Comment

Leaderscomment

'National Gallery's plans will create an entrance fit for today’s public' says London museum's director

Gabriele Finaldi responds to criticism over the gallery's proposed redesign for the Sainsbury Wing

Key art world players pledged to go green—but who is sticking to their promises?

While initiatives such as the Gallery Climate Coalition are seeing positive results, much remains to be done across the sector

Museumscomment

Energy crisis could prove more damaging to UK museums than global pandemic, expert says

Museums Association director Sharon Heal explains the long-term effects of systemically underfunding the UK's cultural sector

If the National Portrait Gallery buys the £50m Portrait of Omai, it would be wonderful to loan it to Tahiti for a period

Joshua Reynolds's painting of a Polynesian man who travelled to Europe is emblematic of the extraordinary meeting of European and Pacific cultures 250 years ago

Velázquez’s Pope eclipses Bacon's 'silly' screamers

A firsthand encounter with the Spanish artist's portrait of Pope Innocent X in Rome puts the later interpretations in perspective

'Why the sudden deregulation of New York's auction houses could lead to a more transparent art market—and a more opaque one too'

With old codes now dispensed of, my hope is to lobby for new oversights that could enforce stricter and clearer rules

Leaderscomment

Ukraine fundraiser shines intriguing light on art, wealth—and a flexible approach to morality

'Brave Ukraine' event—presided over by Christie’s and held at Tate Modern—shows a cultural crowd keen to distance itself from the oligarchs it once wooed

Why take binoculars on your next museum visit? You might solve an art history mystery

An unattributed painting in Lincolnshire's Burghley House bears a striking resemblance to the work of Hans Eworth

David Hockney is ‘compellingly perceptive’ even though he may be wrong about perspective

The historian Martin Kemp tells us what it was like co-curating a new show of the artist’s works, displayed amongst the masterpieces of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge

Ceramics are central to humanity. To dismiss them as 'decorative' is absurd

Artists from Magdalene Odundo to Ai Weiwei are demonstrating that the art form goes way beyond the "applied"

Why it’s important that Canada’s Black artists are honoured at the heart of government

Senator Patricia Bovey's initiative 'Honouring Canada's Black Artists' bringing works by Black Canadian artists into the Senate building is now in its second iteration

What are the next challenges for cultural restitution?

The full story of colonial plundering lies not in museum displays but in unopened, uncatalogued boxes in store rooms

Art marketcomment

Botticelli's 'stunning and puzzling' Man of Sorrows

The painting, sold last week at Sotheby's for $45.4m, was listed among workshop and studio pictures in Ronald Lightbown’s 1978 catalogue of Botticelli’s work, before being included as an autograph work in an exhibition at Frankfurt's Städel Museum in 2009. Here, in a pair of opinion pieces, two Renaissance experts give their contrasting views on its attribution

In this age of social fracture and political upheaval, Raphael’s sublime harmony is an underrated quality

Presenting beauty without the schmaltz is a challenge worth undertaking, as the delayed Raphael show at London's National Gallery will demonstrate

Anish Kapoor: 'A population invested in the arts is the last thing a right-wing government wants'

The UK government's sinister dismantling of its creative sector is slowly but surely unfolding through cuts in funding and increased political control

UK heritage charity the National Trust is ending the year richer than ever—so why all the staff cuts?

The more than 1,700 workers who lost their jobs last year have every right to feel aggrieved as Trust weathers storm regardless of staff savings

Art marketcomment

The 'Ledbury Titian' discovery begs the question: who should we trust when it comes to art attribution?

We often overlook gaps in provenance, or disagreement between experts, simply because we want to believe in fairytales

Freelance workers are the backbone of the art world—but how are they expected to survive on a pittance?

If culture is to recover from the pandemic, the sector must value the self-employed more so that the next generation—of all backgrounds—can afford to live a creative life

Monumentscomment

Tearing down troubling statues is not lying about our history—it is removing impediments to truth

The UK communities secretary Robert Jenrick's plans to prevent the removal of controversial monuments reveals his inability to view the past as shifting and complex

Covid-19comment

'Museums had better not be planning for a return to the status quo'

If institutions keep admission limits in place, they’ll come out of the coronavirus crisis in better health, says art critic Blake Gopnik

Art marketcomment

Bubbles, sheikhs and the freeport frenzy: Georgina Adam reflects on 30 years of art market reporting

Our art market editor-at-large looks back on three decades of booming sales and soaring prices, from Middle Eastern emergence to the evolution of auction houses

Art marketcomment

What’s the ideal post-pandemic art market? One that's no longer a Disneyland for the rich

Capitalism has gobbled up the art world over the past decade—it is high time for a reset

Art marketcomment

Auctions are like dating: you can do it online, but sparks only fly in the flesh

The coronavirus lockdown is boosting lower level virtual sales, but only a major live auction will kick-start the top end of the art market and revalidate prices

As The Art Newspaper turns 30, the question is—will the A-word survive?

"Art" is a loaded term, freighted with associations of class and power

Politicscomment

'Marmite' Boris Johnson or 'deep cuts' Jeremy Hunt—which would be good for the arts?

The former UK minister for culture, Ed Vaizey, weighs in on which of the two candidates for prime minister would best serve the arts

A collection of 50 contemporary artists’ favourite works of art

Book looks at what they like and how they think it helps their own work

Datacomment

A crisis of faith: is Big Data the art world’s new religion?

The rise of Big Data means that connoisseurship is being replaced by "intel", which has far-reaching implications for the art world

Are we worried enough about the planet to give up jetsetting to art fairs?

A truly environmentally friendly art world requires that we give up the 'freedom, privilege and progress to which we are so accustomed'