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Top 200 Collector Steven A. Cohen has been revealed as the consignor of Maurizio Cattelan's golden toilet sculpture, *America* (2016), which will be auctioned at Sotheby's on November 18. The work, made of 18-karat gold and weighing over 100 kilograms, was purchased from Marian Goodman Gallery in 2017. It will be displayed in a bathroom at Sotheby's Breuer Building before the sale, with a starting bid expected around $10 million based on the price of its weight in gold. The piece has a notable history: one version was exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum, offered to the Trump White House as a loan alternative to a van Gogh painting, and another was stolen from Blenheim Palace in 2019, making Cohen's the only extant version.

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Billionaire financier and collector Steven Cohen has been revealed as the owner of one of Maurizio Cattelan's golden toilet sculptures, *America* (2016), which he purchased from Marian Goodman Gallery in 2017. Sotheby's will auction the 18-karat gold work on November 18 with an opening bid of about $10 million. Separately, Sotheby's Paris achieved €18.6 million ($21.5 million) from the collection of late real estate mogul Manny Davidson across two sales, the highest total for a single-owner sale in France this year. In other news, Gladstone Gallery now represents the estate of Robert Colescott, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art is planning a major Vincent van Gogh exhibition titled "Van Gogh's Sunflowers: A Symphony in Blue and Yellow" for 2026.

Van Gogh Museum Acquires Only Third Painting by a Female Artist at TEFAF

Van Gogh Museum Acquires Only Third Painting by a Female Artist at TEFAF

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has acquired Virginie Demont-Breton's 1887-88 painting *L'homme est en mer* at the TEFAF Maastricht fair. The work, depicting a woman and child awaiting a sailor's return, becomes only the third painting by a female artist in the museum's collection and was purchased for a sum between $543,000 and $1.1 million.

Thomas J Price, Artist Behind Viral Times Square Sculpture, Unveils New Bronze in London

Thomas J Price, Artist Behind Viral Times Square Sculpture, Unveils New Bronze in London

Thomas J Price has unveiled a monumental new bronze sculpture, *A Place Beyond*, at the entrance to the V&A East museum in London. The 18-foot-tall figure, his tallest work to date, depicts a young Black woman in contemporary clothing holding a cell phone, created from a composite of many individuals rather than a single model. The sculpture will greet visitors when the new museum branch opens next month.

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Sotheby's will host a landmark exhibition in Abu Dhabi on October 1-2, 2025, at the Bassam Freiha Art Foundation, showcasing masterworks by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Frida Kahlo, Edvard Munch, René Magritte, and Camille Pissarro, collectively valued at $150 million. This marks the first public fine art exhibition ever staged by Sotheby's in Abu Dhabi and the most valuable presentation the auction house has held in the Middle East. Separately, Larry Gagosian discussed the art market recession at Puck's Art of Influence conference, noting that private sales are rising as collectors shy away from auction houses. Other news includes controversy over Cai Guo-Qiang's performance in Tibet, a curator fleeing Thailand over arrest fears, and declining sales at Sydney Contemporary.

One of Van Gogh’s greatest watercolours could achieve a record price

Sotheby's New York will auction Vincent van Gogh's watercolor *The Harvest in Provence* (June 1888) on May 19, with an estimate of $25–35 million. The work, larger and more elaborate than a related watercolor at Harvard, was created just days before van Gogh's celebrated oil painting of the same scene. It is signed and titled, suggesting the artist considered it a finished piece rather than a mere study, and he sent it to his brother Theo before completing the oil version.

Remembering Pat Steir, one of the 20th century’s late-blooming great artists

Pat Steir, the acclaimed American painter known for her Waterfall series, died in Manhattan on 25 March at age 87. The article traces her career from early struggles as a freelance illustrator and art director, through her transformative encounter with Sol LeWitt in the early 1970s, to her eventual emergence as a major figure in contemporary painting. It highlights her teaching at CalArts and Parsons, her involvement with feminist and artist-run institutions like Heresies and Printed Matter, and the pivotal moment in the early 1980s when she cut up a reproduction of a Jan Brueghel the Elder flower painting into 64 panels, repainting each in a different historical style.

Rare early photographs reveal lost sites featured in Van Gogh’s paintings

Two rare photographic albums taken by art critic Gustave Coquiot in 1922 have been acquired by the newly established Van Gogh Academy in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, and are now on display. The images capture many of the sites in Arles that Vincent van Gogh painted in the late 1880s, including the Yellow House, the Langlois Bridge, and the Rhône riverbank. Several of these locations were later destroyed during World War II or by modernization, making Coquiot's photographs valuable historical records of Van Gogh's original subjects.

The village where Van Gogh spent his final days celebrates its most distinguished visitor

An exhibition titled "Van Gogh, Influencer: Legacies in Motion" has opened at the Château of Auvers-sur-Oise, the village near Paris where Vincent van Gogh spent his final 70 days and died by suicide in July 1890. The show, running until 3 January 2027, features nearly a hundred works by artists influenced by Van Gogh, including Léonide Bourges, Charles-François Daubigny, and Léo Gausson, though no original Van Gogh paintings are included. Curated by Wouter van der Veen, the exhibition explores visual parallels and stylistic contrasts between Van Gogh’s iconic works—such as *Church at Auvers* and *Wheatfield with Crows*—and those of his contemporaries and followers.

