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Art market
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The Week in Art
podcast

The Van Gogh Sunflowers lawsuit: the full story behind the Nazi-loot claim to Tokyo’s $250m painting

Plus, Singapore’s art hub ambitions and Grace Lau's project for Chinese New Year

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Hosted by Ben Luke. With guest speakers Martin Bailey and Georgina Adam. Produced by David Clack and Aimee Dawson
20 January 2023
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Van Gogh’s Sunflowers (December 1888-January 1889)

Sompo Museum, Tokyo

Van Gogh’s Sunflowers (December 1888-January 1889)

Sompo Museum, Tokyo

The Week in Art

From breaking news and insider insights to exhibitions and events around the world, the team at The Art Newspaper picks apart the art world’s big stories with the help of special guests. An award-winning podcast hosted by Ben Luke.

Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in Tokyo are the subject of a legal claim in the US relating to Nazi loot. The Art Newspaper’s London correspondent and resident Van Gogh expert Martin Bailey tells us why Sunflowers (1888-89) is at the centre of the dispute, 35 years after it was sold for a record price at auction, and why the heirs of the German Jewish banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who owned it until the 1930s, now value it at a staggering $250m.

The Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, where the inaugural edition of Art SG was held

Photo: Elena Ermakova

Our editor-at-large Georgina Adam has just returned from Singapore, where the first Art SG art fair took place last week. How successful was this new event in the art market calendar, and what does it tell us about Singapore’s ambitions to become an art hub?

from Grace Lau's 21st Century Types (2005)

Courtesy the artist

And this episode’s Work of the Week is Portraits in a Chinese Studio, a photographic work by the artist Grace Lau. In the project, which marks Chinese New Year, Lau is subverting the tradition of colonial 19th-century portrait studios in a shopping centre in Southampton on the south coast of the UK.

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The Week in ArtMuseums & HeritageVincent van GoghNazi lootArt SGArt marketContemporary PhotographyPhotography Chinese contemporary art
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