‘Money! Glamour! Yachts! But not for me!’ Adrian Searle relives 30 glorious years as our chief art critic

Adrian Searle, the outgoing chief art critic for The Guardian, reflects on his 30-year career by recounting a vivid, personal montage of the art he has witnessed. He describes unforgettable encounters with works ranging from Vermeer's intimate paintings to Fiona Banner's suspended jet fighter, Roger Hiorns's crystal-filled flat, and Emily Jacir's poignant project on Palestinian displacement, highlighting how these experiences blend memory, story, and direct observation into a critic's life.

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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.

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President Donald Trump's tariffs on wood imports, introduced to support American manufacturers, have inadvertently disrupted the international trade in antiques and decorative arts. Memphis-based antique dealer Millicent Ford Creech notes that the tariffs unfairly penalize dealers specializing in pre-1800 pieces with no domestic equivalent, as fine art is exempt but collectible furniture and decorative items are not. Separately, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) received a gift of 1,600 works from local collector Kirk Edward Long, rich in early modern European prints, paintings, antiquities, and decorative arts, as part of its multiyear 'Gifts of Art' initiative. Other news includes a rare jewelry box identified in Vermeer paintings, a Rembrandt drawing sold by Thomas S. Kaplan for conservation charity, and a popular 'Grumpy Guide' tour at Düsseldorf's Kunstpalast performed by artist Carl Brandi.

Shreg the green ogre, a grey obsessive and Vermeer’s boiled egg – the week in art

This week's art roundup from The Guardian highlights a range of exhibitions across the UK, including Bruce Asbestos's 'Bootleg Shreg 2' at Exeter Phoenix Gallery, a playful show featuring a green ogre that parodies copyright rules. Other notable shows include Roy Oxlade's primitive paintings at Alison Jacques, May Morris's craft legacy at Lady Lever Art Gallery, a 30-year anniversary group show at Timothy Taylor, and Alan Charlton's monochrome grey works at Annely Juda Fine Art. The article also features an image of a naturally sculpted rock on Kangaroo Island, a review of the Turner Prize nominees, and a masterwork analysis of Vermeer's 'The Guitar Player' at Kenwood House, which was stolen in the 1970s and recovered with the help of a clairvoyant.

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The Rijksmuseum, the national museum of the Netherlands in Amsterdam, has announced a partnership with the municipality of Eindhoven to build a satellite branch in the city. The 35,000-square-foot building will be located in a park near Eindhoven Central Station and is expected to open in six to eight years, presenting exhibitions drawn from the Rijksmuseum’s collection of over one million objects, including masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Van Gogh. Major sponsorship comes from Dutch semiconductor company ASML.

V&A East architecture review – from ceramics to codpieces, this is a honey-coloured treasure trove of human ingenuity

V&A East has officially unveiled its new museum building in London’s Olympic Park, a striking architectural addition to the city's burgeoning 'East Bank' cultural district. Designed by O’Donnell + Tuomey, the structure features a faceted, honey-colored concrete exterior inspired by the intricate folds of a sleeve in a Vermeer painting and the structural tailoring of Cristóbal Balenciaga. The interior houses a diverse collection of human ingenuity, ranging from Leigh Bowery’s sequined codpieces to historical ceramics, all organized within a framework that emphasizes the process of making.

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Geoffrey Kelly, the FBI’s lead investigator on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist for over two decades, has released a new book titled 'Thirteen Perfect Fugitives'. Published ahead of the 36th anniversary of the 1990 theft, the book provides an insider’s perspective on the investigation into the world’s largest art heist, where 13 works valued at over $1 billion were stolen. Kelly, who retired in 2024, details the FBI's findings regarding the individuals involved and the ongoing, unsuccessful efforts to recover the missing masterpieces.

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Thomas Schlesser's novel *Mona's Eyes* has been named Barnes & Noble's book of the year for 2025, but its cover has sparked controversy online. The cover features Johannes Vermeer's *The Girl with the Pearl Earring*, even though the story is about a girl named Mona who visits Paris museums with her grandfather, and the painting is not held in Paris—it resides at the Mauritshuis in The Hague. A viral Reddit thread on an art history subreddit accused the publisher of "ragebait," noting the mismatch between the cover image and the book's content. Schlesser, an art historian who teaches at the École Polytechnique and runs the Hartung Bergman Foundation, defended the choice, saying he wanted an iconic work symbolizing light and darkness rather than highlighting any of the 52 artworks featured in the story.

