Latest

Behind the scenes of the Met’s revamped Rockefeller Wing with its acclaimed architect

Kulapat Yantrasast has a design philosophy of “cultural Pad Thai”—multiple perspectives combined into something unique and approachable

Linda Yablonskyabout 5 hours ago

Mexican authorities decry 'distorted information' in MrBeast video filmed at ancient Mayan sites

Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History released a statement praising MrBeast's mission while correcting some moments of "theatricality" in his video

Torey Akersabout 2 hours ago

British MP Patrick Spencer charged with sexual assaults at London art world haunt the Groucho

The Metropolitan Police say the charges are unrelated to accusations of a “serious criminal offence” at the club that resulted in it having its licence suspended in November

Kabir Jhalaabout 8 hours ago

For its 10th edition Photo London aims to look beyond the notorious ‘Kate Moss Index’

Opening later this week with new leadership, the photography fair is determined to move away from the clichés of supermodels, artful murmurations of birds and majestic beasts

Tom Seymourabout 15 hours ago

In Rotterdam, a new art museum explores the city's rich history of migration

Opening on 16 May, Fenix addresses the arrivals and departures that have given the Dutch port its energy and modernity

Senay Boztasabout 15 hours ago

Art market

Record-breaking female Surrealists spice up underwhelming Christie’s New York sales

Last night’s low-risk, low energy auctions made $489m in total, including $272m for the collection of Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio, along with new records for Dorothea Tanning and Remedios Varo

Kabir Jhalaabout 18 hours ago

The Waverley rules were designed to protect UK cultural heritage—are they having unintended consequences on the art market?

The scheme, introduced in the 1950s, is meant to help keep important works of art in Britain

Sarah Barker, Angharad Start and Victor Steinmetz1 day ago

Justin Sun and David Geffen's legal feud over $78m Giacometti sculpture expands

In a countersuit stand-off, the two parties are broadening the scope of their allegations beyond the disputed sculpture

Torey Akersabout 3 hours ago

Marquee May auctions in New York come at a volatile moment

As tariffs and stock-market fluctuations unsettle consignments for the spring sales, the trade awaits signs of what to expect in the next four years

Museums & Heritage

5,000-year-old woman uncovered in Peru with hair and nails still intact

The exceptional find at Áspero reveals women’s high status in the ancient Caral civilisation

Chile to get a new contemporary art museum

The New Museum of Santiago will highlight Latin American artists with more than 1,000 works from the Chilean businessman Claudio Engel’s private collection

Sofie B. Ringstadabout 23 hours ago

UK government bans export of £10m Botticelli painting

The work was previously held in a private collection for 120 years

Gareth Harris1 day ago

SFMoMA lays off 29 employees amid $5m structural deficit

The Bay Area institution announced another round of surprise layoffs in a public letter from the director

Robert Francis Prevost has been elected Pope Leo XIV—why does this matter to the worlds of art and heritage?

The Chicago-born pontiff—the new spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics and the proprietor in trust of the great art and architecture treasures of the Vatican—has publicly supported his predecessor Pope Francis's lead on climate change

Exhibitions

Folk is having a revival—in the art world too

The Neo Ancients festival in the small Gloucestershire town of Stroud featured artists whose works have a more "pastoral" approach towards art production

Anny Shaw1 day ago

Bauhaus thread weaves through expansive textile show at MoMA

Around 150 woven works by artists around the globe tell the story of abstraction through a new, craftier lens

Left at the altar: Luc Tuymans's paintings to replace Tintoretto works at Venetian church

The Belgian artist’s works will hang in place of “The Last Supper” and “The People of Israel in the Desert” while the masterpieces undergo restoration

Yayoi Kusama survey at National Gallery of Victoria becomes best-selling art exhibition in Australian history

The museum reported that 570,537 tickets were purchased for the show, which closed in April

Opinion

Comment | The greatest failure of PST Art: its successes are not travelling

As the Getty wraps up its third edition of this initiative, it is time to address a persistent problem

Jori Finkelabout 15 hours ago

Comment | Why a country should invest in art—even when it’s under attack

While physically defending their country, Ukrainian artist’s work provides oxygen for urgent issues that demand attention and dialogue, writes Björn Geldhof, the artistic director of the PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv

Björn Geldhof1 day ago

Why dealers play the waiting game before exhibiting a newly signed artist

Michael Armitage, for example, had his first show at David Zwirner three years after being signed to the gallery

Comment | Muted grey, bloody red, or dark blue—here’s why the colour of museum walls matters more than you might think

As London’s National Gallery launches its “once-in-a-lifetime” rehang, Ben Luke asks: what is the right shade behind the art?

