News

Frank Auerbach has died at the age of 93

The painter, best known for his impasto renderings of London and atmospheric portraits, died yesterday morning in his home in north London

12 Nov 2024

Sotheby’s announces first auction in Saudi Arabia – and completes Breuer Building deal

Plus: Art Basel reported to be in talks to run Abu Dhabi Art; Ashmolean acquires rare work by Fra Angelico; and Daniel Spoerri (1930–2024)

10 Nov 2024

Tens of thousands flee Baalbek after Israel issues evacuation order including World Heritage site

Plus: the UK budget announced, with mixed news for the arts; and archaeologists discover ancient Mayan city in Mexico

3 Nov 2024

Frieze’s parent company considering selling art fairs and magazine

Plus: the Whitney Museum of American Art is making admission free for under-26s after a donation from Julie Mehretu; and Gary Indiana has died at the age of 74

25 Oct 2024

Christine Macel steps down as director of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs

Plus: National Gallery in London bans liquids, Lisa Schiff pleads guilty to defrauding clients, and Darren Walker is the next president of the NGA in Washington, D.C.

19 Oct 2024

Directors of major UK museums call for attacks on artworks to stop

Plus: Lebanon’s culture minister calls for the country’s heritage sites to be protected from Israeli bombing; and a shield looted by the British in 1868 will be returned to Ethiopia

13 Oct 2024

Plans revived for Centre Pompidou satellite in New Jersey

Plus: climate activists acquitted in Manchester, Hammer Museum appoints Zoë Ryan as its new director, and researchers find 7th-century throne room in Peru

4 Oct 2024

Climate activists throw soup at Van Gogh paintings after jailing of fellow protestors

Plus: Unesco describes ‘unprecedented’ threat to Sudan’s cultural heritage, and Volodymyr Zelensky calls for ‘the decolonisation of Ukrainian art’

29 Sep 2024

Frick Collection’s next director is Royal Academy’s Axel Rüger

Plus: the Netherlands returns 288 objects seized from Indonesia during colonial rule; and LACMA postpones opening new building to visitors to 2026

20 Sep 2024

Glenn Lowry to step down as MoMA director after 30 years

The museum’s longest serving director is leaving in 2025; plus the artist Rebecca Horn has died at the age of 80, and the Italian culture minister has resigned after hiring his lover as an advisor

13 Sep 2024

Sotheby’s earnings plummet by 88 per cent in first half of year

Plus: open letter criticises Chinese interference in French museums, and Las Vegas is to get an art museum

6 Sep 2024

Former head of Frieze fairs Victoria Siddall appointed director of National Portrait Gallery

Plus: British museum shortlists five architects for major refurbishment, and the art historian David Anfam has died at the age of 69

30 Aug 2024

Creative Scotland closes its key fund for artists amid government budget freeze

Plus: Staff at the Noguchi Museum stage a walk-out over its dress code; and Alain Delon (1935–2024)

23 Aug 2024

Stonehenge megalith transported from Scotland, not Wales, study finds

Plus: the British Museum admits that it broke the law; and Kasper König (1943–2024)

16 Aug 2024

Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund takes stake in Sotheby’s

Plus: Harvard refuses to remove Sackler name from university art museum, and Slovak culture minister fires director of the national gallery

9 Aug 2024

Russian dissident artist Aleksandra Skochilenko released in prisoner swap

UK government scraps Stonehenge tunnel, and American Museum of Natural History repatriates the remains of 124 individuals

3 Aug 2024

UNESCO puts off placing Stonehenge on at-risk list

Plus: US officials recover $1.2m Picasso drawing and Venice’s tourist tax has raised much more than expected

28 Jul 2024

New British Museum director seems to support loaning Parthenon marbles to Greece

Plus: UK government reintroduces Holocaust Memorial Bill; and video artist Bill Viola has died at the age of 73

19 Jul 2024

Former British Museum director to head new museum in Saudi Arabia

Plus: the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation gets a new president, and a 4,000-year-old temple and theatre complex is unearthed in northern Peru

12 Jul 2024

The Labour Party has won the UK general election – and Lisa Nandy is the new culture secretary

Plus: Documenta appoints new search committee for an artist director | Jacqueline de Jong (1939–2024)

5 Jul 2024

Bührle Collection’s provenance research found inadequate by highly critical report

Plus: Eike Schmidt loses bid to become mayor of Florence; and US Supreme Court reverses a ruling that protected Sackler family from civil lawsuits

28 Jun 2024

The week in art news – Just Stop Oil protestors spray powder on Stonehenge

Plus: Matthew Teitelbaum, director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, is stepping down; and the art dealer Barbara Gladstone has died

21 Jun 2024

Greece welcomes Turkish rejection of Lord Elgin’s right to remove Parthenon marbles

Plus: Dealers Robilant+Voena hit by employee lawsuit, and French Fluxus artist Ben Vautier has died at the age of 88

9 Jun 2024

United States returns hundreds of looted antiquities to Italy

Plus: the classical archaeologist and art historian John Boardman has died at the age of 96

2 Jun 2024