Art News. Vasari Codex

article culture schedule Jun 12, 2026 visibility 6 link 17 artists

‘David Hockney caught the look of the modern world’: a tribute to the artist whose work was a feast of visual pleasure

The Guardian publishes a tribute to David Hockney, celebrating his lifelong career as an artist who captured the look and feel of the modern world with unabashed visual pleasure. The article traces his journey from a childhood in Bradford, through his student years at the Royal College of Art, to his embrace of Los Angeles as a vision of paradise. It highlights key works such as 'A Bigger Splash' and 'Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)', the latter selling for $90.3 million in 2018, and discusses his relaxed depiction of gay life, his role as both participant and observer in the new freedoms of the 1960s, and his enduring influence as the 'Matisse of pop art'.

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article news schedule Jun 11, 2026 visibility 6 link 1 artist

French Scientists Have Developed a New Technology To Help Identify Forged Artworks

Scientists at the Polytechnic University of Hauts-de-France in Valenciennes have published a study in the June 2026 issue of *Surface Topography: Metrology and Properties* introducing a new method to authenticate artworks and identify forgeries. Led by Francois Berkmans, Ludovic Nys, and Maxence Bigerelle, the research uses surface metrology—analyzing the texture and topography of brushstrokes like a fingerprint—via high-resolution scans. They tested the technique on nine van Gogh paintings, correctly flagging a known fake as a "strong outlier" and confirming the authenticity of *Sunset at Montmajour*, which the Van Gogh Museum had already validated in 2013.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 11, 2026 visibility 8 link 8 artists

‘She slept in the hallway on a lawn chair’: how Bettina’s astonishing art outgrew her Chelsea Hotel room

The article profiles Bettina Grossman, known simply as Bettina, a reclusive artist who lived and worked in a small room at New York's Chelsea Hotel for decades. Her room was filled to the brim with Xeroxed word art, geometric sculptures, photographs, and collections of leaves, reflecting 40 years of fervent creative output. Artist Yto Barrada, who edited a book about Bettina, describes the overwhelming accumulation of works that forced Bettina to sleep on a lawn chair in the hallway. Bettina's work, including sculptures, photographs, and films, is now featured in an exhibition called 'Bettina: Finite Structures' as part of the Glasgow International festival, showcasing pieces like a newly digitized 8mm animation and distorted photographic reflections of skyscrapers.

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article news schedule Jun 11, 2026 visibility 7 link 2 artists

Scientists Think They’ve Found a New Way to Spot Fake Van Goghs

Researchers from the University Polytechnique Hauts-de-France have published the most comprehensive study yet testing whether surface metrology—a technique that analyzes an artwork's texture—can authenticate paintings like fingerprints. By converting high-resolution images of eight Vincent van Gogh works into topographical maps and calculating fractal dimension values, the team established a baseline for the artist's brushstroke complexity. They then tested two previously contested paintings: Sunset at Montmajour (1888), validated by the Van Gogh Museum in 2013, proved consistent with van Gogh's fractal values, while the forgery The Plowmen did not. The study appears in Surface Topography: Metrology and Properties.

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article policy schedule Jun 10, 2026 visibility 19 link 3 artists

The Phillips Collection receives largest gift in museum’s history

The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, has received a $15 million gift from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, the largest single donation in the museum's history. The funds will be allocated primarily to the museum's endowment ($12 million) for long-term maintenance, conservation staffing, and digital systems, with additional support for the museum's satellite space Phillips@THEARC and a new annual initiative called Art-Play-Practice. The inaugural installation will reference Sam Gilliam's 1972 work 'Broad Cape.' Director Jonathan P. Binstock, who joined in 2023, has led a strategic planning process that identified infrastructure and staffing needs as critical priorities.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 9, 2026 visibility 29 link 28 artists, 13 galleries

London’s Gallery Scene Is Full of Contradictions. Its Art Is, Too.

