Latest

'The world's most expensive banana': Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian fetches $6.2m at Sotheby’s New York

The buyer, the collector and crypto investor Justin Sun, immediately vowed to eat the banana

Carlie Porterfieldabout 5 hours ago

Three climate activists charged following Stonehenge paint protest

The members of Just Stop Oil are set to appear in court next month

Gareth Harrisabout 18 hours ago

Vancouver Art Gallery expands Asian art programme with $1.1m gift

The museum’s renamed Centre for Global Asias seeks to “recognise the many Asias that exist, within the geography of Asia itself and in the global diaspora”

Hadani Ditmarsabout 10 hours ago

Newly conserved star atlas, a masterpiece of 17th-century Dutch art, to go on display for first time

The Harmonia Macrocosmica by Andreas Cellarius, one of the most precious volumes in the Blickling Estate's library, was too fragile to be exhibited

Maev Kennedy1 day ago

The Louvre’s department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian art is taking shape—at last

Years in the making, plans for the department were shelved a decade ago; now it is due to open in 2027

Dale Berning Sawaabout 19 hours ago

Art market

Magritte gets star billing at Christie's $410m 'solid as a rock' evening auction

The interior designer Mica Ertegun's Surrealist L'empire des lumières sold for a record $121.1m in New York last night, with a new high also set for Ed Ruscha

Judd Tullyabout 18 hours ago

Phillips's contemporary art auction in New York, hampered by Basquiat flop, brings in slim $44.2m

The night’s total take took a major hit when it was revealed that its second-biggest lot, a Basquiat self-portrait, had failed to sell

Sotheby's New York delivers white glove auction of Sydell Miller collection but patchy Modern evening sale

Kicking off November's marquee evening sales, the house brought in a total of $268.6m from 49 lots

Judd Tully2 days ago

Bollywood and billionaires: Art Mumbai sees ‘very healthy’ sales at expanded second edition

The fair welcomed 71 galleries this year, while local competition intensifies

Sotheby's pays over $6m to settle tax evasion case

The terms of the settlement in New York allowed Sotheby's to resolve the issue without admitting any wrongdoing

Museums & Heritage

UK's National Lottery at 30: who are the culture sector's winners and losers?

National Lottery players raise more than £30m every week and fund over 700,000 projects across the UK—but when it comes to funding the arts, some say the scheme is in need of an overhaul

Gareth Harris1 day ago

Unesco steps in to protect Lebanese heritage sites

Following an “extraordinary” meeting, the heritage body has put 34 historic sites on its enhanced protection list

Gareth Harris2 days ago

Romans rebel against Colosseum and Airbnb's plans to stage gladiatorial battles for tourists

The partnership will allow visitors to see real-life gladiatorial battles at the world's most famous amphitheatre

James Imam2 days ago

Toledo Museum of Art uses cryptocurrency to acquire digital art piece

The museum used USD Coin to buy an NFT in a new series by the artist collective Yatreda ያጥሬዳ

‘The forgotten factor’: nations at Cop29 call for official recognition of role culture can play in climate recovery

A campaign to give arts and heritage “a seat at the table” for negotiations at the annual summit already has the support of around 40 countries and more than 1,500 civil society organisations

Exhibitions

From neon installations to an animatronic bear, here's what not to miss this Turin Art week

The event may be focused around Artissima, Italy’s leading art fair, but there's must-see exhibitions to found across the city

Louisa Buck1 day ago

'It's a process of following your curiosity': Firelei Báez on her exhibitions in Los Angeles and Vancouver

The artist discusses her concurrent shows at Hauser & Wirth in Los Angeles and the Vancouver Art Gallery

Torey Akers1 day ago

Tate exhibition celebrates a riotous decade in British photography

From tumultuous political events to countercultural visibility, Tate Britain show examines the 1980s through the work of Martin Parr, Chris Killip and many others

Out with the Astors, in with the Calders: revisiting Newport, Rhode Island’s 1974 public sculpture extravaganza

Fifty years later, Monumenta’s organisers and attendees reflect on what was arguably the most ambitious school project ever

Catch them if you can: shows to see before the Venice Biennale closes

Ahead of the Biennale's closing week, we highlight the talking-point exhibitions and events that there's still time to catch

A brush with... podcast

A podcast that asks artists the questions you've always wanted to

A brush with… Goshka Macuga — podcast

An in-depth interview with Turner nominee Goshka Macuga, discussing her influences from Eileen Agar to Stanisław Lem—and how she came to dance in her studio

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by David Clackabout 16 hours ago
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Frank Auerbach (1931-2024)

The famously reclusive German-born, London-based artist—associated with the School of London alongside friends and peers such as Francis Bacon, Leon Kossoff and Lucian Freud—made his home city, his fellow artists and friends his subject

‘Like Picasso, everything he touched was wonderful’: the art world pays tribute to Frank Auerbach

Curators, institutions and critics remember a “humble giant of figurative painting” who worked from the same London studio for 70 years and made his home city, its art collections and inhabitants the subject of his unique output

Louis Jebb and Gareth Harris15 November 2024

Remembering Frank Auerbach, one of the leading artists of his generation, who has died aged 93

The German-born British painter, a leading figure in the School of London, produced some of the most enduring and perceptive observations of what it meant to be alive during his time

Matthew Holman12 November 2024

From the archive | Immediacy of experience: Robert Hughes's 1990 monograph of Frank Auerbach

The author of "The Shock of the New" is both literary and discursive in the first book-length study of the German-born, London-based, artist

James Hyman1 October 1990

From the archive | Frank Auerbach: ‘The actual idiom of paintings is definitely changed. Drawing seems independent of time’