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The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, is hosting "Art and Life in Rembrandt’s Time: Masterpieces from the Leiden Collection," an exhibition featuring 17 Rembrandt paintings from the largest private collection of his works. The show includes over 200 additional paintings and drawings by Dutch Golden Age artists such as Frans Hals, Carel Fabritius, and Johannes Vermeer, including the only Vermeer painting held in private hands. The exhibition marks the first major Rembrandt show in Florida and the largest U.S. exhibition of 17th-century Dutch paintings from a private collection, timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of New Amsterdam's founding.

‘Old masters too’: Ghent exhibition celebrates female artists of the baroque

The Ghent Museum of Fine Arts (MSK) has opened the exhibition 'Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750,' featuring over 40 female artists from the Baroque period in the Low Countries. The show highlights painters like Judith Leyster and Maria van Oosterwijck, as well as practitioners of crafts like paper-cutting and lace-making, aiming to restore these women to a historical narrative dominated by male 'Old Masters' like Rembrandt and Vermeer.

Must-see exhibitions in 2026: APAC

The article highlights a curated selection of must-see art exhibitions across the Asia Pacific region in 2026. Key shows include Zao Wou-Ki's printmaking retrospective at M+ in Hong Kong, a major Cartier jewelry exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, and a survey of Western landscape art from the Centre Pompidou collection. Other notable exhibitions feature ancient Egyptian treasures at the Hong Kong Palace Museum, as well as shows dedicated to Klimt, Van Gogh, and Vermeer in Taipei and Japan.

The Best Miami Art Exhibitions of 2025

The article surveys the best art exhibitions in Miami during 2025, highlighting a diverse range of shows from major museums to underground galleries. Key exhibitions include "Art and Life in Rembrandt's Time" at the Norton Museum, featuring Dutch Golden Age masters like Rembrandt and Vermeer for the first time in Florida; "Black Mans Shadow Work" at Queue Gallery, a duo show with New York-based artists Torrance Hall and Karryl Eugene; and "Dreams Without Riders" at Homework Gallery, an immersive installation by German-Nicaraguan artist Brigette Hoffman. The piece also notes the ongoing influence of private collections and the role of alternative spaces like Tunnel Projects in shaping Miami's art scene.

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A cyberattack targeted the Dresden State Art Collections (SKD), a network of 15 museums in eastern Germany, on Wednesday. The attack disrupted large parts of the digital infrastructure, including the online shop and visitor services, but the museums remain open and physical security is intact. IT specialists and forensic experts are working to clean up and rebuild systems, with no timeline yet for full restoration. The SKD is cooperating with the Dresden Police and State Criminal Police Office, as confirmed by the Saxon State Minister for Culture and Tourism.

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The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague has announced that Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" will be loaned to the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan, for a temporary exhibition this fall. The loan occurs while the Dutch museum undergoes renovations in August and September. The painting was last lent to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam for its 2023 Vermeer retrospective. The Asahi Shimbun Company is underwriting the presentation and will serve as a project partner to the Mauritshuis for four years, funding a new education center slated for 2028.

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Johannes Vermeer's iconic painting *Girl with a Pearl Earring* will travel to Japan for the first time in over a decade, on view at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka from August to September. The loan is necessitated by the closure of its permanent home, the Mauritshuis in The Hague, for renovations. The Mauritshuis had previously pledged not to lend the painting again after its 2012–2014 tour of Japan, Italy, and the U.S., making an exception only for the Rijksmuseum's 2023 Vermeer exhibition. Director Martine Gosselink called the trip a unique opportunity to share the work with the Japanese public, possibly for the last time.

The Big Review | Jacques-Louis David at the Musée du Louvre, Paris ★★★★★

The Musée du Louvre in Paris has opened a major retrospective of Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), the greatest Neoclassical artist, marking his biggest survey in nearly four decades. The exhibition, mounted for the 200th anniversary of his death, comprises just over 100 works, including strategic loans from France and eight other countries, and complements the Louvre's own holdings. The show aims to redefine David beyond the Neoclassical label, presenting him instead as both a "realist" and an "idealist," and is compared to blockbusters like the Rijksmuseum's Vermeer show.

