News
Magritte painting sells for $121m – highest sum ever for a Surrealist work
Plus: UNESCO places 34 sites in Lebanon under ‘enhanced protection’; Berlin to cut its arts budget by €130m; and an armed heist at the Musée Cognacq-Jay
Frank Auerbach has died at the age of 93
Plus: Italian police uncover a pan-European network of art forgers; and the British Museum receives a gift of Chinese ceramics worth £1bn
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)
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
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
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.
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
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
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’
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
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
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
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
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)
Stonehenge megalith transported from Scotland, not Wales, study finds
Plus: the British Museum admits that it broke the law; and Kasper König (1943–2024)
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
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
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
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
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
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)
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
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
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
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