A Dutch museum has just put its fake Van Gogh on show

The Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo has broken traditional museum protocol by placing a known forgery, "Seascape at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer," on public display. Acquired in 1928 by museum founder Helene Kröller-Müller from the notorious Berlin dealer Otto Wacker, the painting was eventually exposed as a fake created by Wacker’s brother, Leonhard. The exhibition, which runs until June 21, coincides with a new podcast detailing the history of the acquisition and the subsequent fraud trial that rocked the art world in the 1930s.

Christie’s to sell an almost unknown Van Gogh double-sided drawing

A previously obscure double-sided drawing by Vincent van Gogh, created in the final weeks of his life, will be auctioned by Christie's in Paris. The sheet features a study of female pea pickers on one side and a landscape on the other, complete with color notations indicating Van Gogh's intention to develop them into paintings. The work has been authenticated by the Van Gogh Museum and carries an estimate of €100,000-€150,000.

Revealed: the amazing frame once created for Van Gogh’s Sunflowers

A long-lost, custom-designed Art Deco frame for Vincent van Gogh's painting "Three Sunflowers" has been identified through archival research. The frame, which featured a dark lacquer finish, randomly placed gold circles, and angled outer edges, was commissioned by the Parisian couturier and collector Jacques Doucet shortly after he acquired the painting in 1912. Its existence was pieced together from a 1930s interior photograph, a 1967 family snapshot, and a frame sold at Sotheby's in 1989, allowing for a digital reconstruction of the complete artwork.

Van Gogh goes to China, with a more affordable early painting

Christie's is auctioning Vincent van Gogh's early painting 'A Girl in a Wood' in Hong Kong on March 27, with an estimate of $1.3m-$2.6m. The work, recently redated to August 1883, is being offered directly in Asia, bypassing major Western previews, to target Chinese collectors.

The story behind Iran’s only Van Gogh: ‘At Eternity’s Gate'

A rare, inscribed lithograph by Vincent van Gogh, 'At Eternity's Gate,' resides in the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. The work, one of only seven surviving examples, was acquired in 1975 by Farah Pahlavi, the wife of the Shah of Iran, for the museum. It passed through notable hands, including those of US Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, before arriving in Tehran just before the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Monet and Van Gogh Masterpieces Hit the Shampoo Aisle

Beauty brand Dove has launched a limited-edition haircare collection called "The Art of Repair" featuring iconic artworks by Claude Monet, Mary Cassatt, and Vincent van Gogh on its product packaging. The shampoo, conditioner, and serum bottles display images of Monet's *The Japanese Footbridge*, Cassatt's *The Loge*, and Van Gogh's *Roses*, drawing a parallel between art conservation and hair repair. The collection is exclusively available at Walmart.

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art has partnered with Lego to release a $249.99 building set recreating Claude Monet's 1899 painting 'Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies.' The kit, containing 3,179 pieces, is the most expensive in Lego's Art series and launches March 4. The museum is also releasing a podcast hosted by curator Alison Hokanson to accompany the set.

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Artnet News rounds up eight major controversies that shook the art world in 2025, including a brazen theft of crown jewels from the Louvre Museum in Paris, which exposed severe security gaps and led to a staff strike. Another key scandal involves a lawsuit filed by heirs of the Stern family against the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, alleging that a Van Gogh painting was looted by the Nazis and later concealed through a series of transactions in New York.

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Pilar Corrias is expanding her London gallery with a new 5,000-square-foot flagship space at 49-51 Conduit Street in Mayfair, featuring 16-foot ceilings and street-level access. The gallery, now 15 years old, has grown from representing 4 to 35 artists, including top-selling names like Christina Quarles. Corrias decided to open the new space after a four-year search, citing its rare size and industrial character as a contrast to her existing Savile Row location, which she will retain. The first exhibition in the new gallery will showcase new paintings by Christina Quarles.

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Seven works on paper by Egon Schiele have been restituted to the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, a Jewish cabaret performer killed at Dachau concentration camp in 1941 after being forced to surrender his art collection to the Nazis. Six of these pieces will be auctioned at Christie’s New York in November 2024, with three watercolor portraits—including *Stehende Frau (Dirne)* (1912), *Selbstbildnis* (1910), and *Ich liebe Gegensätze* (1912)—headlining the 20th Century Evening Sale on November 9, and three more offered in the Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper Sale on November 11. Estimates range from $150,000 to $2.5 million per work, and proceeds will be split among Grünbaum’s heirs, who plan to fund a scholarship program for young musicians.

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The Mauritshuis in The Hague announced it will loan Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (circa 1665) to the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan, this summer while the Dutch museum closes for building alterations from August 24 to September 20. Separately, President Donald Trump's administration released a memo on January 7 stating the US will withdraw from over 60 international groups, including ICCROM and IFACCA, which focus on arts and cultural heritage preservation, arguing these bodies operate contrary to US interests.