Martin Bailey

A good catch: The Mackerels now looks set to be authenticated as a genuine Van Gogh

The still life in Switzerland’s Reinhart collection was dismissed as a forgery

a blog by Martin Bailey

Cambridge college returns Benin bronze to Nigeria

Statue of a cockerel was looted by the British in 1897 from the Court of Benin

Boris Johnson’s Conservative manifesto promises £250m funding for culture

Although Tory announcement calls it the “largest cultural capital programme in a century”, pledge is only quarter of Labour’s £1bn culture fund

Van Gogh's Sunflowers will leave London for over a year as Australian show is added to loan tour

Masterpiece from London's National Gallery is headed for Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia

Jeremy Corbyn promises £1bn culture fund in Labour Party election manifesto

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats commit to stopping Brexit and protecting arts funding through the National Lottery

Two Dutch museums join forces to buy rare, $3m Van Gogh painting at Sotheby's New York

Work acquired by Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Drents Museum in Assen is one of few to survive from the artist's visit to Drenthe

London's National Gallery launches public campaign to fund last £2m to buy Orazio Gentileschi masterpiece

The 17th-century painting The Finding of Moses was painted in London for Charles I and represented the birth of Charles II

For sale: two Van Gogh paintings come up at Sotheby’s New York next week

One of the works was looted by the Nazis from Jewish collector Jacques Goudstikker, but is now being sold by his heir after restitution

a blog by Martin Bailey

Gus Casely-Hayford, director of Smithsonian’s African art museum, to lead V&A East

The British cultural historian will take up his role at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s new branch in the spring

Revealed: the story behind the Gauguin paintings buried with a young boy in Tahiti

The artist befriended the child of his neighbours, and had given two paintings for the boy’s nursery

Tutankhamun blockbuster will head to Boston

Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh, which opened in London this weekend, will also tour to Australia, Japan, Canada and South Korea

Two Van Gogh exhibitions in a single week

After the Frankfurt show opens, another on still lifes comes to Potsdam—17 years after Germany’s last presentation on the artist

a blog by Martin Bailey

London's Roundhouse turns down £1m Sackler grant

The arts and performance venue has refused to accept a £1m grant from the Sackler Trust because of risk it would "distract from its work with young people"

King Tut show on track to become one of the most popular art exhibitions ever in the UK—and the most expensive

Peak adult tickets for the travelling exhibition opening at the Saatchi Gallery in London this week will cost £37.40

Brexitnews

New deadline creates problems for National Gallery's 'Brexit-ready' exhibition schedule

Museum has avoided transporting loans to and from Europe around 31 October “deadline”, but the last-minute extension to next January may cause shipping issues

Van Gogh and Germany: Frankfurt mounts best show on the artist in recent years

Städel Museum tells the story of Germany's love affair with the painter, which ended in tragedy with Hitler’s rise to power

a blog by Martin Bailey

Methodical, well read and—above all—human: what we learn from the myth-busting edition of Van Gogh’s letters

A decade after the publication of Vincent's trove of correspondence, here is how the remarkable project has contributed to scholarship on his art

a blog by Martin Bailey

Emilie Gordenker appointed new general director of Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum

The current director of the Mauritshuis in The Hague is taking over from Axel Rüger who now leads the Royal Academy of Arts in London

Fresco of two fighting gladiators discovered in Pompeii

Italy's culture minister Dario Franceschini says the find shows the site is an "inexhaustible mine for archaeological research"

Arles to Tokyo: Van Gogh exhibitions in 2020 that Vincent aficionados won't want to miss

Detroit’s Van Gogh in America will be the highlight, with more major shows in Amsterdam, Padua, Santa Barbara and Columbus

a blog by Martin Bailey

Pieter de Hooch steps out from Vermeer's shadow in new Delft show

First survey in the Netherlands puts the spotlight back onto the ‘other’ Golden Age painter

Gauguin’s Tahitian lover may be more fantasy than reality

As the National Gallery's exhibition opens in London, an expert speculates that the teenager in his Polynesian works could be a composite of women the painter encountered

The artist whom Van Gogh most admired—and whose work fetched record prices

An exhibition on Millet opens in Amsterdam with the rare loan of The Angelus

a blog by Martin Bailey

Gauguin Tahitian painting comes to auction in Paris from the walls of the Met

Te Bourao II (The Purao Tree), which has been in the same collection since 1995, is estimated to sell for €5m-€7m at Artcurial

British Museum knocks Tate Modern off top spot as UK's most popular attraction after miscalculation

Over 300,000 visitors had been missed in the financial year 2018/19 because of 'incorrect light levels caused by a broken light fitting'

Uncovered: Van Gogh's first art teacher

First photo discovered of Anna Birnie, of Scottish descent, who served as a young governess for eight-year-old Vincent

a blog by Martin Bailey

'We want the Babylonian Palace of Tiglath-Pileser!': new book reveals Boris Johnson's thwarted vision for new V&A East

Nicholas Coleridge, the chairman of the Victoria and Albert Museum, tells how Boris laid down the law on his plans for the project