Jan 27th, 2023 - We uncover the tangled tale of the painting controversially sold off by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1972 and now in an Athens museum A restitution claim alleges that a major Van Gogh landscape belonging to an Athens museum was subject to a forced sale in Hitler's Germany. Olive Picking (1889) was a key loan in last year's exhibition Van Gogh and the Olive Groves in Dallas and Amsterdam, although the legal action was only initiated in December, after the painting's return to Greece. ...

Jan 27th, 2023 - No matter the urban landscape, street art has made its mark in socio-political and art historical discourses. Street art can be traced back to the early 20th century when artists began using urban spaces as a canvas for their work. However, it wasn't until the 1960s and 1970s that the term "street art" began to be used to describe this type of art. One of the earliest examples of street art is the work of French artist Jean Dubuffet. Dubuffet's "Hourloupe" series, which he began in 1962, ...

Jan 27th, 2023 - The Last Supper, painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 15th century, is one of history's most famous and iconic works of art. The painting depicts the moment in the Bible when Jesus informs his disciples that one of them will betray him. It is a powerful and dynamic piece that has captivated audiences for centuries. One of the reasons the Last Supper is so historically important is that it was one of the first depictions of the scene in art. Before da Vinci's painting, the Last Supper had ...

Jan 27th, 2023 - A woman who edits her cat into famous artworks has amazed the internet with her creations. Hannah, who is 28 and preferred not to give her surname, lives in northern Nevada and has been adding her cat Gravy to world-renowned pictures. Her work recently gained viral attention when she shared a picture of her cat in the lap of the Mona Lisa. "Gravy is about a year old," Hannah told Newsweek . "I adopted him in June of 2021 from a crazy lady outside of a local Savemart who thrust him into my arms, ...

Jan 26th, 2023 - Once owned by Jewish collectors in Vienna, the landscape was exported to the US on condition it was exhibited in the Austrian pavilion at the 1948 Venice Biennale The Neue Galerie in New York is to restore Egon Schiele's Town Among Greenery (The Old City III) (1917) thanks to the 2023 Tefaf Museum Restoration Fund, which has awarded €25,000 to the project. The painting was gifted to the museum in 2006 by the heirs of Otto and Marguerite Manley (formerly Mandl), important Jewish collectors ...

Jan 26th, 2023 - Every year, collectors, art advisors, curators, artists and art fans converge in Torino for a long art fair weekend Artissima . What began in 1994 as a simple art fair has turned into a showcase to Torino's dynamic contemporary art scene with Artissima as the gateway. Instigator Artissima A "catalyst of experiments, research and investment in the art market" is how Artissima director Luigi Fassi describes the four-day gathering of the luminaries of the art scene meet up over a plate of tajarin ...

Jan 26th, 2023 - Every so often, you'll see a portrait-of-the-artist documentary that's so beautifully made, about a figure of such unique fascination, whose art is so perfectly showcased by the documentary format, that when it's over you can't believe the film hadn't existed until now. It feels, in its way, essential. " Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV " is like that. Directed by Amanda Kim (it's her first feature, and so well-done that I expect it to be the first of many), it's a tantalizing portrait of ...

Jan 25th, 2023 - In September, curator and art historian Katy Hessel , known for her popular Instagram account @thegreatwomenartists , published her first book, The Story of Art Without Men , in the U.K. Now, the groundbreaking volume, which highlights the many accomplishments of women throughout art history—independent of their relationships to their husbands or fathers—is headed stateside, with the U.S. release set for May 2, 2023. The book is designed as a counterpart to Ernst Gombrich's ...

Jan 25th, 2023 - Despite works the collection of film producer Jacqui Eli Safra that were enticingly offered with no reserves, the auction house's two marquee sales fell short of expectations Christie's series of Old Masters' sales in New York kicked off on Wednesday (25 January) with 76 works from the collection of Swiss Lebanese banking heir and film producer Jacqui Eli Safra that reeled in $14.7m ($18.5m with fees), followed by its various owners session that brought $36.4m ($44.2m with fees) for the 36 lots ...

Jan 23rd, 2023 - After weathering World War II in a barn tucked away in a Norwegian forest, a monumental Edvard Munch painting is heading to the auction block. The 13-foot-long piece, Dance on the Beach (1906) , hasn't been up for sale in 89 years. The painting once belonged to Curt Glaser , a Jewish art critic, collector and historian based in Berlin. By the 1930s, Glaser and his wife, Elsa, had amassed an extensive private collection of art, which included pieces by Munch—who was a personal friend of ...