London's gallery scene during the June 2026 London Gallery Weekend presented a stark contrast: while Cork Street saw abandoned storefronts from departed galleries like Tiwani and Stephen Friedman, and Pace Gallery downsized, new arrivals Sundaram Tagore and Lehmann Maupin celebrated openings alongside expanding midsize galleries Edel Assanti and Emalin. A total of 126 galleries participated from June 5–7. Notable exhibitions included Thomas Houseago's spiritual installation at Lévy Gorvy Dayan featuring antiquities and modern works, Oliver Beer's sound-vibration paintings at Thaddaeus Ropac, Anne Imhof's Berlin-coded sculptures at Sprüth Magers, and a performance art 'spiritual marriage' at Gallery Rosenfeld. The article highlights a renewed interest in spirituality and nostalgia across shows, with South Asian art becoming increasingly central to London's cultural identity.

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candle obituary schedule Jun 9, 2026 visibility 33 link 13 artists

John Claridge obituary

John Claridge, a celebrated advertising photographer known for his iconic campaigns for Rolls-Royce, Porsche, and Jack Daniels, has died at age 81. His career spanned decades and earned multiple awards, but he is most revered for his black-and-white photographs of London's East End in the 1960s and 1970s, collected in the 2016 monograph "East End." Claridge's work is held in major institutions including the V&A, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 9, 2026 visibility 27 link 14 artists

‘The people made me a star’: 100 years of Marilyn Monroe – in pictures

A new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, titled 'Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait', explores the life, career, and legacy of Marilyn Monroe through portraits created by many of the greatest photographers and artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. The show runs until 6 September and features iconic images from her early modeling days as Norma Jeane to her final interviews and photographs in 1962, including works by Milton H. Greene, Eve Arnold, Cecil Beaton, Pauline Boty, and Andy Warhol.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 8, 2026 visibility 33 link 33 artists

Crystal Bridges Museum Tacks on a Big Expansion, Just 15 Years After Opening, and Packs it With American Art

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, has opened a major expansion just 15 years after its original 200,000-square-foot facility debuted. Designed by architect Moshe Safdie, the addition adds 114,000 square feet of new galleries, education spaces, and artist studios, including a 14,000-square-foot exhibition space. The new wing features skylights with a mechanism to create balanced natural light and hosts the inaugural exhibition “Keith Haring in 3D,” co-curated by Glenn Adamson, which explores the artist’s sculpture practice. The expansion was driven by founder Alice Walton’s desire to execute the original fifty-year plan while Safdie could still lead the project.

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person people schedule Jun 8, 2026 visibility 29 link 11 artists

Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter Talks About Making Music for Art Projects and Robot Life as Performance

Thomas Bangalter, one half of the iconic French electronic duo Daft Punk, has been expanding his creative practice into visual art and performance since the group's dissolution in 2021. He has composed music for ballets, collaborated with artist JR and choreographer Damien Jalet on the project Chiroptera, and released a new album, Mirage, made for a ballet with visual artist Kohei Nawa. Bangalter also contributed a sound work to JR's public art installation La Caverne du Pont Neuf in Paris, and will present an installation at Art Basel in Switzerland. He recently played a surprise DJ set at the closing of Centre Pompidou for renovations.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 8, 2026 visibility 29 link 6 artists

MoMA exhibition will examine Mondrian’s time in New York and love of boogie woogie music

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York will present "Mondrian Boogie Woogie" (March 21–July 31, 2027), an exhibition focusing on Piet Mondrian's final four years in New York and the influence of boogie woogie music on his late work. The show reunites Mondrian's last two paintings—Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-43) from MoMA's collection and Victory Boogie Woogie (1942-44) from the Kunstmuseum Den Haag—for the first time in over thirty years, alongside 30 total works including pieces from a crate he brought to New York. A section will explore Café Society, New York's first interracial nightclub where Mondrian was a regular, and jazz pianist Jason Moran will contribute an original composition.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 7, 2026 visibility 13 link 6 artists

Mildred Howard on her first retrospective in a major museum: ‘My art is part of who I am as a person’

Oakland-based artist Mildred Howard, now 80, will receive her first major museum retrospective, "Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory," at the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) starting June 12. The exhibition spans her 50-year career and includes works such as her "Untold Histories / Hidden Truths" series, which reimagines monuments to slaveholders and colonizers, and public installations like "Locks and Keys for Harry Bridges." Howard's home and studio in West Oakland—a 15,000 sq ft warehouse—blurs life and art, filled with samples and cast-offs from her large-scale public artworks.

