Museums & Heritage

Media reports identify objects allegedly stolen from British Museum and posted on eBay

The items include a piece of Roman jewellery—reportedly worth between £25,000 and £50,000—being offered with a minimum price of £40

London's National Gallery releases details of 200th anniversary Jeremy Deller project

His work will be made in collaboration with four institutions across the UK—from Northern Ireland to Scotland—before travelling to the capital

Kentucky's Speed Art Museum to create $22m sculpture park

The Speed Outdoors, a public park and sculpture garden, aspires to become a focal point for the Louisville community

British Museum antiquities thief alleged to be veteran curator Peter Higgs

Higgs, who was sacked earlier this year, is alleged to have sold uncategorised items from the museum's collection on eBay as early as 2016

Dresden museum returns four objects to Australia’s Kaurna community

The spear, digging stick, cudgel and net were brought home by German missionaries nearly 200 years ago

British Museum imposes 'emergency security measures' after staff member allegedly steals priceless artefacts

The museum in London is reckoning with a huge security breach after admitting that jewellery and gems dating back millennia had been removed from its storeroom without detection

Officials from three countries have called on Denver Art Museum to return eight artefacts in its collection

Six of the eight allegedly looted objects were donated to the museum by Emma C. Bunker, an associate of smuggler Douglas Latchford

Orlando Museum of Art sues its former director over Basquiat forgery scandal

According to the lawsuit, Aaron De Groft stood to benefit from the eventual sale of the fake Basquiats—and planned subsequent shows of works purportedly by Titian and Pollock

$30 is the new $25: SFMoMA raises admission prices

The Bay Area institution is increasing its ticket prices 20% just in time for a blockbuster Yayoi Kusama show

Arizona city accused of censorship for postponing museum exhibitions over Shepard Fairey police brutality print

Municipal officials in Mesa have come under fire for postponing the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum's autumn shows

Europe's 'first museum dedicated to art by women artists' to open in southern France

Former trader Christian Levett's rebranded institution will present works by Joan Mitchell, Howardena Pindell and Cecily Brown among others

Trespassing tourist wades into Rome's Trevi Fountain

The woman was caught on video filling up her water bottle in the late Baroque masterpiece

'Cancelled' St Petersburg show honouring Timur Novikov finally opens—with censorship

Artists accuse the Russian Museum—which blames technical issues for the delay—of covering up parts of their works

More stolen archaeological treasures return to Italy from the US

The Menil Collection denies claims in an Italian police statement that 60 of the disputed artefacts were housed at the Texas museum

Breuer building's miniature sculpture to stay put after takeover

Sotheby's, which is the new owner of the Madison Avenue building, “will proudly act as stewards” of Charles Simonds’s tiny installation

Layout of ancient stilt village in the Amazon may have been based on Pleiades star cluster

A village in Brazil that was in use for around 500 years, until the 10th century, may have been laid out on a celestial schematic

J.K. Rowling removed from museum’s Harry Potter displays over transphobic views

Rowling has been scrubbed from the galleries of Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture

Chrysler Museum of Art will return disputed sculpture of Indigenous man

The museum has agreed to return the life-size marble statue “Wounded Indian” to the Boston-based Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association

Wildfires tear through Maui, Hawaii, with more than 271 structures damaged

Authorities have reported 36 fatalities while heritage sites, including museums, have been destroyed

Guggenheim Museum staff ratifies its first union contract

With 97% of the vote, museum employees signed their first union contract after two years at the bargaining table

Artist duo Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller open dedicated space for their work in rural Canada

The work and life partners converted a former furniture showroom into a venue for their complex, large-scale installations

Helen Frankenthaler Foundation’s climate initiative awards $2.7m more in grants and extends programme until 2025

The initiative, which initially was intended to award $10m total in grants, will now give out $15m for ecological projects at art non-profits

Letterscomment

Letter to the editor | 'The Tate doesn't stash its art in a basement like a curatorial Dr No'

Responding to a comment piece by the author Simon Jenkins, former Tate curator Simon Wilson says that the institution’s collection is kept in environmentally controlled storage and is mostly made up of works on paper

'Knife attack' leads to evacuation of the British Museum in London

Police confirm a man was stabbed close to the entrance on Tuesday morning

British Museum settles case with translator after using work 'without permission, credit or payment'

The London institution will now reinstate Yilin Wang's translations and is reviewing its permissions policy

Remnants of First Nation village, including 1,000-year-old fish trap, discovered in Canada

A dig on Vancouver Island has revealed archaeological remnants of a 250-person fishing community

Artists and cultural leaders call on British Museum to rename BP Lecture Theatre

An open letter urges museum to follow net zero carbon pledge and fully separate from oil giant, which recently recorded $2.6bn in quarterly profit

Denver Art Museum cut ties with a disgraced donor—but critics say that’s not enough

Benefactor Emma Bunker worked closely with antiquities smuggler Douglas Latchford

Crime news

Swiss court sentences former museum cashier for embezzling more than $1m

The 54-year-old woman used ticket-sale tricks at the Fondation Beyeler near Basel to fund luxury cars and holidays