Latest

Debate over author of ‘Napalm Girl’ image deepens as World Press Photo suspends attribution

The decision follows a report from Associated Press and a documentary calling into question the long-held belief that photographer Nick Ut took the shot

Best-selling memoir about being a guard at the Metropolitan Museum takes the stage

Patrick Bringley’s Off-Broadway one-man show distils ‘All the Beauty in the World’ into an 80-minute meditation on art, life and human connection

Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art repatriates ancient silk manuscript to China

The museum’s fragments of the Zidanku Silk Manuscripts were looted from a tomb in Hunan Province and smuggled into the US nearly 80 years ago

Tentatively, Photo London's tenth edition moves away from traditional content and crowds

New fair director Sophie Parker's plan to “reward galleries that take risks” was seen in action

Philippa Kelly. With additional reporting by Mali Dun1 day ago

Manhattan District Attorney's Office returns eight artefacts to Peru, including golden Moche mask

Many of the antiquities being returned were looted from northern Peru in the 1960s and 70s

Torey Akers1 day ago

Art market

Art Basel Awards name inaugural medalists including artists, curators and patrons

The 36 medalists will be honoured at a reception during Art Basel’s Swiss fair

Marlene Dumas’s $13.6m semi-nude breaks auction record for a living female artist

Women rescued Christie’s otherwise quiet 21st century evening sale in New York, which also set a new auction high-water mark for Simone Leigh

‘Halo effect’ of two powerful female art dealers’ collections boosts Sotheby’s New York sale

Works from the estate of Barbara Gladstone and the home of Daniella Luxembourg—plus a litter of Lichtensteins—energised last night's marquee auction of post-war and contemporary art

Benjamin Sutton2 days ago

Despite record-breaking results for four women artists, Phillips’s evening auction in New York sparks few fireworks

The auction brought in a hammer total of $44.2m, just below Phillips’s low estimate for the night and exactly in line with last November’s equivalent sale

‘A new lease of life’: London’s Annely Juda Fine Art looks to the future with Mayfair move

The gallery plans to take on more young and emerging artists as David Juda hands the baton to the next generation

Museums & Heritage

Gauguin's last self-portrait could be a fake

Kunstmuseum Basel is analysing the work, which has been in its collection since 1945 and may have been painted by the artist's friend, Ky-Dong Nguyen Van Cam

Ten essential works of art to see on the French Riviera

From Paul Signac’s Saint-Tropez scene to Jean Cocteau’s fishermen’s chapel, here is our pick of the art to see all year round on the coveted stretch of the Mediterranean coast

Magna Carta ‘copy’ once sold at Sotheby's is an original, say UK professors

The document was consigned to the auction house in 1946 then, later the same year, purchased by Harvard Law School for just $27.50

Metropolitan Museum receives 6,500 works from photography collector Artur Walther

The promised gift from Walther and the Walther Family Foundation includes photographs, albums and time-based works by artists including Malick Sibidé, Ai Weiwei, Thomas Struth, Stephen Shore and others

Exhibitions

Adam Lindemann opens exhibition of 19th-century African sculpture and contemporary Black abstraction

The dealer brings together five Urhobo sculptures for the first time in the US in an exhibition at his private residence on Manhattan's Upper East Side

Folk is having a revival—in the art world too

The Neo Ancients festival in the small Gloucestershire town of Stroud featured artists whose works have a more "pastoral" approach towards art production

Bauhaus thread weaves through expansive textile show at MoMA

Around 150 woven works by artists around the globe tell the story of abstraction through a new, craftier lens

Left at the altar: Luc Tuymans's paintings to replace Tintoretto works at Venetian church

The Belgian artist’s works will hang in place of “The Last Supper” and “The People of Israel in the Desert” while the masterpieces undergo restoration

The Week in Art

A podcast bringing you the latest news from the art world, every week

Koyo Kouoh remembered, Queen Elizabeth II memorial, Jasper Johns by Robert Storr—podcast

Remembering Koyo Kouoh, the Venice Biennale curator who died earlier this month, plus a look at the five designs competing for the late-Queen's memorial commission, and a discussion with curator Robert Storr about the work of Jasper Johns

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by David Clack, Alexander Morrison and Philippa Kelly1 day ago

Opinion

Comment | The greatest failure of PST Art: its successes are not travelling

As the Getty wraps up its third edition of this initiative, it is time to address a persistent problem

Comment | Why a country should invest in art—even when it’s under attack

While physically defending their country, Ukrainian artist’s work provides oxygen for urgent issues that demand attention and dialogue, writes Björn Geldhof, the artistic director of the PinchukArtCentre, Kyiv

Björn Geldhof

Why dealers play the waiting game before exhibiting a newly signed artist

Michael Armitage, for example, had his first show at David Zwirner three years after being signed to the gallery

Comment | Muted grey, bloody red, or dark blue—here’s why the colour of museum walls matters more than you might think

As London’s National Gallery launches its “once-in-a-lifetime” rehang, Ben Luke asks: what is the right shade behind the art?

