Benjamin Sutton

Benjamin Sutton is the Editor, Americas of The Art Newspaper.

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Princess Diana gown, Lebron James jersey and ornate Bronze Age disc lead Sotheby’s latest cross-category auction experiment

The auction house’s first “The One” sale in New York included a mix of ancient artefacts and modern memorabilia organised into thematic sections

Detroit Institute of Arts ordered to keep Van Gogh painting as lawsuit over its ownership heads to appeals court

A judge had previously dismissed the lawsuit brought against the Michigan museum in a dispute over the canvas “The Novel Reader”

Looted archaeological artefacts worth more than $20m returned to Italy

The 60 objects included some that had been on display at the Metropolitan Museum and several that had been bought by billionaire collector Michael Steinhardt

Jewish collectors’ heirs sue the Guggenheim for return of Blue Period Picasso

The heirs of Karl and Rosi Adler claim “Woman Ironing (La repasseuse)” (1904) was sold under duress by the fleeing couple and are seeking its return—or as much as $200m in compensation

Kim Kardashian buys amethyst cross worn by Princess Diana at Sotheby’s

A representative for the reality television star and entrepreneur emerged victorious from a five-minute bidding war

Former manager at the Art Institute of Chicago accused of stealing $2m from the museum

The former employee faces four federal charges over an alleged fraud scheme that went on for 13 years

Amid national crisis, Beirut builds museum to house hidden art collection

Two years after an explosion caused billions of dollars of damage, the Beirut Museum of Art has broken ground in the Lebanese capital

Film on Nan Goldin and her campaign against the Sacklers shortlisted for best documentary Oscar

Laura Poitras’s “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” is one of 15 films on the shortlist to be nominated in the documentary feature category at the 2023 Academy Awards

Did the Metropolitan Museum cover up its acquisition of a Nazi-looted Van Gogh? A new lawsuit alleges so

The heirs of a Jewish collector who fled Germany in the 1930s claim that well-documented provenance issues with the painting “La cueillette des olives” have been overlooked by the museum and the Greek foundation that now owns it

Pope Francis returns Vatican Museums’ Parthenon marbles to Greece

The pope’s decision to give the Vatican’s three Parthenon marbles to the head of the Greek Orthodox Church comes amid mounting pressure on the British Museum to repatriate its marbles to Greece

‘We went from having two Cézannes to three’: x-ray of still life painting reveals hidden portrait

On a hunch, a conservator at the Cincinnati Art Museum had an early Cézanne still life scanned using x-ray imaging, which showed a painted-over portrait by the Modern master

New York’s Department of Cultural Affairs awards $58m in grants to more than 1,000 arts organisations

The 1,070 cultural grant recipients, the first since new municipal reforms to correct for funding biases were introduced, are the largest funding cohort in the department’s history

The Year in Art: We take a look at 2022’s biggest stories—and what they mean

Plus, our writers sit down to discuss their favourite works of the year

Hosted by Ben Luke. With guest speakers Louisa Buck, Kabir Jhala and Benjamin Sutton. Produced by David Clack, Aimee Dawson and Henrietta Bentall
Sponsored byChristie's

Biden picks rising star at the Smithsonian to head presidential arts committee dissolved by the Trump administration

Tsione Wolde-Michael, director of the Center for Restorative History at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, is the first Black leader of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities

Three US museums win prize to fund acquisitions at Expo Chicago fair

Museums in Seattle, St Louis and St Petersburg will make purchases at the Chicago fair next year thanks to the Northern Trust Purchase Prize

Medianews

Bookforum, Artforum’s literary sister magazine, ceases publication

The publication’s sudden closure comes just days after Penske Media Corporation acquired Artforum

Michigan contemporary art museum will close permanently due to funding shortages exacerbated by the pandemic

The Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, which opened 45 years ago, will shutter for good in February 2023

The college disgrace: School of the Art Institute of Chicago rescinds Kanye West’s doctorate

The artist now known as Ye was awarded a degree by his hometown art school in 2015, but his sustained antisemitic rhetoric caused the school to revoke it

Gerhard Richter, giant of German painting, signs exclusively to David Zwirner gallery

Richter, a native of Dresden, will have his first solo show with the Cologne-born mega-dealer in March 2023

Yayoi Kusama and Kiki Smith’s massive mosaic murals for new Manhattan train station revealed

The artists’ vast new works adorn the Grand Central Madison terminal, which opens to the public later this month

My Tennessee museum home: Dolly Parton plots Nashville institution

The country music superstar, already the subject of a museum at her Dollywood theme park, is planning a cultural complex in Nashville

Sculptor Julien Creuzet wins $20,000 French art prize at Art Basel in Miami Beach

The artist’s work is on show in both Andrew Kreps and High Art’s stands at the fair

Collectorsinterview

'I have a painting of two pig butts—portraying love—hanging in my kitchen': collector Ashley Abess on what she buys and why

The Miami native got the collecting bug young, buying a series of portraits—which still hang in her home—when she was in college

'An African way of seeing and Duchamp’s way of playing': artist Alexandre Diop shares his artistic inspirations

As an exhibition opens at the end of his residency at Miami’s Rubell Museum, the artist explains why discarded found objects are fundamental to his work

Collectorsinterview

From a Keith Haring painting to a mummified Barbie: what collector Mario Cader-Frech buys and why

The adviser to the Untitled Art fair, and champion of contemporary artists from his native El Salvador, has only ever sold two works

From working at the dollar store to exhibiting at the museum next door: artist Didier William returns to Miami

The Haitian-American artist’s largest retrospective to date, staged at the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, is in the very neighbourhood where he grew up

In pictures: journey back in time through the Everglades

An exhibition in Miami of historic photographs marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of Florida’s famous Everglades National Park

Gagosian showing new Amoako Boafo work in Miami before hosting his first New York solo show

The Ghanaian painter and market darling has not formally joined the world’s biggest gallery—for now