Women in the Arts museum brings golden age artists into focus

The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., has opened a new exhibition titled "Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750," which showcases works by largely forgotten female masters of the Dutch Golden Age, including Judith Leyster, Maria van Oosterwijck, Clara Peeters, and Rachel Ruysch. The show features over a dozen artists and highlights paintings rich in symbolism, such as van Oosterwijck's "Vanitas Still Life" and Leyster's "The Concert," while also addressing how many of these women were celebrated in their own time but later misattributed or omitted from art history.

Georges de La Tour, once a victim of the academy’s collective amnesia, can be seen in a new light in Paris

The Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris opens a new exhibition, "Georges de La Tour: From Shadow to Light," running from 11 September 2025 to 25 January 2026. This is the first Paris show dedicated to the 17th-century French painter in nearly 30 years, featuring about 20 original works and a dozen studio pieces. The exhibition explores La Tour's working practice and his influence from Caravaggio, highlighting how his oeuvre—now counted at only 48 known works—was rediscovered after centuries of misattribution, thanks largely to German art historian Hermann Voss in 1915.

An Era Ends When the Illusions Underlying It Are Exhausted

"Eine Ära endet, wenn die ihr zugrunde liegenden Illusionen erschöpft sind"

A media roundup covers several art world stories. The Art Newspaper reports that the ongoing Middle East conflict is unsettling the Gulf art market, causing fair postponements and shaking Dubai's image as a stable luxury hub, though galleries emphasize they continue to work. Meanwhile, the search for a new director for Germany's Kulturstiftung Dessau-Wörlitz continues after a protracted legal battle, with applications open until May 31. The New Yorker presents a reading of Johannes Vermeer's quiet scenes as fragile refuges from a violent historical context, while the Berliner Zeitung critiques the global commercialization of Frida Kahlo into a licensed brand.

Vermeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ will head to Japan this summer in rare loan

The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague has announced it will lend Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (around 1665) to the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan, this summer. The rare loan is made possible because the Mauritshuis will close from August 24 to September 20 for building alterations. The painting last traveled internationally in 2012-14 for a world tour, and its only recent trip was a short loan to the Rijksmuseum in 2023 for a Vermeer survey exhibition. The exhibition in Osaka will be organized by the Asahi Shimbun, a major Japanese media organization that also sponsored the earlier tour, and will help fund the Mauritshuis's renovations and a new education center.

A rare jewellery box identified in Vermeer paintings sheds new light on the artist’s connections

New research by curator Alexandra van Dongen of Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum reveals that a rare Indo-Portuguese jewellery casket depicted in two Johannes Vermeer paintings—Mistress and Maid and A Lady Writing (both 1664-67)—is a real, surviving object. Van Dongen tracked down the sole known example in the Távora Sequeira Pinto collection in Porto, with help from Amsterdam dealer Dickie Zebregs. Her findings, published in the book De tastbare wereld van Johannes Vermeer, suggest the casket likely belonged to Vermeer’s patron Maria de Knuijt, a wealthy Dutch East India Company shareholder who may have asked the artist to include it in her paintings.

From royal visitors to extortionate eBay sales: new book offers rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of Vermeer blockbuster

The Rijksmuseum's 2023 Vermeer exhibition, widely considered the most successful show of the century, drew 650,000 visitors and assembled 28 of the artist's 37 known paintings. A new book, *Closer to Vermeer: New Research on the Painter and his Art*, reveals behind-the-scenes details: the initial plan for a broader thematic show was abandoned in favor of a focused Vermeer-only presentation; nine paintings could not be borrowed, including *The Concert* (stolen in 1990) and *The Astronomer* (on loan to Louvre Abu Dhabi); the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum refused to lend *Girl with a Wine Glass*, even rejecting an offer of buses for schoolchildren. The book also discloses that the Dutch king and queen visited multiple times during regular hours, that a quarter of visitors felt context was missing, and that over 3,500 complaints were filed about photography. The most expensive resold ticket on eBay reached $2,724.

Is Vermeer’s ‘The Art of Painting’ in fact a lost work?