In this interview relating to an exhibition in Venice in 2019, Frank Auerbach discusses the importance of drawing in his work, from street sketches to working from the Old Masters

Alma Zevi1 April 2020

From the archive | Frank Auerbach, a modern master inspired by the Old Masters, on show at London's National Gallery

Exhibition includes oil or acrylic paintings based on compositions owned by the gallery by Titian, Rubens and Rembrandt

Roger Bevan1 July 1995

Obituaries

Remembering Hanif Kureshi, the artist credited with popularising street art in India

Kureshi decorated India’s public spaces with beautiful, provocative and socially engaged murals

Paul Lowe, conflict photographer and teacher lauded for Sarajevo siege photographs, dies, aged 60

Acclaimed photojournalist's teenage son charged with his murder on a popular hiking trail near Los Angeles

François Duret-Robert, art market journalist, professor and collector, has died aged 92

The former editor of Connaissance des Arts was a leading figure in the French art market

‘You must walk close to the edge’—the pioneering German artist Rebecca Horn dies, aged 80

Horn maintained a powerful drawing strand that supported her innovative conceptual sculpture practice around the human body in installations, performances and photographs

Book Club

‘He laughed like a madman’: when Édouard Manet decided to touch up one of Berthe Morisot's paintings

An extract from a new book by Sebastian Smee—about the Impressionists during the Siege of Paris and Paris Commune—brings to life the peculiar episode of artistic intervention

Five must-read art history books for the under-fives

All you ever wanted to know about art (if you are little), from a cat that wanders round Tate Modern at night to why Louise Bourgeois made giant spiders—selected by The Art Newspaper's Anna Brady

How a Persian manuscript was swapped for a Willem de Kooning owned by the Iranian government

Oliver Hoare's memoir details the story of the ambitious exchange of an Iranian masterpiece for a painting by the Abstract Expressionist

‘The Roman emperors wouldn’t have put up with it’: Harry Kane statue gets art critics talking

The footballer attended the unveiling of the work after it finally found a permanent home

Listen up, Elon: Clifton Suspension Bridge Museum makes dramatic exit from X

Bristol institution makes waves after quitting social media platform

Lytton Strachey foxes Julianne Moore in Pedro Almodóvar film

The actor's failure to correctly pronounce the name of Bloomsbury Group writer leaves some viewers baffled

Erection of phallic sculpture in Naples sparks heated debate

Gaetano Pesce’s new public sculpture enflames city councillors

Books

How Korean feminist art developed alongside the country’s move to democracy is explored in new book

An exploration of the driving force of so-called “K-feminism” and the connection between art and politics in Korea

Dealer’s memoir offers a wild ride through the 1960s New York art scene

Michael Findlay reveals his art world beginnings as a lucky 18-year-old Scot in the Big Apple

A new monograph highlights Jamaican-born sculptor Ronald Moody as one of Britain's most important Modernists

Moody defied family expectations to pursue his art, and is now celebrated in an exhibition at The Hepworth Wakefield

Opinion

Comment | EU’s new anti-looting law is another blow for legitimate trade

Though laudible in its aim to kerb trafficking of stolen goods, planned rules will impose unreasonable burdens on lawful and genuine trade

Rudy Capildeo

Comment | In the run up to the US election, Boston's Museum of Fine Art is hopeful about art's role in a democratic future

The museum's latest exhibition explains and scrutinises democracy through objects spanning 2,500 years

Phoebe Segal

Steve McQueen delves into family history at Dia Chelsea

Works in the artist’s show at the New York institution include a video installation in which he narrates a story of racially motivated violence told by his father against images of the actor Al Jonson in blackface

Comment | Paris vs London debate is a 'non-troversy', says Christie's Guillaume Cerutti

Auction house chief executive argues that of greater concern is the decline of Europe's art market as America and Asia charge ahead

Comment | I thought I knew Stevie Wonder’s music until Arthur Jafa showed it in a new light

American artist Jafa's recent video work recontextualises Wonder's song 'As' as well as the film 'Taxi Driver'

The Week in Art

A podcast bringing you the latest news from the art world, every week

Episode 300! British Museum, Tate Modern and V&A East directors in discussion

A special roundtable conversation touching on some of the biggest issues facing museums: from the need to address colonial histories to sponsorship and AI

Adventures with Van Gogh

Adventures with Van Gogh is a weekly blog by Martin Bailey, our long-standing correspondent and expert on the artist. Published every Friday, his stories range from newsy items about this most intriguing artist to scholarly pieces based on his own meticulous investigations and discoveries.

Van Gogh’s finest ‘London drawing’ was not done in the UK, but later in Amsterdam

The sketch of Austin Friars Church throws fresh light on Vincent’s draftsmanship, suggesting he was even more of a late developer as an artist

Technology

News, background and analysis on the latest tech developments—artificial intelligence tools; Web3, the blockchain, NFTs; virtual and augmented reality; social media platforms—and how they affect the art market, museums, artists and curators.

Vatican launches AI-generated version of St Peter’s Basilica

Co-developed by Microsoft, the project also identified conservation issues at the world-famous church

Technologyanalysis

How auction houses are embracing artificial intelligence

New services such as AI-enhanced translation are proving popular, even as human involvement remains crucial

From roving gallery to London’s Mayfair: Unit’s social media journey, 11 years on

Joe Kennedy and Jonny Burt didn’t have any of the traditional things needed to start a gallery—but they did have the power of Instagram

New York's Salon 94 is feeling the TikTok visitor effect

A content creator's positive post has led to a massive uptick in the gallery's footfall

Artists Amoako Boafo, Hans Haacke and Deborah Butterfield among thousands to sign statement against AI content scraping

Artists and organisations across the creative industries have come out in opposition to the practice of AI firms training their technology with copyrighted, unlicensed material