Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery honours Aretha Franklin

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery honours Aretha Franklin | In tribute to the singer Aretha Franklin, who has died at the age of 76, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery is displaying a rare portrait of her by the designer Milton Glaser. Glaser created the lithographic poster in 1968 as an insert for Eye Magazine; it has since been widely reproduced, but the gallery holds an original copy. The work is on display from today until Wednesday 22nd.

Christina Nielsen named director of art collections at the Huntington | The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens has appointed Christina Nielsen as director of art collections. Nielsen, currently a senior curator at the Gardner Museum in Boston, will take over in October from interim director Catherine Hess. She completed her PhD in art history at the University of Chicago, and has also worked at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

MFA Boston receives $1 million grant from Japanese foundation | The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has been awarded a $1 million grant from the Ishibashi Foundation in Tokyo. The grant will fund five new fellowships in Japanese art at the institution, and each fellow will receive a two-year appointment as an assistant curator in the field.

Tomás Toledo appointed chief curator of Museu de Arte de São Paulo | The Museu de Arte de São Paulo has announced the promotion of Tomás Toledo to chief curator. Toledo joined the institution in 2014, and has since curated several major exhibitions featuring artists from South America and abroad.

Recommended reading | For Le Monde, Samuel Blumenfeld examines the ‘baroque’ photography of Sebastián Bruno, who has retraced the 2,500-kilometre odyssey of Cervantes’ hero Don Quixote (French language article). Meanwhile, Chris Sharratt highlights the effects of Brexit on artists who need British visas, writing in Frieze that the UK risks becoming a ‘cultural pariah’. And Tanya Harrod pays tribute in the Guardian to the ceramic artist Janice Tchalenko, who died last month aged 76.