Museums & Heritage

Ashmolean Museum in bitter, 20-year dispute over Augustus John works

Heirs claim they were loaned and want them back; the museum says decision not yet made

Museum lawyers weigh in on diversity initiatives, joint acquisitions and more at industry conference

The annual gathering organised by the American Law Institute and co-sponsored by the Smithsonian took place recently in Philadelphia

Stormzy, Doreen Lawrence and Lucy Bronze: National Portrait Gallery reopens with a focus on the new faces of Britain

After a three-year closure and £41m redevelopment, the London institution aims to better acknowledge the UK’s history and diverse population

The Buffalo AKG Art Museum reveals its $230m transformation

More than three years after it closed, the museum in upstate New York has made major upgrades across its campus and added more than 500 works to its collection

Hans Arp’s estate gifts 220 sculptures to ten museums around the world

Many of the gifted works will go to European institutions, while others are bound for Boston, Dallas and Melbourne

National Portrait Gallery should become a dispersed museum

The gallery—and the other big London museums—should be sending their vast collections around the country instead of hiding them in basements

Simon Jenkins

Can London's commercial galleries help save regional museums?

The Art Fund and London Gallery Weekend have launched a focus group with the aim of helping public institutions acquire works and organise exhibitions

Munstead Wood, a masterpiece of Arts and Crafts, is acquired by the National Trust

Government funding helps acquire Surrey house and garden that launched the global careers of the architect Edwin Lutyens and the garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, whose home it was for nearly 40 years

Looted artefacts linked to disgraced British dealer Robin Symes returned to Italy

Restitution follows the return of 350 Neolithic and Byzantine objects from the same source to Greece

Museum of Modern Art acquires more than 200 works by experimental film-maker Ken Jacobs

The museum has also restored Jacobs’s first film, “Orchard Street” (1955), which will be displayed in a gallery in November

New documentary gives inside view of art museum’s attempts to become more diverse

“White Balls on Walls” shows how the staff of Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum have tried to implement change amid a shifting social landscape

Victoria and Albert Museum's ambitious east London storehouse is finally complete

The Art Newspaper goes on an exclusive tour around the building which will open to the public in 2025

Newfields and the Indianapolis Museum of Art seek to turn a corner after ‘triple tragedies’

The museum sparked scandal in 2021 with the phrasing of a job posting, but the new leader of its parent organisation says “we’re not a racist institution”

Climate protestors who targeted US National Gallery of Art’s Degas sculpture face prison time

The two protesters have have been indicted by federal prosecutors on charges of conspiracy

National Archaeological Museum of Naples opening new branch in the city’s famous Real Albergo dei Poveri

MANN's new partner museum will provide an additional 10,000 sq. m of exhibition space, allowing the people of Naples to finally see the full range of the largest collection of classical archaeology in the world

Russian authorities confirm that famous 'Trinity' icon will be transferred to church despite protests from restorers and art historians

The announcement that President Putin will return Andrei Rublev’s masterpiece has sparked criticism from experts due to its fragile condition

Italy announces museum ticket price hike as part of €2bn flood aid package

Admission will be raised by €1 to support relief efforts in the affected Emilia-Romagna region

Religionanalysis

Breaking a taboo: religion is being invited into three major museums

Working with Visual Commentary on Scripture, London’s National Gallery and Berlin’s Bode Museum and Gemäldegalerie are uniting art and theology

Museums in four states win top US prize

The Institute of Museum and Library Services bestowed its top honours for 2023 on museums in Florida, Ohio, Wyoming and California

Rijksmuseum unveils Richard Long exhibition thanks to biggest-ever donation

Dutch museum has received €12.5m gift to help support free-of-charge, sculptural exhibitions in the gardens

Strike at New York's Hispanic Society ends after nearly two months

Workers at the museum ratified their first contract after many months of negotiations with leadership

Curators in the climate crisis: who are the new museum hires turning art institutions green?

From the Serpentine Galleries to the Sainsbury Centre, in the UK and beyond, institutions have hired designated directors to head up matters environmental

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San Diego-based collectors hand over pre-Hispanic artefacts to Mexican authorities

The 65 heritage objects in question include a glass with a clay pedestal dating from the Mesoamerican Classic period and a ceramic bowl dating from 200CE

American Museum of Natural History’s soaring, $465m new science centre opens

The new Gilder Center, designed by architecture firm Studio Gang to resemble a towering canyon, adds 230,000 sq. ft and some clarity to the museum’s vast Manhattan campus

Wartime museum on remote Scottish island one of five UK cultural centres shortlisted for world's biggest museum prize

Winner of the Art Fund's Museum of the Year prize will receive a £120,000 award at a ceremony on 17 July

An invisible €171m renovation: Dutch royal palace reopens after five-year-long underground project

Designed as a royal hunting lodge in 1686, Het Loo has been transformed with a vast new entrance hall and multiple exhibition spaces hidden beneath the courtyard