Catherine Hickley

Rare Caspar David Friedrich sketchbook jointly acquired by Berlin, Dresden and Weimar museums

The sketchbook will be shown in all three cities to mark what would be the artist's 250th birthday

Hartwig Fischer, former British Museum director, is appointed to run Saudi museum of world cultures

Fischer, who resigned after a thefts scandal at the British Museum, has been announced as the founding director of the new institution, which is expected to open in 2026

Young V&A wins UK Art Fund Museum of the Year prize

The prize rewards a space for children that “will cement museums as places they belong and feel welcome as they grow up, regardless of their background”

Marion Ackermann appointed first woman to run Berlin state museums

Ackermann is to take up the post in June 2025 after nine years managing Dresden’s state art collections

British Museum’s historic Reading Room opens to the public after 11 years

The space, once used by the likes of Karl Marx, is finally available for all visitors to the London institution to see

Jordaens painting to be sold after settlement with heirs of Jewish bank shareholders

The work, to be auctioned at Sotheby’s today, was one of more than 2,500 held as collateral and sold, shortly before the Nazi invasion, by the Dutch bank Lisser & Rosenkranz

Bührle Foundation’s provenance research is inadequate, report finds

The report by Raphael Gross calls for more research and details how Jewish owners are omitted from the published provenance

Stedelijk Museum restitutes Matisse Odalisque to Jewish arts patrons’ heirs

Albert Stern, the former owner, sold the painting “out of necessity” in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, the Dutch Restitutions Committee says

Collector Reinhard Ernst’s abstract art gets a new home in Germany

The Museum Reinhard Ernst, opening this week in the city of Wiesbaden, houses works by Frank Stella, Jackson Pollock, Damien Hirst and Neo Rauch

Monet to go on sale after Kunsthaus Zurich reaches settlement with Jewish heirs

The collector and textiles entrepreneur Carl Sachs sold the painting after fleeing to Switzerland from Nazi Germany in 1939

Swiss Bührle Foundation seeks to settle with Jewish heirs on major Impressionist works

Paintings by Courbet, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and Gauguin are to be removed from display at Zurich’s Kunsthaus

Germany returns looted antiquities in Berlin’s Altes Museum to Italy

As a “thank you” gesture, Italy is reciprocating with loans from Paestum and Naples

German medieval altarpiece wings that remained in one family for 500 years to be auctioned at Sotheby’s

The portraits painted by Bartholomäus Zeitblom carry an estimate of £400,000-£600,000

Germany slashes VAT on art sales to 7%

The reduction, which comes into effect next year, meets long-standing demands from German dealers

Almost untouched for a century, Swiss painter Albert Anker’s rural home opens to visitors

The Centre Albert Anker in Ins, Switzerland, is set to open to visitors on 7 June with an exhibition on the artist's travels to Italy

Berlin’s Brücke Museum settles with the heirs of a Jewish collector on Kirchner painting

The work, showing two of Kirchner’s fellow artists playing chess, was sold under duress by the Berlin dealer Victor Wallerstein after he fled to Italy from Nazi Germany

Icom names Medea Ekner as director general

Ekner, who was appointed interim director general last year, has 25 years of museum experience in Sweden and New Zealand

Ukrainian museums call for better recognition of their role in reconstruction

More than 100 Ukrainian museum professionals, meeting in Berlin, pledge to rebuild a modern, inclusive cultural sector

Nazi-loot panel set up by private Swiss collection to evaluate painting by Hodler

The painting, purchased by the real estate magnate Bruno Stefanini in 1998, was once owned by a Jewish woman who fled Hitler’s Germany

Baroque guardhouse’s floating concrete cube in Dresden holds vast avant-garde gift

Archive of the Avant-Garde in German city’s renovated Blockhaus hosts Egidio Marzona’s collection of paintings, drawings and vast documentary archive of letters, manuscripts, sketches, invitations and stickers

Prizesnews

Young V&A makes shortlist for UK museum of the year prize

The shortlist of five for Art Fund's ₤120,000 award also includes the Craven Museum, Dundee Contemporary Arts, the National Portrait Gallery and the Manchester Museum

Anger as Vienna's new Actionism museum shows child abuser's art

The inclusion of Otto Muehl, who was convicted of sexual abuses against minors, has triggered protests at the Vienna Actionism Museum, which opened in March

Klimt portrait surrounded by mystery sells for €30m in Vienna

The price paid by a buyer from Hong Kong was at the lower end of the estimate range, but still an auction record for Austria

Stolen Italian landscape returned to Oxford's Christ Church Picture Gallery from Romania

Police are appealing for information about two other paintings stolen in the same 2020 burglary

Monira Al Qadiri exhibition to open Johann König’s new Munich gallery in a former power plant

König says the new space, König Bergson, is one of the largest commercial galleries for contemporary art in Germany

Austria names Fatima Hellberg to run Mumok, Vienna’s museum of Modern art

Currently director of Bonn’s Kunstverein, Hellberg takes up her new post in October 2025

UK museums take global lead in sustainability

However arts organisations worldwide trail behind the corporate sector and academia, according to a study, often because of limited resources

War, refugees, destruction: how Venice Biennale 2024 will reflect our era

Thousands have called for Israel’s pavilion to be cancelled, a proposed Palestinian exhibition was rejected, while Ukraine’s pavilion deals with its ongoing war

French authorities seize Russian avant-garde paintings believed stolen

The haul includes works purportedly by Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and Natalia Goncharova

Nicholas Cullinan is appointed director of the British Museum

Cullinan, currently the director of the National Portrait Gallery, faces an array of challenges in rebuilding the oldest national museum in the world’s reputation