Comment | Losing federal funding for emergency heritage conservation in the US is a disaster

The Foundation for Advancement in Conservation’s National Heritage Responders programme has channelled federal funding and support from local organisations to help communities struck by natural disasters to preserve their culture

The Sainsbury Wing reopening

After a two-year project, led by the architect Annabelle Selldorf, to remodel the wing as the main entrance to London's National Gallery, the reopening of its early Renaissance galleries forms part of C C Land: the Wonder of Art, a complete rehang of the museum's collection

The Big Review | The reopening and rehang of the Sainsbury Wing, National Gallery, London ★★★★★

The two-year remodelling of the Sainsbury Wing as the National Gallery's main entrance has allowed for new restorations and fresh curation of the museum's unrivalled collection of early Renaissance pictures. The effect is revelatory

First look: the ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ rehang at London's National Gallery

The reopening of the Sainsbury Wing on 10 May will allow the gallery to show nearly 40% of its collection. The Art Newspaper took an early tour

Comment | Muted grey, bloody red, or dark blue—here’s why the colour of museum walls matters more than you might think

As London’s National Gallery launches its “once-in-a-lifetime” rehang, Ben Luke asks: what is the right shade behind the art?

London's National Gallery buys mysterious altarpiece for $20m

The museum has acquired a 16th-century work by an unknown artist from a family collection

New perspectives: Annabelle Selldorf brings a fresh angle to the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing

A tour of the remodelled building, five months before its reopening, shows the New York architect has created a spectacular main entrance closely integrated with the rest of the London institution and with the public space of Trafalgar Square

Pope Leo XIV

Robert Francis Prevost, the US-born former head of the Augustinian order of friars, was elected Pope Leo XIV on 8 May. He becomes the proprietor in trust of the art and architecture riches of the Vatican and inherits his predecessor Pope Francis's concern for peace and for addressing climate change

The art of being Pope Leo: from a Raphael portrait to the first pontiff to be captured on film

Cardinal Prevost’s choice of the name Leo links him to Leo XIII, a 19th-century champion of social justice, and also recalls Leos I, III and IV, whose diplomatic and military achievements are depicted in Raphael’s “stanze” frescoes, completed for Pope Leo X

Louis Jebb12 May 2025

Robert Francis Prevost has been elected Pope Leo XIV—why does this matter to the worlds of art and heritage?

The Chicago-born pontiff—the new spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics and the proprietor in trust of the great art and architecture treasures of the Vatican—has publicly supported his predecessor Pope Francis's lead on climate change

Louis Jebb8 May 2025

The original ‘Conclave’? How commercial engravings grew global interest in papal succession

Downloads of the 2024 film have surged since the death of Pope Francis—but in the 16th and 17th century, it was etchings that drove public fascination with the historic process

Louis Jebb1 May 2025

Pope Francis (1936-2025)

Pope Francis, for 12 years the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics, and proprietor in trust of the Vatican's great art treasures and its liturgical and built heritage, died on 21 April 2025, aged 88

The original ‘Conclave’? How commercial engravings grew global interest in papal succession

Downloads of the 2024 film have surged since the death of Pope Francis—but in the 16th and 17th century, it was etchings that drove public fascination with the historic process

Remembering Pope Francis, for 12 years head of the Catholic church and proprietor in trust of the Vatican's library and art collections

The Argentinian pontiff was a powerful progressive voice in world politics, the first Jesuit priest to be spiritual leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics and the first from the Americas or the southern hemisphere to hold the office

Holy ground: why Persian carpets played an important symbolic role in the funeral of Pope Francis

For over 600 years carpets from Turkey and Iran have been used in Catholic ceremony and religious paintings by artists, including Andrea del Verrochio, to indicate a carefully defined, sacred space

From the archive | Pope Francis, his crucifix and the Virgin Mary: miraculous or merely traditional?

Art history removes the numinous from art. At the Vatican’s Covid-19 blessing we saw it invoked again

Is Trump painting an ‘awesome portrait’ or by ‘Tariff Lautrec’?