Comment | Losing federal funding for emergency heritage conservation in the US is a disaster

The Foundation for Advancement in Conservation’s National Heritage Responders programme has channelled federal funding and support from local organisations to help communities struck by natural disasters to preserve their culture

The Sainsbury Wing reopening

After a two-year project, led by the architect Annabelle Selldorf, to remodel the wing as the main entrance to London's National Gallery, the reopening of its early Renaissance galleries forms part of C C Land: the Wonder of Art, a complete rehang of the museum's collection

The Big Review | The reopening and rehang of the Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, London ★★★★★

The two-year remodelling of the Sainsbury Wing as the National Gallery's main entrance has allowed for new restorations and fresh curation of the museum's unrivalled collection of early Renaissance pictures. The effect is revelatory

First look: the ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ rehang at London's National Gallery

The reopening of the Sainsbury Wing on 10 May will allow the gallery to show nearly 40% of its collection. The Art Newspaper took an early tour

Comment | Muted grey, bloody red, or dark blue—here’s why the colour of museum walls matters more than you might think

As London’s National Gallery launches its “once-in-a-lifetime” rehang, Ben Luke asks: what is the right shade behind the art?

London's National Gallery buys mysterious altarpiece for $20m

The museum has acquired a 16th-century work by an unknown artist from a family collection

New perspectives: Annabelle Selldorf brings a fresh angle to the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing

A tour of the remodelled building, five months before its reopening, shows the New York architect has created a spectacular main entrance closely integrated with the rest of the London institution and with the public space of Trafalgar Square

Pope Leo XIV

Robert Francis Prevost, the US-born former head of the Augustinian order of friars, was elected Pope Leo XIV on 8 May. He becomes the proprietor in trust of the art and architecture riches of the Vatican and inherits his predecessor Pope Francis's concern for peace and for addressing climate change

The art of being Pope Leo: from a Raphael portrait to the first pontiff to be captured on film

Cardinal Prevost's choice of the name Leo links him to Leo XIII, a 19th-century champion of social justice. It also recalls Leo I, Leo III and Leo IV, whose diplomatic and military achievements are depicted in Raphael's “stanze” frescoes, completed for Pope Leo X

Louis Jebb12 May 2025

Robert Francis Prevost has been elected Pope Leo XIV—why does this matter to the worlds of art and heritage?

The Chicago-born pontiff—the new spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics and the proprietor in trust of the great art and architecture treasures of the Vatican—has publicly supported his predecessor Pope Francis's lead on climate change

Louis Jebb8 May 2025

The original ‘Conclave’? How commercial engravings grew global interest in papal succession

Downloads of the 2024 film have surged since the death of Pope Francis—but in the 16th and 17th century, it was etchings that drove public fascination with the historic process

Louis Jebb1 May 2025

Pope Francis (1936-2025)

Pope Francis, for 12 years the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics, and proprietor in trust of the Vatican's great art treasures and its liturgical and built heritage, died on 21 April 2025, aged 88

The original ‘Conclave’? How commercial engravings grew global interest in papal succession

Downloads of the 2024 film have surged since the death of Pope Francis—but in the 16th and 17th century, it was etchings that drove public fascination with the historic process

Remembering Pope Francis, for 12 years head of the Catholic church and proprietor in trust of the Vatican's library and art collections

The Argentinian pontiff was a powerful progressive voice in world politics, the first Jesuit priest to be spiritual leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics and the first from the Americas or the southern hemisphere to hold the office

Holy ground: why Persian carpets played an important symbolic role in the funeral of Pope Francis

For over 600 years carpets from Turkey and Iran have been used in Catholic ceremony and religious paintings by artists, including Andrea del Verrochio, to indicate a carefully defined, sacred space

From the archive | Pope Francis, his crucifix and the Virgin Mary: miraculous or merely traditional?

Art history removes the numinous from art. At the Vatican’s Covid-19 blessing we saw it invoked again

The Week in Art

A podcast bringing you the latest news from the art world, every week

Refurb and rehang at London's National Gallery, Tate Modern turns 25 and Inge Mahn's ‘Balancing Towers’—podcast

Exploring an exhibition in an island castle, plus a tour of the newly remodelled National Gallery with director Gabriele Finaldi, and expert reflections on Tate Modern's first, seismic quarter of a century

A brush with... podcast

A podcast that asks artists the questions you've always wanted to

A brush with… Salman Toor — podcast

Salman Toor talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by David Clack
Sponsored by Bloomberg Connects

Technology

News, background and analysis on the latest tech developments—artificial intelligence tools; Web3, the blockchain, NFTs; virtual and augmented reality; social media platforms—and how they affect the art market, museums, artists and curators.

