Feb 5th, 2026 - To see an exhibition of an artist's work without having seen any reproductions or read anything about them is rare. And to encounter the paintings—masterfully installed in a major museum—and find the work powerful, ingenious, even sublime, is akin to an explorer stumbling upon unmapped territory. The experience is so uncommon, you wish you could always see art for the first time, without any images or opinions clouding your view. Such was the feeling when I walked into the ...

Feb 4th, 2026 - Gustave Caillebotte Self Portrait acquired by Musée d'Orsay Picture: Musée d'Orsay Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz: The Musée d'Orsay have announced their acquisition of a Self Portrait by Gustave Caillebotte. Painted and exhibited in 1879, this is one of only five self portraits produced by the artist during his career. It will be on public display in the museum from 17th February onwards.

Feb 4th, 2026 - The Austrian gallery has hired a permanent senior director for its new project space in Manhattan Thaddaeus Ropac—long one of the only international mega-dealers without a permanent New York presence—announced on Wednesday (4 February) that the gallery will open what its namesake dealer describes as "a project space" in Manhattan. The gallery has also hired a senior director in the US, Emilio Steinberger, who was previously a senior partner at Lévy Gorvy Dayan. Steinberger ...

Feb 4th, 2026 - The National Gallery's Dürer is right, says new Taschen volume Picture: Taschen / The National Gallery, London Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz: A portrait in The National Gallery , which was featured in the gallery's 2024 German paintings catalogue as a copy of a lost original by Albrecht Dürer, has been upgraded to the artist in full in a new volume of the complete paintings published by Taschen (which was released back in November 2025). The lead author of the volume, Christof ...

Feb 4th, 2026 - The Baroque master's "Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy", which sold at auction for €865,500 in 2014, will go on display in Washington, DC, later this month Some of the world's leading art museums have been busy snapping up works by Artemisia Gentileschi , the Italian Baroque painter known for her varied and vivacious depictions of women. Now it is the turn of the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC, which is set to announce today that it has acquired Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy (around ...

Feb 4th, 2026 - Picture: The Rijksmuseum  Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz: The Rijksmuseum are opening their latest exhibition   Metamorphoses on Friday. According to their website: This classic from antiquity has been read and reinterpreted by artists for centuries. In the major spring exhibition Metamorphoses, you dive into Ovid's two-thousand-year-old poem about vengeful gods, ingenious heroes and high-minded mortals. Metamorphoses brings together over 80 masterpieces from museums and collections ...

Feb 2nd, 2026 - In a new book, German scholar Christof Metzger also argues that a portrait in Vienna is ten years older than thought The portrait of Albrecht Dürer's father at the National Gallery is authentic, according to a major publication by a German scholar—although this is rejected by the London institution. Christof Metzger, the lead author of Albrecht Dürer: The Complete Paintings , argues that The Painter's Father is indeed by the master, dating from 1497. However, the portrait has ...

Feb 2nd, 2026 - Plus, Rembrandt's sleepy lion and a late Redon Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait Old Masters, Christie's, New York, 4 February Estimate: $2.5m to $3.5m One of Artemisia Gentileschi's earliest self-portraits is making its auction debut. Experts believe the painting can be dated to when Gentileschi first moved to Florence as a 20-year-old newlywed in 1613. It was shortly after another artist was convicted of raping Gentileschi in Rome, following a notorious trial in which she was ...

Jan 30th, 2026 - Welcome to  One Fine Show , where Observer highlights a recently opened exhibition at a museum not in New York City, a place we know and love that already receives plenty of attention. Lately, there's been a vogue for art made without the influence of the art school-gallery-museum industrial complex. These days, such art is usually referred to as "folk art" and "self-taught art," but they used to call it "outsider art"—a term that wouldn't work in an art world that now seeks to be as ...

Nov 20th, 2025 - A self-portrait by legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold for $54.66 million in New York on Thursday, setting a new record for the price of a painting by a woman, the auction house Sotheby's said. The sale of Kahlo's 1940 artwork, titled "El sueno (la cama)" — which translates to "The dream (The bed)" — breaks the previous record in this category, set by American artist Georgia O'Keeffe, whose 1932 painting "Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1," sold for $44.4 million in 2014. Kahlo's ...

Nov 13th, 2025 - From the Mona Lisa to the American Gothic, these famous paintings don't just grace museum walls; they offer a glimpse into the past and define entire generations. Although most of these masterpieces are centuries old, they continue to fascinate art buffs and collectors alike, with each piece telling a captivating story. Whether they're on display for the whole world to see or hidden behind closed doors, these paintings prove that art has the power to create and sometimes, even change history. ...

Oct 18th, 2025 - Morgan Library & Museum, New York Famed impressionist painter's lesser-seen drawings are the focus of a major new exhibition that invites us into the stages of his artistic process is luminous colours and sensual brushwork adorn countless mugs, posters and tote bags as well as blockbuster exhibitions . But the commodification of Pierre-Auguste Renoir and his fellow impressionist painters has been missing something. Renoir was an accomplished draftsman who produced a distinguished but largely ...

Sep 16th, 2025 - With Sotheby's landing the $400 million Leonard A. Lauder Collection and the Pritzkers' modern masterpieces, and Christie's securing the Weis and Wynn estates, November's sales may yet rescue the slumping auction market. It has become clearer in these past few years that the real battle between auction houses isn't about results but in the race for consignments. Yesterday, Sotheby's landed a knockout: the $400 million Leonard A. Lauder Collection , set to hit the rostrum during November's New ...

May 6th, 2025 - If the new show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, " Van Gogh: The Roulin Family Portraits ," were only what the title indicated — an exhibit of the paintings and drawings Van Gogh did in Arles in the last two years of his life of his friend, the postman Joseph Roulin, and his family — it would be a significant event. It would be the first show ever devoted to these intimate portraits, and would tell us some new things about an artist we all think we know through his most popular ...

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 ...