Nov 26th, 2025 - Mary Kelly talks to Ben Luke about her influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work Mary Kelly was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, US, in 1941 and lives today in Los Angeles. She has played a fundamental role in the history and ongoing development of conceptual and feminist art, with works that have explored sexuality and women's experience, wider issues of identity, the spectacle and trauma ...
Nov 26th, 2025 - The oil painting depicting the artist's son Jean had never been exhibited or sold before. A previously unknown work by French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir depicting his son Jean sold for €1.8m ($2.08m) at a Paris auction, according to the auction house. The oil painting – L'enfant et ses jouets – Gabrielle et le fils de l'artiste, Jean (The Child and His Toys – Gabrielle and the artist's son, Jean) – had never been exhibited or sold before. It ...
Nov 26th, 2025 - 'David and Goliath' went to auction with an estimate of just just €2m–€4m Guido Reni is on a role. Once a leading artistic figure of early 17th century Rome, when his patrons included the influential Borghese family, the Bolognese artist (1575-1642) was later scorned by the modernist-minded, who dismissed his upward-gazing Madonnas as close to kitsch. But 21st-century scholars have displayed renewed interest in his subtlety and skill, leading to major museum exhibitions. And now ...
Nov 26th, 2025 - Just an hour's train ride from New York, Philadelphia is an ideal day trip, blending art, culture and food in a refreshing escape. Despite recent turmoil in the city's art scene—including the firing of the Philadelphia Art Museum's CEO and director Sasha Suda and the closure of UArts due to financial difficulties—Philadelphia remains rich in cultural offerings. This season, three unmissable exhibitions make the short trip worthwhile, offering the chance to dive into the depths of ...
Nov 25th, 2025 - The newly attributed, five-inch-tall sketch of a foot has an estimate of $1.5m to $2m A newly attributed drawing by Michelangelo—identified as a study for the Sistine Chapel ceiling at the Vatican—will go under the hammer at Christie's New York next February. The five-inch tall, red chalk drawing of a bare foot, which has never appeared on the market, has an estimate of $1.5m to $2m. "This newly identified drawing is the first unrecorded study for the Sistine ceiling ever to ...
Nov 24th, 2025 - Last week, when all eyes were on the $2.2 billion marquee sales in New York , Sotheby's achieved another historic result in Hong Kong with the white-glove sale of masterpieces from Japan's Okada Museum of Art , which generated HK$688 million ($88 million) across 125 works. Staged as a single-owner sale during the Asian Art sales series, the auction saw 19 lots surpass the $10 million mark. Topping the sale was Kitagawa Utamaro 's monumental panoramic ukiyo-e masterpiece Fukagawa in Snow ( ...
Nov 24th, 2025 - Light is the greatest threat to 19th-century masterpieces like James Ensor's The Intrigue , study finds. The emergence of synthetic pigments in the 19th century had an immense impact on the art world, particularly the availability of emerald-green pigments, prized for their intense brilliance by such masters as Paul Cézanne, Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh, and Claude Monet. The downside was that these pigments often degraded over time, resulting in cracks and uneven surfaces and the ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