Technologyfeature

Can graphic imagination wake audiences up to the climate emergency? This multimedia artist believes so

Berlin-based Michael Najjar has been working with scientists in Greenland to tell stories with images designed to replace familiar memes of environmental journalism

An inside track on the Huntington’s rapid social media growth

The California institution is one of the top five museums for social media growth in the world in the past year. We spoke to the museum's director of digital and social content strategy

Technologyfeature

How AI models are helping to reveal South America's archaeological sites

Analysis of aerial and satellite images has rapidly identified ancient sites, but human expertise is still essential in refining the outcomes

Jeu de Paume puts on wide-ranging survey of work created by artists working with artificial intelligence

With “Le Monde Selon L’IA”, the Paris media art centre takes a broad look at work made using both analytical AI and generative AI

Museums are losing social media followers amid users' mass X-odus

Some institutions have ditched their accounts in protest, while others have chosen to “quiet quit” and stopped posting on the Elon Musk-owned platform

Book Club

Sex, beauty and the body: how Helen Chadwick shaped British contemporary art

The “provocative, punky, perverse” artist died far too young but her work’s influence endures, argues a new biography

The Voynich Manuscript revealed: five things you probably didn't know about the Medieval masterpiece

Scholars have speculated for centuries about the meaning behind the 15th-century codex and its peculiar illustrations

An expert's guide to artists' books: four must-read publications on the genre

All you ever wanted to know about artists' books on the eve of a major exhibition at London’s Warburg Institute—selected by the show's co-curator Arnaud Desjardin

The trials and tribulations of putting together Lucian Freud’s catalogue raisonné

The forensically researched volume on the British artist's oil paintings offers a depth of scrutiny that he himself was famous for

Books

A new ‘anti-biography’ rips apart the myth of Leonardo as a solitary genius

The new study of the Da Vinci brand uses historical context to debunk the artist’s cult status and present him as a man of his time

East meets West in Venice: the unlikely love affair between a Hermitage curator and a Cambridge don

A new volumes details a chance meeting that liberated art scholars Francis Haskell and Larissa Salmina in very different ways

Japan is opening its eyes to women photographers—and to the female gaze

Denied recognition and even credit for their work until recent times, Japan’s women photographers are challenging and subverting traditional assumptions about the female body

Review | ‘An utterly positive and dangerously irrelevant’ book written by the chief executive of Arts Council England

This journey through the UK’s publicly funded arts carefully averts its eyes from the many signs of crisis

Edward Gorey’s surreal back-of-the-envelope illustrations tell a moving story

The writer and artist’s delightful illustrated correspondence chronicle a long friendship

Wes Anderson’s priceless ‘Renaissance portrait’ to go on show in London

A new exhibition includes the fictional masterpiece ‘Boy With Apple’, which appeared in the Anderson classic, ‘the Grand Budapest Hotel’

Let him entertain you: Robbie Williams gets honest in latest Moco exhibition

Last night the star—and subject of a recent, monkey-themed biopic—unveiled works that seem to strip away any last remaining filters

The story of the Met’s ‘missing’ Banksy

The New York museum’s former security head admits to taking the street artist's work after it was illicitly hung on the wall in 2005

Howay man, that was one hell of a night! Antony Gormley's Angel of the North celebrates Newcastle United's victory

The Gateshead sculpture was dressed up in a Newcastle United football shirt for the Carabao Cup final at Wembley, drawing fans to the site when the team won 2-1 against Liverpool

King Charles III gets busy with his pencil

The monarch will unveil one of his own drawings in a special exhibition marking the 25th anniversary of the Royal Drawing School

Obituaries

Zurab Tsereteli, Georgian-born artist and Russian patriot, has died aged 91

Artist, who also ran museums and institutions in Russia, was best known for his monumental sculptures, including a 30m-high memorial to victims of 9/11 in the US

Guy Ullens, collector and patron of Chinese contemporary art, has died, aged 90

The Belgian businessman co-founded Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in 2007 with his wife Myriam Ullens

Remembering Pope Francis, for 12 years head of the Catholic church and proprietor in trust of the Vatican's library and art collections

The Argentinian pontiff was a powerful progressive voice in world politics, the first Jesuit priest to be spiritual leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics and the first from the Americas or the southern hemisphere to hold the office

Remembering Rosalind Savill, the porcelain expert who transformed the Wallace Collection

During her 19-year tenure as its director, she turned a sedate institution into a vibrant tribute to the culture of 18th-century France

Adventures with Van Gogh

Adventures with Van Gogh is a weekly blog by Martin Bailey, our long-standing correspondent and expert on the artist. Published every Friday, his stories range from newsy items about this most intriguing artist to scholarly pieces based on his own meticulous investigations and discoveries.

Korea’s first privately owned Van Gogh unveiled at newly opened museum

The painting of a Nuenen woman, on loan from Hong Gyu Shin, is the first Van Gogh ever exhibited on loan from a Korean collector

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