Jan 23rd, 2023 - Painting might be older than catalogued thanks to one particular detail How much can a copy be worth? We're used to seeing copies of the Mona Lisa —as the world's most famous painting— fly away at auction . But thanks to a copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi making over €1m in an online Christie's sale in Paris, we can now say that anything with even a hint of Leonardo is worth serious money. That's quite something, for a category we are constantly told is "out of ...

Jan 22nd, 2023 - At 3.63 meters (12 feet) tall and 4.37 meters across, the painting known commonly as The Night Watch is Rembrandt's largest painting. Centuries after its creation, we're still uncovering the smallest of details in its pigments, thanks to advances in modern technology. A team of researchers from across Europe have found an unexpected molecule while studying the build-up of paint making up the famous Dutch Golden Age artwork. Thanks to the layers of pigments and other media like primers and ...

Jan 16th, 2023 - Paintings from before 1850, once a bedrock of the market, now account for just a tiny percentage of auction sales. Instead, buyers want works by living artists with a strong Instagram presence. The art market, like pretty much everything else in our culture, has become all about the here and now. The seismic shift in collecting taste from the old to the very new was summed up in December by a little-reported result in Christie's annual evening auction of master paintings in London. Highest ...

Nov 26th, 2022 - Skip Paris' Musée d'Orsay and visit the Musée Moreau - Lonely Planet Why you could skip Musée d'Orsay to visit this artist's house-museum instead Why you could skip Musée d'Orsay to visit this artist's house-museum instead Travel writer and cultural correspondent Lindsay Tramuta knows all about the hidden gems of Paris, where she's been based since 2006. Here, she argues that time-pressed travelers should plan a visit to a favorite of in-the-know art lovers.  ...

Nov 10th, 2022 - Works by Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Gustav Klimt each sell for more than $100m, with more set for auction on Thursday Dozens of works by artists including Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh fetched a total of $1.5bn at an auction of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's vast collection of paintings and sculpture. The total represented the highest amount ever collected at a single art auction, according to the auction house, Christie's in New York. ...

Nov 3rd, 2022 - The artist's first solo show with art dealer Kamel Mennour earlier this fall sold out immediately. The Paris-based, Algerian-born Dhewadi Hadjab, paints dancers. We find them at the center of otherwise stark rooms, where layers of wallpaper are peeling off walls. They are often wearing Adidas sweatpants, their bodies twisted and suspended.  At the center of several compositions, feet pop up or hang, appearing relaxed, peaking over the back of a couch, and covered in the thick, cheap socks ...

Nov 3rd, 2022 - Art experts in the Netherlands unveiled an oil sketch on Thursday by the famous Dutch master Rembrandt after it languished for a century in a forgotten corner of a museum, believed to be an imitation. "The Raising of the Cross" oil sketch from the 1640s was long thought to have been the work of a follower of the 17th century master, known for his famous works like "The Night Watch" and "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp". But now the Bredius museum in The Hague, where the sketch has been ...

Nov 3rd, 2022 - Exceptional craft and exquisite detail are among the qualities that connect the pieces in McLean Project for the Arts' current exhibition. Another link is disclosed by the show's title, "Continuum: Artists Teaching Artists." All 18 participants are veteran instructors at area colleges and universities. Even the most conceptual ones of their artworks are beautifully made. This is exemplified by John Ruppert's two-part sculptures, which initially appear to be sets of stones but in fact pair a ...

Nov 3rd, 2022 - The show offers a deep dive into the life and work of the legendary Mexican artist. Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who undeniably has already garnered a cult-like following of loyal fans and admirers over the past several decades, is the latest artist to get the so-called "immersive" treatment in New York. , depicts the impact of the bus collision by showing slow-motion abstracted fragments colliding and shattering. Frida herself, who often painted self portraits to tell stories about her life, ...

Nov 2nd, 2022 - The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is using a $10 million gift from the family of a former trustee to fund the acquisition of works by women artists. The money comes from the relatives of Vicki Sant, the late collector who became the museum's first female president in 2003. It will now be put toward addressing historical gaps in the museum's collection. Sant was a member of the museum's board from 2000 until her death in 2018. She served as chair of the board from 2003 to 2014. In ...