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rate_review review schedule Jun 5, 2026 visibility 37 link 18 artists

Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait review – the radiant, uncontainable star she always wanted to be

The National Portrait Gallery in London has opened a new blockbuster exhibition, "Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait," marking what would have been the star's 100th birthday. The show presents Monroe through photographs, paintings, and film excerpts, tracing her transformation from Norma Jeane Baker into a global icon. It features works by renowned photographers such as Richard Avedon, Milton Greene, Cecil Beaton, Eve Arnold, Philippe Halsman, Weegee, and André de Dienes, as well as paintings by Pauline Boty and Andy Warhol. The exhibition emphasizes Monroe's agency and control over her own image, challenging the notion of uncovering a "real Marilyn" behind the glamour.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 5, 2026 visibility 23 link 5 artists

Nazi-looted Georg Kolbe fountain breaks German artist's auction record

A fountain by German sculptor Georg Kolbe, titled *Tänzerinnen-Brunnen* (Dancer’s Fountain), sold for a record €4 million (with fees) at Villa Grisebach’s summer auction in Berlin on June 4. The work had been in the collection of the Georg Kolbe Museum since the 1970s, but after a research project initiated in 2024, the museum deaccessioned and restituted it to the descendants of its original commissioner, Heinrich Stahl, a prominent Jewish community member murdered in the Theresienstadt ghetto. The fountain, commissioned in 1922, features a bronze dancer and limestone figures of Somali men, reflecting colonial representational conventions. The sale broke Kolbe’s previous auction record of €1.4 million, also set at Grisebach last year.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 5, 2026 visibility 33 link 5 artists

‘Scandalous’ $60 Million Modigliani Nude Headlines Sotheby’s Lewis Collection Sale

Sotheby's announced that Modigliani's 'Nu assis au collier' (1917), estimated at £45 million ($60.6 million), will headline the single-owner auction of portraits from British billionaire Joe Lewis's collection. The painting, one of only seven full nudes from Modigliani's scandalous 1917 solo show that was shut down by police for indecency, returns to auction for the first time in over 30 years. Sotheby's specialist Oliver Barker noted rising interest in Modigliani, citing Johnny Depp's 2024 biopic and a new catalogue raisonné by Marc Restellini. The work last sold in 1995 for $12.4 million and will be offered on June 24, with public viewing in London from June 10–23.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 5, 2026 visibility 14 link 8 artists

Photographs of Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson’s shared studio go on show in London

The Courtauld Gallery in London is presenting an exhibition of 23 black-and-white photographs taken by Paul Laib in 1932-33, documenting the shared Hampstead studio of sculptor Barbara Hepworth and painter Ben Nicholson. The images, drawn from a larger archive of 22,000 glass-plate negatives gifted to the Courtauld in 1974, reveal the creative partnership between the two artists, who were a couple from 1931 to 1951. The show includes fourteen vintage prints and nine modern prints, curated by Chloe Nahum and Gerlind May, and runs from 6 June to 4 October.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 5, 2026 visibility 19 link 8 artists

A MoMA Retrospective Proves Duchamp Was More Sincere Than He Seems

A new retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York surveys the full career of Marcel Duchamp, featuring 300 works across media. The exhibition traces his evolution from early paintings—such as a placid chess scene of his brothers and the watercolor *Woman Hack Driver* (1907)—through his iconic readymades like *Pharmacy* (1914) and *Nude Descending a Staircase* (1911–12), to the monumental *The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even* (The Large Glass, 1915–23). It is the first comprehensive survey of Duchamp's oeuvre since 1973, and includes reproductions, facsimiles, and even contemporary caricatures from the American press.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 5, 2026 visibility 12 link 18 artists

Museums across North America hope to score with World Cup programmes

Museums across North America are launching sports-themed programming ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, aiming to bridge political and cultural divides between the US, Canada, and Mexico. The Pérez Art Museum Miami (Pamm) opened the exhibition "Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture" (originating from SFMOMA) with a conference called "Game Time" featuring artists, athletes, and curators. Artist Hank Willis Thomas discussed his quilted replica of Picasso's Guernica made from sports uniforms, framing sports as sublimated combat and highlighting labor inequities. Other institutions, like LACMA, are also presenting football-related shows.

