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Five Francis Bacon Works Worth $33 Million Stolen in Spain
El Pais / March 14th, 2016
Five artworks by Irish-born master Francis Bacon have been stolen from a private residence in Madrid, reports Spanish media. El Pais reported on Sunday that the paintings were taken from a home while the owner was away, and the thieves disabled the security system. The owner is said to have ...
The Nefertiti 3D Scan Scandal Highlights Museum Data Security
Cosmo Wenman / March 10th, 2016
Museums around the world have increasingly opened up their digital archives to share collections with the public. Art images can be downloaded, and browsed on Google Art Project or museums' websites. Yet, 3D scans of sculpture, objects and painting are largely safe-guarded. Last week ...
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 ...
The Art Show Serves Up Surprises
ArtfixDaily / March 2nd, 2016
New York's Park Avenue Armory is afire with art sales as 72 exhibitors from the Art Dealers Association of America present the annual ADAA Art Show (through March 6). A preview night kicked off the week on March 1, hosting the likes of Leonard Lauder, Agnes Gund, and comedian Steve ...
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 ...
Gang Members Found Guilty in $79 Million U.K. Museum Thefts
BBC / February 29th, 2016
After a four-year investigation, members of an international organized crime gang have been found guilty in the thefts of artifacts worth up to £57m ($79m). Fourteen men will be sentenced in April for the raids on museums and an auction house in the U.K. Chinese jade and rhino horn were among ...
Heirs of Famed Designer Viktor Schreckengost Scrap Museum Plans In Favor of Auction, Donations
Cleveland.com / February 29th, 2016
The heirs of industrial designer, artist, and sculptor Viktor Schreckengost (1906-2008) have dropped the idea of creating a new museum to house his legacy in Cleveland and have decided instead to auction key pieces and to donate others to the Western Reserve Historical Society. ...
Google Gives Artificial Intelligence An Art Show
Recode / February 29th, 2016
Artists, the art world just got more competitive. Artifical intelligence is getting creative. Google launched an art event in San Francisco over the weekend. Dubbed "DeepDream," the exhibition showcased artworks that are the result of algorithms doing advanced reverse image recognition. AI 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 ...
Hudson River School Artists Celebrated in New PBS Documentary
Trailer, The Hudson River School: Artistic Pioneers / February 24th, 2016
A new PBS documentary explores the roots of the Hudson River School of painting, active from about 1825 to 1880, in America. The lives, careers, and works of artists Cole, Durand, Bierstadt, Church and Cropsey are explored in “The Hudson River School: Artistic Pioneers,” providing a rich look at ...
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 ...
Frank Lloyd Wright Sturges House Withdrawn From Auction, Its Contents Snapped Up
ArtfixDaily / February 23rd, 2016
Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA) withdrew the George D. Sturges Residence, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1939, from its February 21 sale of Modern Art & Design. The cantilevered redwood-and-brick residence, the only Californian example of Wright's Usonian housing, carried a ...
Ken Griffin Spends $500 Million on Two Abstract Expressionist Artworks
Bloomberg / February 20th, 2016
Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin has spent nearly $500 million on paintings by Abstract Expressionist masters Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. It ranks among the biggest private art deals ever, with the Pollock price matching Qatar's $300 million purchase of Paul Gauguin's "When ...
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. ...
American Airlines and Seven Others Sued Over Damaged Artwork
Art Newspaper / February 16th, 2016
American Airlines, along with seven other art handling companies, has been accused in a federal complaint of damaging a slash sculpture by Lucio Fontana while it was shipped fr om Paris to the Armory Show in New York last year. Lloyd’s of London, who insured the work for the Beverly Hills gallery ...
Cultivating Art Collectors in the 'Cultural Desert' of Silicon Valley
Guardian / February 10th, 2016
"There’s long been a truism that the Silicon Valley elite don’t buy art," the Guardian reports. But some are hopeful for a type of cultural revolution in the tech mecca. Pace Gallery has for a few years been tapping interest from the monied techies who can aptly afford Calder mobiles and ...
Paris Pinacotheque Museum Closes Due to Attendance Drop After Nov. Attacks
Reuters / February 16th, 2016
One of the rare privately-owned art museums in France, the Paris Pinacotheque Museum shut its doors on Monday after visitor attendance figures fell following the terrorist attacks on the city. "The disastrous economic climate due to a large extent to the Nov. 13 attacks forces us to close the ...
Prado Withdraws Two Loans From Bosch Retrospective
Art Newspaper / February 15th, 2016
Just a few days before the opening of the unprecedented exhibition of Hieronymus Bosch in the Netherlands, the Museo del Prado in Madrid cancelled two loans from its collection. A dispute over attribution caused the withdrawal. Noordbrabants Museum in ‘s-Hertogenbosch is presenting the ...