Latest
The Met has largely bounced back since the pandemic
While the New York institution has not reached pre-Covid numbers with international visitors, the figures paint a promising picture
Another Schiele work returned to the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum
The 1918 drawing had been in the possession of another Austrian Jewish family, which recently became suspicious of the work's provenance and contacted Grünbaum’s heirs directly in order to “do the right thing”
Why there is no case for returning the Mona Lisa to Italy
An archaeologist’s recent claim that illicit actions have led the painting to be in France mirrors that made by the man who stole it more than a century ago—and it is entirely false
Here's what galleries will bring to The Armory Show's 30th-anniversary edition
New York's largest art fair is welcoming both a new director and a new floor plan
J'accuse! Guerrilla artists take a swipe at 'polluting' Olympics sponsor
Posters accuse car giant Toyota of ‘greenwashing’
Opinion
From the courts to the British Museum—it’s time to stop hiding from the realities of climate breakdown
A reluctance to acknowledge hard facts is playing into a one-sided narrative around Big Oil—and the consequences are far reaching
Where is the big museum blockbuster on AI?
Even the science-themed PST Art exhibitions, opening in Los Angeles in September, avoid the tech revolutions of our day
Ruins revived: when do overlooked buildings become valued again?
"In England, we still like to talk about the 'dissolution' of the monasteries as if it was a gentle process. Really, it was an annihilation," says Bendor Grosvenor
'We need strong leaders to stand up for the future of UK arts funding'
Hit by austerity cuts and activist boycotts, who is standing up for the arts?
Art of the Ice Age has a lot to teach us—it’s time the British Museum dedicated a gallery to it
The museum is only one of two institutions in the world to see Ice Age art as part of human cultural endeavour, but it needs a proper space to explain and explore this
Museums & Heritage
The Met has largely bounced back since the pandemic
While the New York institution has not reached pre-Covid numbers with international visitors, the figures paint a promising picture
Arts centre ‘on a margin’ is adapting and thriving
The Alabama Contemporary Art Center is putting on an ambitious series of touring shows while its home base is closed for renovation
Why there is no case for returning the Mona Lisa to Italy
An archaeologist’s recent claim that illicit actions have led the painting to be in France mirrors that made by the man who stole it more than a century ago—and it is entirely false
From the courts to the British Museum—it’s time to stop hiding from the realities of climate breakdown
A reluctance to acknowledge hard facts is playing into a one-sided narrative around Big Oil—and the consequences are far reaching
An uncensored triumph for Barbara Carrasco's Los Angeles mural
Four decades after refusing to sanitise her depiction of the city’s history, the artist will see her giant mural, and all its 51 vignettes of scenes and people, installed in the LA Natural History Museum’s new entrance pavilion
Art market
$1.2m Picasso drawing purchased with allegedly misappropriated funds recovered by US officials
The work on paper, purchased at Christie’s New York in 2014, was allegedly paid for with money embezzled from Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign investment fund
Billionaire collector Ken Griffin buys Stegosaurus skeleton for record $45m at Sotheby’s
This is the most valuable fossil to ever sell at auction, as the market for dinosaur bones continues to climb
Christie’s first half auction sales decline 22% year-on-year, to $2.1bn
But consistent strength in its sell-through rate and Asia Pacific buyer base show the auction house's ‘resilience’ amid obstacles
Paris Gallery Weekend marks a decade of progress
Event’s tenth-anniversary edition celebrated resilience of city’s art trade
What will the UK's new Labour government mean for the art trade?
From the end of tax breaks on overseas income to new anti-money laundering laws, experts weigh in on what we can expect from the change
Exhibitions
Ahoy there! Beautifully conserved, real-life pirate flag to lead London exhibition
Myths and legends walk the plank as the National Maritime Museum tells true stories of 'horrible' seafarers
From a post-apocalyptic labyrinth to ‘Golf-foot’: young artists gamify Olympics in two-part Paris show
Sixty secondary school pupils given carte blanche to conjure an alternative Olympic park for an exhibition in Paris
Stellar eclipse: pioneering light and sound art duo NONOTAK prepare for first London solo show
Noemi Schipfer and Takami Nakamoto will present three installations at a warehouse space in south London
How the ‘world’s most beautiful bookstore’ is fighting misinformation in Portugal
Livraria Lello’s charitable arm, headquartered in a 14th-century Gothic monastery just outside Porto, seeks to educate visitors through its inaugural exhibition
‘Groundbreaking’ UK exhibition spotlights work of disabled, D/deaf and neurodivergent artists
Towards New Worlds brings together the work of 15 creatives, with a key mission being to counter traditionally siloed views of disabled artists’ work
Diary
Making a splat: Museum of London reveals new name and bird-themed identity
The curious changes come as the institution prepares to open in a fresh location
Dames Tracey Emin and Sonia Boyce contribute works to save cash-strapped Quench
The Margate project space has supported 68 artists in the past four years, but is now “on the brink” of closure
Alfresco photography show honours Brummie giant of poetry, Benjamin Zephaniah
Public art display in Birmingham commemorates the city’s cultural icon
Mio dio—tourist gets amorous with Bacchus statue in Florence
Art critic Vittorio Sgarbi says though that the act is ‘non-erotic’
Oscar Murillo to hand visitors the brush in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall
The Turner Prize-winning artist is inviting the public to add their own markings to giant canvases in the space as part of a new commission
Obituaries
Alex Janvier, visionary First Nations artist based in Canada, has died, aged 89
A prolific painter helped open doors for contemporary artists at a time when Indigenous art was often confined to ethnographic museums
Remembering Thomas Hoepker, a leading documentary photographer and editor of news reportage
Hoepker used long-form pictorial narratives to deliver nuanced takes on complex realities in a communist East Germany and capitalist United States
Remembering Bill Viola, the artist whose video work expresses the heights and depths of human emotions
The influential American pioneer produced a ground-breaking body of work in partnership with his wife, Kira Perov, over more than 45 years
Audrey Flack, a pioneer of Photorealism, has died, aged 93
A survey of the artist's work from the last four years of her life, will be on view at the Parrish Art Museum this autumn
Remembering the Dutch avant-garde artist Jacqueline de Jong
Her six decade-long career was distinguished by experimentation and humour
Green is the New Black
In this monthly column, our correspondent Louisa Buck looks at how the art industry is responding to our climate and ecological crisis
Green is the new black | Yinka Shonibare's Serpentine show reveals what cultural exchange can do for the climate crisis
Shonibare, who was raised between London and Lagos, is employing his socially engaged practice to tackle the complex relationship between colonialism and ecological devastation
Decoding Korea
From Korea to the world: Olympics exhibition will immerse visitors in the country's complex modern history
As the games open in Paris, the Grand Palais Immersif will show digital, video and VR works by ten contemporary Korean artists alongside pieces by Nam June Paik
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.