Paul Taylor, a curator at London’s Warburg Institute specializing in 17th-century Dutch art, argues that Vermeer’s celebrated painting *The Art of Painting* (1666-68), housed at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, may not be the work referenced in a 1676 legal document by the artist’s widow, Catharina. Taylor tracked 25 period descriptions of “de schilderconst” (the art of painting) and found they all depict allegorical personifications of painting, not studio scenes like Vermeer’s composition. He believes the document refers to a now-lost Vermeer that could still resurface.

Is Vermeer’s ‘The Art of Painting’ in fact a lost work?

Paul Taylor, a curator at London's Warburg Institute and specialist in 17th-century Dutch art, argues that Vermeer's celebrated painting 'The Art of Painting' (1666-68), housed at Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum, may not be the work referenced in a 1676 legal document by Vermeer's widow Catharina. Taylor tracked down 25 period descriptions of 'de schilderconst' (the art of painting) and found they all depict allegorical personifications of painting, not studio scenes like the Vienna canvas, which shows an artist painting a model as the muse Clio. He suggests the document refers to a now-lost Vermeer that could still surface.

Got an Idea About Who Robbed the Gardner Museum? Get in Line.

The 1990 theft of 13 artworks from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum remains unsolved, generating countless theories about the perpetrators. A new book by the former FBI agent who led the investigation for over a decade systematically debunks many prominent public theories, arguing they distract from the actual investigation.

Views from Behind. A Figure Without a Portrait

Vu[e]s de dos. Une figure sans portrait

The exhibition "Vu[e]s de dos. Une figure sans portrait" at Les Franciscaines in Deauville, running from February 28 to May 31, 2026, explores the artistic motif of figures seen from behind. Curated by director Annie Madet-Vache, the show was inspired by a small painting from the museum's own collection, André Hambourg's *L'Enterrement de Poincaré*. Unable to secure loans of iconic works such as those by Friedrich, Delacroix, Ingres, or Vermeer, Madet-Vache instead displays large black-and-white reproductions of these masterpieces alongside contemporary works they inspired, turning the absence of the originals into a conceptual strength.

Keep it in the family: how Johannes Vermeer’s paintings remained out of view for so long

A new biography by art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon reveals that nearly two-thirds of Johannes Vermeer's known works were commissioned and owned by a single family, the Van Ruijvens, and later inherited by their daughter Magdalena and her husband Jacob Dissius. The collection of 20 Vermeer paintings remained intact within this family for nearly 40 years after the artist's death, only being dispersed after Jacob's death in 1695.

From royal visitors to extortionate eBay sales: new book offers rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of Vermeer blockbuster

The Rijksmuseum's 2023 Vermeer exhibition, widely considered the most successful show of the century, drew 650,000 visitors and assembled 28 of the artist's 37 known paintings. A new book, *Closer to Vermeer: New Research on the Painter and his Art*, published by Thames & Hudson, offers an unprecedented behind-the-scenes account of how the exhibition was organized. The book reveals that curators Pieter Roelofs and Gregor Weber initially planned a broader thematic show before deciding to focus solely on Vermeer. It details the challenges of securing loans—nine paintings were missed, including *The Concert* (stolen in 1990) and *The Astronomer* (on loan to Louvre Abu Dhabi)—and notes that the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum declined to lend *Girl with a Wine Glass*, even rejecting an offer of buses for schoolchildren. The book also discloses that the Dutch royal family and the Queen of Belgium visited during regular hours, and that over 3,500 complaints were filed about photography. The most expensive resold ticket on eBay reached $2,724.

Exhibit celebrates Roary through historic art

An art exhibit at Florida International University's Graham Center piano lounge features 22 paintings that insert FIU's mascot Roary and campus landmarks into iconic works of art, such as Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and van Gogh's "Starry Night." Created by alumni and staff members Wendy X. Ordóñez and Oscar D. Hernandez using the Procreate software, the exhibit aims to blend campus pride with historic art while promoting student health and wellness services. The show, now in its second year, attracted 560 attendees at its opening and includes free merchandise featuring the designs.

A Rare Collection of Dutch Old Masters Gets Its First U.S. Outing

A rare collection of Dutch Old Masters, previously held in a private European collection, is making its first-ever U.S. debut at an American museum. The exhibition brings together a selection of 17th-century paintings, including works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and other Dutch Golden Age artists, offering a unique glimpse into a collection that has rarely been seen by the public.