Jul 17th, 2025 - NEW YORK -- Like his paintings, Thornton Willis was unassuming but indomitable. Asked by an interviewer in 2019 how he had felt about movements, like minimalism and conceptualism, that threatened to replace his medium with newer approaches, Mr. Willis replied, "I just kept painting," before adding, with characteristic humor and modesty, "So did a lot of other people, though." What he was painting — or, in a sense, defending — was a unique brand of geometric abstraction imbued with ...
Jul 17th, 2025 - As we all know, or I hope we all know, women have long been excluded from the history books. The 1950 edition of E. H. Gombrich's 650-page The Story of Art didn't feature a single female artist, but that wasn't uncommon—many of the important art history texts of the 20th Century failed to mention women. Female art collectors and gallerists were even more likely to be neglected, outside of Peggy Guggenheim and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney , and it's worth pointing out that they were both ...
Jul 15th, 2025 - History from countries and communities across the globe, including the world's major wars. The stories behind the faiths, food, entertainment and holidays that shape our world. Years before his name was etched into the annals of modern art, it briefly appeared in a Paris police report. On the morning of Monday August 21, 1911, a sketch artist working in the galleries of the Louvre Museum in Paris notified security guards that Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa"—a portrait of an Italian silk ...
Jul 15th, 2025 - An intimate account of an unprecedented trial I f we believe her parents, Constance Marten and Mark Gordon, a baby girl was born on Christmas Eve, 2022, in the upstairs bedroom of Woodcutters Cottage in Haltwhistle, Northumberland. Her mother knelt against the double bed and gave birth without assistance or complication. The baby spent the first days of her life in the small stone-terraced cottage and then began her travels, mostly carried by her mother in a sling, hidden under a burgundy ...
May 14th, 2025 - If the prevailing art market mantra in recent months has been that, while buyers may be more selective, true quality will always sell, then what unfolded last night at Sotheby's Modern Evening Auction delivered a sobering counterpoint. The evening's centerpiece— Giacometti's bronze bust of his brother Diego , the only known hand-painted version and a highlight of the 1956 Venice Biennale—was a dramatic pass. Despite being billed as the star lot, Grande tête mince (Grande ...
Apr 11th, 2025 - Eugène Boudin at the Musée Marmottan Monet Video: Musée Marmottan Monet Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz: have just this week opened a new exhibition dedicated to Eugène Boudin (1824-1898) drawn in-part from a single private collection. According to their website: Collector Yann Guyonwarc'h has assembled a collection of works by Eugène Boudin (1824 – 1898) that is unrivalled in any museum in the world. Every facet of the artist's career is ...
Mar 14th, 2025 - Much attention has been paid recently to the life of the Italian Baroque master, Artemisia Gentileschi —specifically, her rape, her torture with thumb screws while testifying during the trial of her attacker and her representations of muscular women inflicting bodily damage on men . She's been the subject of novels, films, Broadway plays and operas, but no attention would be paid to her at all if she were not an artist of exquisite skill, bold vision and striking originality who painted ...
Mar 11th, 2025 - France's landscapes and cityscapes provided the perfect backdrop for the revolutionary Impressionist movement. These artists captured fleeting moments of light, color, and atmosphere, forever immortalizing locations that you can still visit today. From Monet's enchanting gardens to Renoir's lively riverside haunts, these places that inspired Impressionist artists offer a chance to step into the paintings that changed the course of art history. 1. Monet's House and Gardens in Giverny Claude ...
Jan 20th, 2025 - Exclusive: William Blake-inspired artwork to feature alongside new paintings in artist's biggest exhibition A previously unseen painting by David Hockney has been revealed for the first time before its unveiling in the biggest exhibition to be devoted to one of Britain's foremost living artists. Titled After Blake: Less is Known than People Think, the work will be among hundreds of previously unknown Hockneys that are to be displayed alongside his famous masterpieces at the Fondation Louis ...
Dec 20th, 2024 - Our review of 2024: record sales, exhibitions, fakes—and tracking down Dr Gachet Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr Gachet (June 1890), which is among his greatest paintings, finally seems to have been tracked down. It was last seen in 1990, when it sold for $82.5m, making it then the most expensive painting ever auctioned. The portrait later discreetly changed hands twice, most recently in 1998, when it disappeared into an extremely private collection. There has been endless speculation about its ...
Dec 9th, 2024 - Seven institutional shows are planned for the artist's centennial next year, accompanied by the first volume of a catalogue raisonné, gallery exhibitions and even an art fair themed around his unique approach. Building on Duchamp's groundbreaking approach of transforming everyday objects through painting and formalist elements, the artist Robert Rauschenberg expanded the expressive possibilities of traditional art and pop culture. His experimental multimedia works serve as timeless ...