Stellar eclipse: pioneering light and sound art duo NONOTAK prepare for first London solo show
Noemi Schipfer and Takami Nakamoto will present three installations at a warehouse space in south London
Where is the big museum blockbuster on AI?
Even the science-themed PST Art exhibitions, opening in Los Angeles in September, avoid the tech revolutions of our day
Art-world social media specialists are on the rise—but is the sector really ready for digital success?
Museums are addressing a lack of in-house expertise in creating digital content by hiring from a growing pool of social-savvy freelancers
A piece of the action: museum partnership in New York invites visitors to take home fragments of digital artworks
The Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI) and the Tezos Foundation have teamed up to offer the public a chance to acquire—for no cost—parts of works projected onto a screen in the lobby
UK general election: can artists show the way for policymakers to enable a new digital economy?
With lessons learnt from NFTs, expert calls for legal guardrails to allow “trinity” of blockchain, responsible AI and smart contracts to launch an “automated economy”
Books
Take a romp through Ancient Rome’s great buildings
Ostensibly a guide to the city's top 50 sites, a new book by Paul Roberts offers far more
Who really was John Soane? The man and manifesto behind the magnificent house museum
Former museum director Bruce Boucher’s room-by-room account of the architect’s collection takes far readers beyond the catalogue
‘Viscerally real’: a Caravaggio painting provides inspiration for a newly translated novel
The Italian scholar Alessandro Giardino posits his theories about the Baroque artist’s Seven Works of Mercy in fictional form
Teju Cole's enigmatic new photobook is both peaceful and disturbing
The Nigerian American writer and photographer’s intriguing new book comprises a series of indeterminate images absent of human life, interspersed with enigmatic short stories that raise many unanswered questions
Understanding John James Audubon’s avian genius
Two contrasting studies shine a light on America’s most celebrated ornithological artist
Book Club
Katherine Parr: power, patronage and the first full-length portrait of an English queen
In this exclusive extract from a new book about Henry VIII’s six wives, the art historian Suzannah Lipscomb writes about “perhaps the greatest artistic patron of them all”
Maria Balshaw on the roles of museums today and what Tate’s sponsorship red line is
The Tate director discusses her new book about art institutions and their challenges in the 21st century
An expert's guide to sculpture: five must-read books on the art of the three dimensional
All you ever wanted to know about the topic, from the latest experimentations in contemporary art to some lesser-known Surrealist sculpture—selected by the head of the Henry Moore Institute, Laurence Sillars
July Book Bag: from a giant tome of Islamic and Middle Eastern art to a biography of the overlooked British artist Mabel Nicholson
Our round-up of the latest art publications
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.
An exclusive visit to Van Gogh’s asylum garden to track down the scenes that he painted
As Vincent wrote to his brother, “life happens … in the garden, it isn’t so sad”
The Week in Art
A podcast bringing you the latest news from the art world, every week
The Week in Art podcast | Arts and the UK election, ex-Uffizi head fails in Florence mayoral bid, Hank Willis Thomas at Glastonbury
What a change in government might mean for the UK culture sector, a close look at Eike Schmidt’s unsuccessful campaign, and Willis Thomas discusses displaying his new afro pick sculpture at the world’s biggest music festival
A brush with... podcast
A podcast that asks artists the questions you've always wanted to
Podcast | A brush with… Igshaan Adams
An in-depth interview with the artist on his cultural experiences and greatest influences, from Louise Bourgeois’s art to the love poems of Rumi
National Gallery, London: 200th anniversary
The museum has launched a year of celebrations, loans and public events to mark 200 years since the opening of the gallery on 10 May 1824. The collection, now covering international art from the 13th to 19th centuries, has evolved so that, for breadth and quality, it is arguably unmatched by any other single museum in the world.
The National Gallery, London, celebrates its bicentenary with a full-colour Big Birthday Weekend
Music, poetry, and Renaissance selfies are on the menu and—for two nights only—the Trafalgar Square frontage will be lit up with a dazzling, projection-mapped show on the museum's 200-year history
Gabriele Finaldi welcomes a ‘once-in-a-generation’ opportunity to rethink London’s National Gallery
As the London museum celebrates its 200th birthday, its director speaks to The Art Newspaper about plans to reopen the Sainsbury Wing in May 2025, rehang the collection and consider work on a further extension
National Gallery in London celebrates 200th birthday by launching own network of social media influencers
As part of the anniversary in July, the museum has launched 200 Creators
Revealed: London's National Gallery will stage a Van Gogh blockbuster as part of its 2024 bicentenary celebrations
Star loans include The Bedroom, Garden of the Asylum and—of course—the exhibition will show the museum's own Sunflowers