Tag: artnews.com

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/GettyImages-1483112189.jpg?w=1024″] The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., announced the repatriation of three antiquities valued at $160,000 to Mexico, including one seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The return of the objects is a result of multiple investigations into illegal trafficking networks, including one that led to the conviction of…

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/BritishMuseum.jpg?w=1024″] Several political parties across the UK Parliament have called for an independent investigation into the British Museum‘s removal of the terms “Palestine,” “Palestinian,” and “Israelite occupation” after a Middle East Eye report linked the museum’s decision to lobbying by pro-Israel activists. The British Museum defended its decision to alter some displays in…

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/GettyImages-607402422.jpg?w=1024″] An iconic piece of Star Wars memorabilia smashed predictions and sold for a record-setting sum.  Heritage Auctions confirmed late Wednesday afternoon that Mark Hamill’s original screen-used Luke Skywalker lightsaber sold for $3.75 million. It’s the one he wielded during a climactic face-off with Darth Vader in 1980’s Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back until…

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/38507_ZZZ04605-cAxel-Konig-StMWK-Runder-Tisch_880_468.jpg?w=1024″] The German state of Bavaria has overhauled the way that claims for restitution of Nazi-looted artworks will be evaluated. The state will establish a Center for Provenance Research and Restitution Issues of Nazi-Looted Art at the Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ). This takes the provenance research outside of the museums that own…

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2025_NYR_24254_0008A_003pierre_soulages_peinture_161_x_200_cm_14_novembre_1958043844.jpg?w=1024″] A Pierre Soulages painting that sold at Christie’s last fall is at the center of a new lawsuit, which alleges that the work was stolen from the plaintiffs’ family decades ago. Filed in New York State Supreme Court on Monday, the suit concerns Soulages’s 1958 abstraction Peinture 161 x 200 cm, 14…

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/GettyImages-1228628892.jpg?w=1024″] Steidl Verlag, one of the most beloved publishers of photobooks, is facing preliminary insolvency proceedings in Germany, according to reports in the German media. NDR reports that insolvency proceedings were opened on Friday in a court in Göttingen at the request of a creditor. A court is also reviewing claims that the…

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/murmurs.jpg?w=1024″] Murmurs, a gallery located in Downtown Los Angeles that was known for its eye for spotting rising talent, announced this week that it will close after seven years in business. Its final exhibition was a solo for Rodrigo Ramírez Rodríguez, which ended on June 27. In an Instagram post, cofounders Allison Littrell…

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/8a50cac1-5c22-55d1-ea42-94d267914d11.jpg?w=1024″] Pat Oleszko, a sculptor and performance artist who was not well-known in New York before earlier this year, has won the 2026 Whitney Biennial’s $100,000 Bucksbaum Award, a prize previously won by famed artists such as Zoe Leonard, Ralph Lemon, and Pope.L. Oleszko’s contribution to the show was a large inflatable sculpture…

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/girls-watering-flowers.jpg?w=1024″] To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. Good Morning! Manhattan prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos on the fight against the global trade in stolen antiquities.  A new show in Norway explores the “harsher realities” behind Edvard Munch’s famous 1922 Freia frieze, which depicts cheerful scenes of workers enjoying nature.  The British…

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Tavitian-Clark-Art.jpg?w=1024″] The Clark Art Institute, a treasure trove of Western art, opened in the scenic Berkshire Mountains in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1955. The site was chosen partly because of the museum’s ties to Williams College on the part of founders Sterling and Francine Clark, but also, in the wake of World War II,…