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article local schedule Jun 4, 2026 visibility 35 link 25 artists

A Guide to Museum Mile, New York’s Premier Cultural Corridor

The article serves as a guide to New York City's Museum Mile, highlighting the annual Museum Mile Festival on June 9, which closes Fifth Avenue to traffic and offers free admission and special programs at a core group of about eight museums. It provides an overview of key institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Neue Galerie New York, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, noting upcoming exhibitions such as "Musical Bodies" at the Met and a Carol Bove survey at the Guggenheim, as well as the Met's planned merger with the Neue Galerie in 2028.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 4, 2026 visibility 25 link 8 artists, 1 gallery

Pace Gallery Downsizes, Cutting Artists and Staff

Pace Gallery, a major force in the contemporary art market, is cutting approximately 50 artists and estates from its roster of over 130 names and laying off about 50 of its 250 staff members. CEO Marc Glimcher announced the downsizing, citing a broken gallery model and a prolonged downturn in the market for contemporary art. The gallery plans to focus on around 80 artists going forward, dropping names such as Keith Coventry, Glenn Kaino, teamLab, and John Gerrard, while retaining recent additions like Anicka Yi and the estate of Constantin Brancusi. Pace will continue to participate in major art fairs, including Art Basel in Switzerland.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 3, 2026 visibility 21 link 8 artists

Emily Sargent’s Watercolors Arrive at Auction After Decades Hidden in a Trunk

A cache of 19 watercolors by Emily Sargent, the sister of famed painter John Singer Sargent, is heading to auction at Dreweatts in Newbury, England, on July 7, with an upper estimate of £102,000 ($137,000). The works were discovered in a forgotten trunk in 1998 by a descendant, and over a third of the original 440 watercolors have since been donated to major U.S. and U.K. museums. The sale also includes seven works by John Singer Sargent, bringing the total estimate to £489,000 ($658,000). Emily Sargent, who suffered from a childhood spinal injury, began painting in her 30s and traveled extensively with her brother, producing accomplished watercolors that showcase her skill with composition and light.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 3, 2026 visibility 44 link 12 artists

‘A kind of reconnecting with the past’: the Met celebrates the art of the portrait

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has opened a new exhibition, 'The Face of Modern Life,' featuring nearly 80 works from its permanent collection that challenge traditional definitions of portraiture. Curated by Stephanie D’Alessandro, the show includes pieces by Max Beckmann, Wifredo Lam, Pablo Picasso, and Joan Miró, among others, exploring how portraits can be rooted in memory, myth, and abstraction rather than mere physical likeness. Highlights include Picasso's iconic portrait of Gertrude Stein and Lam's recent acquisition 'Ídolo,' which draws on Santería imagery.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 2, 2026 visibility 71 link 223 artists, 43 galleries

Art Basel Reveals More Participating Galleries and the Artists Selected for its ‘Exclusive’ Initiative, Which Withholds Artworks from Email Previews

Art Basel has announced that 193 of its 232 main-sector exhibitors (83%) have signed on to a new initiative called Basel Exclusive, which requires participating galleries to withhold at least one artwork—or their entire presentation—from emailed PDF previews sent to collectors and advisors before the fair opens. The initiative debuts at the upcoming Art Basel in Basel (June 18–21, with VIP previews June 16–17) and includes major galleries such as Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, and Pace, as well as smaller venues like Bortolami and James Cohan. About 230 artists are covered, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, David Hockney, and Andy Warhol. Participating galleries will be marked on floor plans, and selected works will be highlighted by plaques.

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museum exhibitions schedule Jun 2, 2026 visibility 37 link 10 artists

Lucian Freud Painting He Spent Decades Denying Will Go on Public View for the First Time

A portrait long denied by Lucian Freud, titled *Man in a Black Scarf*, will go on public display for the first time this summer at London’s Garden Museum. Painted in 1939 while Freud studied at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, the work depicts John Jameson, heir to the Jameson whiskey family. Freud disavowed the painting in 1985 after Christie’s initially cataloged it as his, and he continued to deny it until his death in 2011. New evidence, including student records found in the Tate Britain archives, confirms Freud was working on a portrait of Jameson in 1939, matching the painting’s date and subject.

