Museums & Heritage
US National Portrait Gallery unveils painting of Oprah Winfrey
The portrait, showing the influential media personality in a striking purple dress, was painted by Chicago artist Shawn Michael Warren
Kimbell Art Museum acquires important cultural touchstone of Olmec art
The jade statuette of an Olmec ruler holding a baby were-jaguar will be exhibited as the centrepiece of the Texas museum's ancient American collection
Arnolfini censorship row deepens as artists refuse to work with the Bristol institution
The dispute was sparked by a decision to cancel Palestine Film Festival events
Berlin’s state museums raise ticket prices as costs climb
“We have to increase income and reduce spending,” says Hermann Parzinger, the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
Life in miniature: rediscovered Rembrandt portraits, thought to be the artist’s smallest, go on show at Rijksmuseum
Pair of paintings of a husband and wife were recently formally attributed to the Old Master by the Dutch museum
Protesters calling for Gaza ceasefire stage die-in at Canadian Museum for Human Rights
The action, staged on International Human Rights Day, lasted 64 minutes in observance of the 64 days since the Israel-Hamas war began
Louvre raises ticket prices by 30% in Olympics year
The price increase will help to subsidise free entry for some visitors and regulate crowd size
Delayed gratification for Miami’s new Museum of Sex
Postponed until January, the Florida outpost of the beloved New York institution will open with wet, wild and scholarly exhibits
Five curators join Whitney Biennial team for the 2024 edition
The additional staff will programme sound art, film and performance events
US museum repatriates 44 antiquities to Egypt, Italy and Turkey
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts cooperated in an investigation that determined each of the 44 objects had been stolen, looted or trafficked
Austria confronts its Nazi past in refurbished Wien Museum
Following the British model, entry will be free for the newly expanded institution
Antiquities worth $1m, including a piece tied to trafficker Subhash Kapoor, returned to Nepal
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office linked one of the works to Kapoor; another had been in the Rubin Museum’s collection
'It's been a grim year—but the importance of art cannot be overlooked'
The war in Gaza casts a dark shadow over 2023
Museums and heritage in 2023: War, theft and quakes
From the theft of artefacts at the British Museum to a hammer attack on Velázquez’s “The Rokeby Venus”
Naked ambition: nudist group hopes to build a Miami Beach museum
A local non-profit is looking into possible sites near Haulover Beach Park, one of the only clothing-optional beaches in Florida
The Queen’s Galleries to be renamed after King Charles III in ‘recognition of the new reign’—despite previous plans not to change their names
The Royal Collection Trust, which runs the museums in London and Edinburgh, declines to give further details on change of heart
'Rokeby Venus' goes back on show at National Gallery four weeks after attack by climate activists
Velázquez masterpiece required 'conservation treatment to minor damage sustained to the painting surface, and the fitting of new glazing' following hammer attack on 6 November
Twelve must-see exhibitions in South Florida during Miami Art Week
From major solo shows of Sasha Gordon, Nam June Paik and Juan Francisco Elso to exhibitions around themes of food, magic and mystical animals
Philadelphia museum returns 16th-century manuscript to Peru
Federal investigators found that the six-page manuscript at the Rosenbach Museum and Library had been illegally removed from a larger volume
Metropolitan Museum lines up three major contemporary art commissions for 2024
Petrit Halilaj, Lee Bul and Tong Yang-Tze have been chosen to complete new projects at one of the most visited museums in the US
Artists, writers and cultural workers sign open letters criticising Art Gallery of Ontario over departure of Indigenous art curator
Wanda Nanibush's departure has been linked to a leaked letter accusing her of “posting inflammatory, inaccurate rants against Israel”
Waddesdon Manor’s elephant swings its trunk once more
Restored to its former glory, the 200kg automaton is now on show at the Buckingham mansion
Which heritage sites have been damaged or destroyed in Gaza?
Plus, the life and work of the pioneering Indigenous Australian artist Emily Kam Kngwarray, and a revealing manuscript by Paul Gauguin
Works from Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz’s collection will go on view at the Brooklyn Museum
The couple will also donate select (as yet unspecified) pieces from their personal holdings to the museum
Scythian gold artefacts returned to Ukraine after ten-year legal battle
The ancient objects were on loan to a Dutch museum from Russia-occupied Crimea before the Black Sea peninsula was annexed
Workers at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum are seeking to form a union
The museum recently reopened following a $230m renovation and expansion
As Iceland braces for the winter, museums lobby for more storage
Fifteen years since Iceland’s banking crisis, funding cuts have left the nation’s art in a state of potential peril
Bristol's Arnolfini gallery faces backlash after cancelling Palestine film events
Film screening and poetry night were pulled over concerns they may be seen as "political activity"
Is the US museum sector in crisis?
Plus, a new antisemitism scandal at Documenta and a Kim Lim sculpure on show at the Hepworth Wakefield
Three months on, art organisations continue to rally for Morocco’s earthquake victims
The Moroccan cultural sector has been hard at work to help the communities hit hardest by the disaster and trying to remind people that "this is still going on"