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Leon Black Gets Disputed Picasso Bust
Bloomberg / June 15th, 2016
A 1931 plaster “Bust of a Woman” will go to billionaire Leon Black after lengthy litigation in New York was resolved. The new ownership was announced Wednesday although the case was settled last month. Black was challenged by Qatar's royal family for the sculpture which depicts Picasso's lover ...
Protests Erupt Outside Tate Modern Expansion
Hyperallergic / June 15th, 2016
Protestors demanded "Where is Ana Mendieta" and chanted poems and slogans as they crossed the Millennium Bridge from St. Paul's Cathedral to the newly-expanded Tate Modern in London earlier this week. Artists' previews for the new Herzog & de Meuron-designed building were interrupted ...
Two Renowned Antiques Dealers Deny Selling 'Fake' Chairs to Versailles
Telegraph / June 13th, 2016
French police have arrested two respected antiques dealers on suspicion of selling fake Louis XV chairs to the famed royal chateau of Versailles, reports the Telegraph: Art fraud officers detained the two dealers for questioning...both Paris-based experts in 18th century furniture. They are ...
New Yorker: Tech Unicorn Seekers Could Take Cues From Art World
New Yorker / June 12th, 2016
Art Basel, the world's leading contemporary art fair, is on the horizon this week. New Yorker writer Gary Sernovitz thinks this annual assemblage of art world elite could teach some lessons to its tech parallel, namely, venture capitalists bent on creating unicorns, the term coined to describe ...
Senate Bill Aims to Help Repatriate Nazi-Looted Art
New York Times / June 9th, 2016
U.S. lawmakers are considering passing a bill to help minimize legal loopholes and statutes of limitations on art looted by Nazis over 70 years ago. A Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing included testimony about how to "provide the victims of Holocaust-era persecution and their heirs ...
University of Iowa Plans $60-Million Art Museum
Press-Citizen / June 6th, 2016
University of Iowa officials are proposing a new $60-million museum facility be built to house its displaced art collection. The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports: UI's request comes eight years after the Iowa River flooded UI's half-century-old Museum of Art, located along the river's ...
A New Contemporary Art Museum Brings Culture 2.0 to Molenbeek District in Brussels
NY Times / June 5th, 2016
A new contemporary art museum has opened in the Molenbeek district neighborhood of Brussels, and it is being seen as a beacon of hope after the March terror attacks carried out in the city, in part, by homegrown extremists from that heavily Muslim neighborhood. The Millennium Iconoclast Museum of ...
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 ...
Green Diamond, Birkin Bag Set Auction Records in Hong Kong
ArtfixDaily / June 1st, 2016
Luxury goods found ready buyers in Hong Kong early this week. A "fancy vivid green" diamond brought $16.8 million at Christie's Hong Kong auction on Tuesday, setting a world auction record for a green diamond and world record price per carat for a green diamond, according to the auction ...
Seven Arrests Made In Theft of Francis Bacon Paintings
Guardian / May 31st, 2016
Seven people, including a Madrid art dealer and his son, have been arrested in Spain on suspicion of involvement in the theft of five paintings by Francis Bacon, worth a total of €25m (about $28 million). The paintings were stolen last July, along with other valuables belonging to the owner, ...
Pueblo Shield Withdrawn From Contested Paris Auction
AP / May 31st, 2016
A French auction house withdrew a Pueblo shield from a contested sale of Native American artifacts Monday after protests from the United States. U.S. Embassy spokesman Phil Frayne called it a "small victory in a larger battle" to repatriate tribal artifacts to their original homes. Frayne told ...
Feds Sue Dealer For Depression-Era Artwork
Washington Times / May 31st, 2016
New Jersey art dealer Matthew Schwartz offered a $8,500 painting for sale on eBay in October 2015 and got an immediate response---from the federal government. The portrait "1934 Farmer" by John Slavin was commissioned under the Depression-era federal work program for artists sponsored by the ...
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 ...
Emergency Meeting at Smithsonian Aims to Halt Paris Auction of Sacred Tribal Artifacts
Hyperallergic / May 25th, 2016
Hyperallergic reports the latest battle to repatriate objects of significance to indigenous people. A new auction of contested artifacts is ahead next week in Paris, where Hopi objects have already been subject to sales eight times at public auctions since 2013. At the ...
150 Banksy Works From Private Collections Exhibited in Rome
NBC / May 25th, 2016
An unprecendented assemblage of 150 privately-owned works by mysterious street artist Banksy are on view in Rome. "War, Capitalism & Liberty" opened at the Palazzo Cipolla museum on Tuesday and continues through Sept. 4. The artist is not involved in the exhibition and his identity has ...
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Acquires Rare O’Keeffe Painting
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum / May 24th, 2016
The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is pleased to announce it has acquired a rare 1926 painting by Georgia O’Keeffe titled; The Barns, Lake George. Funds from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s acquisition fund were used to purchase the painting. Exhibited in multiple important exhibitions during O’Keeffe’s ...
Rediscovered Painting Joins Major Retrospective of Impressionist Edmund Tarbell
ArtfixDaily / May 24th, 2016
Renowned American Impressionist painter Edmund C. Tarbell is in the spotlight. The most ambitious exhibit of Tarbell’s vibrant work is open daily through June 3 at Discover Portsmouth, in Portsmouth, NH, operated by the nonprofit Portsmouth Historical Society. Illuminating ...
Painting at Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art Stirs Controversy
CBS / May 23rd, 2016
Two members of the Virginia Beach Arts and Humanities Commission are reportedly offended by an artwork in an exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art and have threatened to withdraw public funds from the museum over its display. "Rosie's Tea Party," by artist Mark Ryden, ...
60 Minutes: "Obvious" Overlooks in the $80 Million Art Scam
60 Minutes / May 23rd, 2016
"The most audacious and lucrative art scam in U.S. history," 60 Minutes' Anderson Cooper says of the 63 artworks forged by a Chinese immigrant in Queens and sold largely through Knoedler Gallery in New York for $80 million. Anderson sat down with Jack Flam, the Robert Motherwell expert, and a ...
Diego Rivera Painting Sells Privately for Record Price
CNBC / May 22nd, 2016
A Diego Rivera painting has sold privately for $15.7 million, setting a world record price for any Latin American work of art, Phillips auction house said Friday. The price for "Dance in Tehuantepec" nearly doubles the figure paid at auction last week for a painting by Frida Kahlo, Rivera's ...