A new portrait of the US leader, looking defiant following the attempted assassination last year, has drawn, er… mixed responses

The world according to Cattelan? Maverick Maurizio updates ‘autobiography’

Maurizio Cattelan sheds light on his famous golden toilet and that duct-taped banana

Wes Anderson’s priceless ‘Renaissance portrait’ to go on show in London

A new exhibition includes the fictional masterpiece ‘Boy With Apple’, which appeared in the Anderson classic, ‘the Grand Budapest Hotel’

Let him entertain you: Robbie Williams gets honest in latest Moco exhibition

Last night the star—and subject of a recent, monkey-themed biopic—unveiled works that seem to strip away any last remaining filters

The story of the Met’s ‘missing’ Banksy

The New York museum’s former security head admits to taking the street artist's work after it was illicitly hung on the wall in 2005

Book reviews

A new ‘anti-biography’ rips apart the myth of Leonardo as a solitary genius

The new study of the Da Vinci brand uses historical context to debunk the artist’s cult status and present him as a man of his time

East meets West in Venice: the unlikely love affair between a Hermitage curator and a Cambridge don

A new volumes details a chance meeting that liberated art scholars Francis Haskell and Larissa Salmina in very different ways

Japan is opening its eyes to women photographers—and to the female gaze

Denied recognition and even credit for their work until recent times, Japan’s women photographers are challenging and subverting traditional assumptions about the female body

Review | ‘An utterly positive and dangerously irrelevant’ book written by the chief executive of Arts Council England

This journey through the UK’s publicly funded arts carefully averts its eyes from the many signs of crisis

A brush with... podcast

A podcast that asks artists the questions you've always wanted to

A brush with… Salman Toor — podcast

Salman Toor talks to Ben Luke about his influences—from writers to musicians, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by David Clack
Sponsored byBloomberg Connects

Technology

News, background and analysis on the latest tech developments—artificial intelligence tools; Web3, the blockchain, NFTs; virtual and augmented reality; social media platforms—and how they affect the art market, museums, artists and curators.

Technologyfeature

Can graphic imagination wake audiences up to the climate emergency? This multimedia artist believes so

Berlin-based Michael Najjar has been working with scientists in Greenland to tell stories with images designed to replace familiar memes of environmental journalism

An inside track on the Huntington’s rapid social media growth

The California institution is one of the top five museums for social media growth in the world in the past year. We spoke to the museum's director of digital and social content strategy

Technologyfeature

How AI models are helping to reveal South America's archaeological sites

Analysis of aerial and satellite images has rapidly identified ancient sites, but human expertise is still essential in refining the outcomes

Jeu de Paume puts on wide-ranging survey of work created by artists working with artificial intelligence

With “Le Monde Selon L’IA”, the Paris media art centre takes a broad look at work made using both analytical AI and generative AI

Museums are losing social media followers amid users' mass X-odus

Some institutions have ditched their accounts in protest, while others have chosen to “quiet quit” and stopped posting on the Elon Musk-owned platform

Book Club

Sex, beauty and the body: how Helen Chadwick shaped British contemporary art

The “provocative, punky, perverse” artist died far too young but her work’s influence endures, argues a new biography

The Voynich Manuscript revealed: five things you probably didn't know about the Medieval masterpiece

Scholars have speculated for centuries about the meaning behind the 15th-century codex and its peculiar illustrations

An expert's guide to artists' books: four must-read publications on the genre

All you ever wanted to know about artists' books on the eve of a major exhibition at London’s Warburg Institute—selected by the show's co-curator Arnaud Desjardin

The trials and tribulations of putting together Lucian Freud’s catalogue raisonné

The forensically researched volume on the British artist's oil paintings offers a depth of scrutiny that he himself was famous for

Obituaries

Zurab Tsereteli, Georgian-born artist and Russian patriot, has died aged 91

Artist, who also ran museums and institutions in Russia, was best known for his monumental sculptures, including a 30m-high memorial to victims of 9/11 in the US

Guy Ullens, collector and patron of Chinese contemporary art, has died, aged 90

The Belgian businessman co-founded Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in 2007 with his wife Myriam Ullens

Remembering Pope Francis, for 12 years head of the Catholic church and proprietor in trust of the Vatican's library and art collections

The Argentinian pontiff was a powerful progressive voice in world politics, the first Jesuit priest to be spiritual leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics and the first from the Americas or the southern hemisphere to hold the office

Remembering Rosalind Savill, the porcelain expert who transformed the Wallace Collection

During her 19-year tenure as its director, she turned a sedate institution into a vibrant tribute to the culture of 18th-century France

Adventures with Van Gogh

Adventures with Van Gogh is a weekly blog by Martin Bailey, our long-standing correspondent and expert on the artist. Published every Friday, his stories range from newsy items about this most intriguing artist to scholarly pieces based on his own meticulous investigations and discoveries.

Huge Paris exhibition reveals David Hockney’s love of Van Gogh

Hockney, now 87, says he is always happy when he paints—“just like Van Gogh”

Martin Bailey1 day ago