ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

Court Considers Airing Sotheby's Private Sales in Bouvier Case

New York Post / June 1st, 2016

Following a court hearing in New York on Tuesday, Sotheby's reportedly could open its books on some private transactions with a client in a legal tangle.  However, “Sotheby’s will only produce documents in the event it is ordered to do so by the court,” lawyers for the auction house ...

Italy Seeks Foreigners to Head Cultural Sites

Telegraph / May 30th, 2016

Italy has launched a global hunt for new directors to run high-profile museums and archaeological sites, in the latest bid to revive the country's moribund cultural heritage sector. Last year, Italian managers of world-class museums and art galleries, including the Uffizi in Florence, were ...

Kahlo Painting Sets Record at Christie's $141 Million Sale

ArtfixDaily / May 12th, 2016

An intimate and compelling work by Frida Kahlo, dating from 1939, resonated with a telephone bidder at Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on May 12. The sale's total slid to $141,532,000 with sell-through rates of 86% by lot and 89% by value. The total beat its $134.3 ...

Auction 'Gigaweek' Kicks Off With Christie's $78 Million 'Bound to Fail' Sale

New York Times / May 7th, 2016

'Gigaweek' is underway at the New York auction houses with an estimated $890 million to $1 billion in Impressionist, modern and contemporary art up for sale at Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips. Over the course of 5 days some 1,500 artworks are offered. But this May's marquee sales are not ...

FBI Again Searches Home of Suspect in Gardner Museum Heist

FOX / May 2nd, 2016

The FBI is for a third time conducting a search of the Manchester, Conn., property of elderly mobster Robert Gentile, according to The Boston Globe. A convicted felon, Gentile has long been suspected of knowing details about the 1990 heist of a half-billion dollars worth of art from Boston's ...

Museum Gets to Pick From Norwegian Billionaire's $120 Million Collection of Artworks From Munch to Mapplethorpe

Forbes / April 14th, 2016

Forbes reports: Grocery retail billionaire Stein Erik Hagen is now opening up his art collection, believed to be the largest private collection in Norway, to the public. The Norwegian National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Nasjonalmuseet) has been granted free access to roam ...

Panama Papers Reveal Secrets Behind Ganz Art Collection Sale

Guardian / April 11th, 2016

When the Victor and Sally Ganz collection of modern art masterpieces hit the auction block at Christie's in 1997, it was game-changing sale. Prices for art reached a new level, with Pablo Picasso's vibrant Women of Algiers (version O) fetching a then-astonishing $31.9 million. The ...

Swiss Authorities Seize Modigliani After Panama Papers Leak

ArtfixDaily / April 11th, 2016

A painting by Amedeo Modigliani has been sequestered by Swiss authorities in a Geneva freeport (storage facility) following a Panama Papers disclosure that exposes its ownership. Descendants of Jewish art dealer Oscar Stettiner claim the contested painting, Seated Man with a ...

Possible Lost Caravaggio Discovered in France

TheLocal.it / April 6th, 2016

Experts have yet to weigh in on the discovery of a possible second version of Caravaggio's Judith and Holofernes. The work is thought to be a lost version of the early 17th-century masterpiece at the National Gallery of Ancient Art in Rome and was discovered in a private collection in ...

Bern and Bonn Museums to Exhibit Art From Gurlitt's Nazi-Era Hoard

Telegraph / April 5th, 2016

The Museum of Fine Arts in the Swiss capital, Bern, and the Art and Exhibition Hall in the German city of Bonn will hold concurrent exhibitions of artworks from the collection of Cornelius Gurlitt in the coming winter months. A recluse in Munich, Gurlitt died in 2014, leaving a massive art ...

Supreme Court Rules For Yale to Keep $200 Million Van Gogh

Bloomberg / March 29th, 2016

Yale University can keep a Vincent Van Gogh masterpiece after the U.S. Supreme Court turned away an appeal from a man who says the Bolsheviks seized the painting from his great-grandfather after the 1917 Soviet revolution. Pierre Konowaloff has been trying to recoup “The Night Café” since he ...

Arrests Made in $16 Million Art Heist From Verona Museum

New York Times / March 16th, 2016

Thirteen suspects have been arrested in connection to the brazen heist last November of 17 Old Master paintings worth €15 million ($16 million) from Verona's Castelvecchio Museum. Verona police worked with the branch of the Italian military police that handles cultural property to identify ...

Theft Trials Begin for Paris Auction House Staff

Telegraph / March 14th, 2016

Trials began in Paris on Monday for six auctioneers and dozens of art handlers from one of France's oldest and most well-known auction houses who are accused of stealing thousands of items from consignors. An early oil by Gustave Courbet is among 250 tons of art and collectibles allegedly ...

U.S. Prosecutors to Join Probe of Art Dealing 'Freeport King' Yves Bouvier

Bloomberg / March 9th, 2016

U.S. federal prosecutors will investigate criminal allegations against Yves Bouvier, Luxembourg's former "Freeport King," who sold billions of dollars worth of art to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, and other clients, according to Keri Geiger for BloombergBusiness. Accused of fraud, ...

Swiss Museum Expansion Scrutinized

New York Times / March 3rd, 2016

In 2012, Zurich citizens approved a $208 million expansion of their city's Kunsthaus, a museum that includes top-tier French Impressionists collected by local businessman Emil Georg ü. But once excavation began for the project, designed by David Chipperfield, issues began to surface that have ...

This Week's New York Art Fairs in a Nutshell

New York Times / March 1st, 2016

The New York Times delivers a succinct guide to this week's several art fairs --- featuring modern masters to emerging artists --  in New York. Art critic Ken Johnson notes these fairs "provide the chance to take the temperature of global culture." Visit the show's websites to ...

Museum of Monterey To Become a Dali Destination

Monterey Herald / March 1st, 2016

Museum of Monterey, with its collection of art and historical artifacts relating to the California coastal community, is set to transform into a museum devoted to Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali. The Monterey Herald reports that Ukranian-American businessman Dmitry Piterman is planning on ...

University of Oklahoma Returns Nazi-Looted Pissarro Painting to Heir

Daily Mail / February 25th, 2016

Under a new settlement, the ownership of impressionist Camille Pissarro's 1886 painting 'Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep' will be transferred from the Universtiy of Oklahoma to Léone Meyer, a French Holocaust survivor whose father owned the painting when it was stolen by the Nazis.  Going ...

Unseen Final Painting of Francis Bacon Revealed in Catalogue Raisonne, Exhibition

Guardian / February 23rd, 2016

A "very private collection" in London has yielded the final painting of renowned Irish-born British artist Francis Bacon, reports the Guardian. Art historian Martin Harrison says the work has never been publicly seen or published. Harrison's forthcoming catalogue raisonne of the artist will ...

Ballerina Misty Copeland Recreates Degas Masterworks in Exquisite Photoshoot

Daily Mail / February 18th, 2016

Ballerina Misty Copeland donned Alexander McQueen, Roberto Cavalli, and Valentino couture for the latest issue of Harper's Bazaar, but not for your typical fashion shoot. Copeland is posed in compositions reflecting Edgar Degas' greatest ballet scenes and the results are breathtaking. ...