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article culture schedule Jun 2, 2026 visibility 13 link 3 artists

Mystery, controversy and the butterfly’s sting: James McNeill Whistler book aims to dispel the fog around his legacy

A new book, *Whistler's Legacy*, by historian Daniel Sutherland aims to correct the myths and misconceptions surrounding the enigmatic artist James McNeill Whistler. Sutherland critiques early biographers Joseph and Elizabeth Pennell for factual errors and doctored accounts, and reexamines Whistler's paradoxical life—an American expatriate, a self-styled provocateur, and a meticulous painter of nocturnes and pastels. The book also addresses Whistler's controversial relationships, including his legal battle with critic John Ruskin over *Nocturne in Black and Gold–The Falling Rocket*.

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article culture schedule Jun 2, 2026 visibility 14 link 8 artists

Mapplethorpe nudes, the NEA and the birth of America’s culture wars

Isaac Butler's new book, *The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars*, examines the 1989 controversy over Robert Mapplethorpe's retrospective at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC. The exhibition, funded in part by a $30,000 NEA grant, was canceled after conservative backlash, then hosted by the Washington Project for the Arts. Butler, whose mother served on the WPA board, also covers related battles over Andres Serrano's *Immersion (Piss Christ)*, music warning labels, and the "NEA Four" performance artists whose grants were denied. The book was inspired by the 2020 decision to delay a Philip Guston retrospective over concerns about his Klan imagery, which Butler sees as a liberal act of self-censorship.

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trending_up market schedule Jun 1, 2026 visibility 39 link 24 artists

Sotheby’s Offers Art and Design From Estate of Revered Dealer Barbara Gladstone, Led by Richard Prince and a Jean Prouvé Sideboard

Sotheby's will auction 140 lots of art and design from the estate of revered dealer Barbara Gladstone, who died in 2024 at age 89. The sale, scheduled for June 9 during New York design week, includes contemporary works by Richard Prince, Alex Katz, Kai Althoff, and Yayoi Kusama, alongside midcentury modern design pieces by Jean Prouvé, Pierre Jeanneret, and Joaquim Tenreiro. The collection is estimated to bring between $6.9 and $10 million, with a public preview opening June 2 at Sotheby's Madison Avenue headquarters. A prior sale of contemporary artworks from Gladstone's collection in May achieved $18.5 million, exceeding its high estimate.

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article news schedule Jun 1, 2026 visibility 15 link 1 artist

Brazilian Police Believe They Have Identified Architect of Matisse Theft at Biblioteca Mário de Andrade

Brazilian police have identified Laéssio Rodrigues de Oliveira Silva as the alleged mastermind behind the December 2025 theft of eight Henri Matisse prints and five Cândido Portinari illustrations from the Biblioteca Mário de Andrade in São Paulo, Brazil's second-largest library. The heist occurred on the final day of the exhibition “From Book to Museum,” organized with the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art; two armed men held a guard and an elderly couple at gunpoint before fleeing with the works. Rodrigues de Oliveira Silva, already in custody for a separate attempted theft, is described by investigators as a longtime rare-book thief who allegedly coordinated the operation through intermediaries. Two other suspects have been arrested, but one gunman remains at large and the artworks have not been recovered.

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article culture schedule May 29, 2026 visibility 21 link 5 artists

What We Miss When We Flatten Georgia O’Keeffe Into a Feminist Icon

A new documentary, *Georgia O'Keeffe: The Brightness of Light*, directed by Paul Wagner, explores the artist's life and work, but its release timed around Mother's Day sparks criticism for reducing O'Keeffe to a maternal stereotype. The film delves into O'Keeffe's complex relationship with husband and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz, her rejection of sexualized interpretations of her flower paintings, and her determination to prioritize art over conventional womanhood.

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trending_up market schedule May 28, 2026 visibility 58 link 14 artists

What the May Auctions Revealed About Art as an Asset Class

Christie's sold Jackson Pollock's drip painting *Number 7A* (1948) from the collection of S.I. Newhouse for $181 million, the top lot of the $2.5 billion May auction season in New York. However, analysis shows the work's annualized return of about 6.6% over 26 years underperformed a passive S&P 500 investment, which would have grown to roughly $240 million in the same period. Many other major lots also sold at significant losses compared to their previous auction prices, including a Pollock work on paper that fell 40% to $9.2 million, Andy Warhol's *Sixteen Jackies* down nearly 40% to $16.2 million, and a Warhol *Double Elvis* that lost almost 30% for billionaire Lorenzo Fertitta.

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