Artnews

UNESCO Launches First Virtual Museum of Looted Cultural Objects

Visitors wear VR sets for exhibitions at the Wei and Jin Dynasties Ancient Tombs Site Museum in Kuqa City, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 15, 2024. Xinhua News Agency via Getty Ima On Monday, UNESCO, the cultural arm of the United Nations, launched the world’s first virtual museum of stolen cultural objects, which …

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Bankrupt Financier George Allen Weiss Is Trying to Sell a $36.5 M. Monet to Pay Down His $100 M. Debt

Another work from Claude Monet’s Nympheas (water lilies) series at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images Financier George Allen Weiss is seeking to sell Claude Monet’s Nymphéas (1914–17) to help pay down debt, according to recent court filings. The painting, measuring 53 ⅛ by 57 ½ inches, is slated to …

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Security Guards Accuse San Francisco’s de Young Museum of Abusive Workplace Culture

The de Young Museum. Photo George Rose/Getty Images Security guards at the de Young Museum in San Francisco have accused institution leadership, as well as their own union representation, of enabling a toxic workplace, reports the San Francisco Standard.   The article published earlier this month details a decade-long laundry of grievances against the Fine …

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This Tina Turner Statue in Tennessee Is the Latest Bad Public Artwork

The unveiling of the Tina Turner statue in Brownsville, Tennessee. Courtesy Brownsville Haywood County Chamber of Commerce Here is the bad public artwork du jour: a statue of Tina Turner in her hometown Brownsville, Tennessee, that measures 10 feet tall and garishly distorts the face of the late pop star it supposedly depicts. The statue …

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Researchers Identify the Oldest Blue Pigment Found in Europe

Results from the PIXE analysis of the Paleolithic stone from Mühlheim-Dietesheim, Germany, showing traces of blue mineral pigment. Courtesy Antiquity The color blue has a long, elusive history often due to its rarity in nature and sometimes toxic qualities. Analyzing a stone from the Paleolithic site Mühlheim-Dietesheim in Germany, however, researchers identified the earliest known …

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Picasso Museum in Paris Announces $59 M. Expansion with New Free Open-Air Sculpture Park

Musée Picasso, Paris Andia/Universal Images Group via Getty Images. The Musée Picasso-Paris announced plans for a €50 million (around $59 million) “transformation” including a new wing for temporary exhibitions and a reconfigured design to combine its garden with the nearby Square Léonor-Fini. The construction work is slated to take place from 2028 to 2030, during …

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Long-Awaited Exhibition for Rediscovered Old Master Michaelina Wautier Opens in Vienna

Michaelina Wautier, The Triumph of Bacchus, ca. 1655–59. Courtesy Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna The 17th-century painter Michaelina Wautier was nearly forgotten by art historians until 1993, when one of her paintings was discovered in the storage area of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The monumental painting in question, Triumph of Bacchus, caught Belgian art history professor …

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Rachel Whiteread’s Collaboration with French Silversmith Company Inspired by Corrugated Cardboard

Rachel Whiteread won the Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon Award in January 2019. Dave Benett/Getty Images for Whitechapel Gallery, London English artist Rachel Whiteread—or rather, Dame Rachel Whiteread—is collaborating with Puiforcat, a French silversmith company, on a new silverware collection. Whiteread won the prestigious Turner Prize in 1993; she was the first female winner, and, at …

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Control of Warhol Photographer Billy Name’s Estate Is Under Dispute in New York Court

Billy Name at the opening of the exhibition “The Warhol Look: Glamour, Style, Fashion,” 1997,” at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Photo Catherine McGann/Getty Images At a courthouse in Kingston, New York, a jury trial is underway to determine who will control the estate of Billy Name, an artist who lived with Andy Warhol …

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Christie’s to Offer Major Yoshitomo Nara Canvas in London After Recent Market Test

Yoshitomo Nara, Haze Days, 1998. ©2025 CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. Christie’s will offer Yoshitomo Nara’s Haze Days (1998) at its 20th/21st century evening sale in London on October 15, with an estimate of £6.5 million–£8.5 million ($8.7 million–$11.4 million). The large-scale painting comes to auction just weeks after the close of the artist’s retrospective at London’s Hayward Gallery, his …

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