MILL VALLEY Calif. (Reuters) – Robin Williams was the only person who came backstage to see him when satirist Mort Sahl gave a show 17 years ago, and the 87-year-old comic said it marked the start of a close friendship that ended with the comedian’s apparent s... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Robin Williams was suffering from the early stages of Parkinson’s disease along with severe depression at the time of his apparent suicide, his widow said on Thursday, drawing public attention to the correlation between the diseases. Al... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Robin Williams was sober but suffering from the early stages of Parkinson’s disease as well as severe depression and anxiety at the time of his apparent suicide, the actor’s widow said in a statement on Thursday. Susan Schneider said Wi... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sometimes the best way to get to the heart of a story is through the elbow, said Ivar Pall Jonsson, the Icelandic creator of the new rock musical “Revolution in the Elbow of Ragnar Agnarsson Furniture Painter.” The musical, which debuts on... More »
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – When Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban won re-election in a landslide in April, his dominance over the country’s politics cheered supporters, dismayed opponents and inspired one artist to immortalize him in more than 100 portraits. Orb... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – From the stern couple in “American Gothic” displayed at a bus station in New York to the colorful flags in “Allies Day” over an intersection in Chicago, paintings are popping up everywhere in what is billed as the world’s largest art show.... More »
FREETOWN/MONROVIA (Reuters) – The army blockaded on Thursday rural areas in Sierra Leone that have been hit by the deadly Ebola virus, a senior officer said, after neighboring Liberia declared a state of emergency to tackle the worst outbreak of the disease on... More »
MADRID (Reuters) – The first European infected by a strain of Ebola that has killed more than 932 people in West Africa, Spanish priest Miguel Pajares, was stable in a Madrid hospital on Thursday after being airlifted from Liberia, health authorities said. Paj... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Edouard Manet’s 1881 celebrated portrait “Le Printemps,” which has been owned by the same family for a century, will be auctioned for the first time this year and could fetch up to $35 million, Christie’s auction house said on Friday. The ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – British artist Tracey Emin’s “My Bed”, which caused a stir when it was sold at auction this month for 2.5 million pounds ($4.2 million), will be exhibited in Britain on long-term loan from its German owner, the Tate group of museums said on ... More »
SALZBURG Austria (Reuters) – The Berlin-born Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon left behind a body of watercolors and text she called “Life? or Theatre?” before she was killed at Auschwitz in 1943 at age 26, carrying her unborn child. Salomon’s life, which has in... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Double Tony-winner James Earl Jones returns to the New York stage next month as an eccentric grandfather in a revival of the 1930s comedy romance “You Can’t Take It With You” along with Australian actress Rose Byrne, who is making her Broa... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – American writers hold four of the 13 slots on the Man Booker Prize 2014 long list announced on Wednesday, the first year the prestigious literary award has been open to all authors writing in English and published in the United Kingdom. The ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – An iconic piano featured in Rick’s Cafe Americain in the 1942 Hollywood classic “Casablanca” is expected to be the highlight of a sale of film memorabilia in New York in November, Bonhams auction house said on Monday. The upright piano is ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A former homeless man’s sketches of his dog George, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier he credits with changing his life, are commanding rising prices in a London gallery and have earned him a show in Los Angeles. John Dolan, 43, who used to sell ... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – A super typhoon slammed into China on Friday killing one person, as the government ordered an all-out effort to prevent loss of life from a storm that has already killed at least 64 people in the Philippines. Typhoon Rammasun, with winds of... More »
(Reuters) – Elaine Stritch, a husky-voiced actress whose performances over six decades lit up New York’s Broadway and London’s West End and brought a touch of the profane to the stage with her brassy personality, died on Thursday at age 89. Stritch, who also h... More »
(Reuters) – A German artist has turned a tiny surveillance booth used by the communist regime in the former East Germany to monitor citizens into an art exhibit and venue, which will be installed in a museum near Los Angeles dedicated to the Cold War. The one-... More »
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South African Nobel Prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer, an unwavering moralist who became one of the most powerful voices against the injustice of apartheid, has died at the age of 90, her family said on Monday. Gordimer, who was awa... More »
(Reuters) – The Detroit Institute of Arts said on Wednesday it has secured another $26.8 million in pledged donations to cover its portion of the “grand bargain” intended to help Detroit emerge from bankruptcy while sparing a sale of the museum’s art works. Th... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Trophy art sales including Monet’s “Nympheas” and Picasso’s “Portrait de femme (Dora Maar)” ensured bumper earnings for Sotheby’s and Christie’s in the first half, the auction houses said on Wednesday. The sale of Monet’s “Nympheas” for 31.7... More »
(Reuters) – The Detroit Institute of Arts collection may be worth as much as $4.6 billion, but a sale of art works would raise less than $2 billion to pay the bankrupt city’s creditors, according to a report released on Wednesday. Michael Plummer, an art exper... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Madeline, the plucky French schoolgirl depicted in illustrated children’s books, was created 75 years ago and New York is marking the anniversary of the iconic character with a special exhibition. “Madeline in New York: The Art of Ludwig B... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – An audience of 16,000 cheered for the dead parrot and the Spanish Inquisition, and sang along to “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” in London’s O2 arena on Tuesday for the premiere of what has been billed as Monty Python’s last stand. ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Tracey Emin’s “My Bed,” complete with cigarette butts, crumpled sheets and underwear, sold for 2.5 million pounds ($4.25 million) on Tuesday, a record for the artist, who was present at the auction and applauded and whooped delightedly. Emin... More »
NEW YORK Reuters) – An 82-year-old Mexican artist is hoping that 122 bicycle sculptures he has erected around New York City will get people on their bikes, spur an interest in urban art and create greener, healthier cities. Each steel sculpture by Gilberto Ace... More »
LONDRES (Reuters) – A Francis Bacon small-format triptych of his lover George Dyer made what Sotheby’s called a “landmark” price of 26.7 million pounds ($45.4 million) on Monday in a contemporary art sale that surpassed estimates and set records for some artis... More »
MARSEILLE (Reuters) – Avignon Festival workers have voted to allow the opening night of the renowned arts and theater event to go ahead on Friday, a union official said, as strikes threatened summer festivals elsewhere in France. Workers were 80 percent in fav... More »
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A proposal to change the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, made famous in the “Rocky” movie, is not definite, architect Frank Gehry said on Thursday. Plans for a major expansion of the museum, unveiled to the media on Thursday, ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. pop artist Jeff Koons’ retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art brings his work full-circle because an exhibit at the New York landmark 40 years ago set him off on his groundbreaking career. Koons is considered one of the w... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – In 1993 at the age of 12, Jose Antonio Vargas said goodbye to his mother and boarded a plane in the Philippines to join his grandparents in California. It would be four more years before he would learn that he was in the United States i... More »
(Reuters) – (This June 24 story has been corrected in paragraph 5 to say Norman instead of Normal, to drop extraneous word “the”. Also adds dropped word “of” in penultimate paragraph.) Chicago has been selected by “Star Wars” filmmaker George Lucas as the home... More »
CHARLESTON S.C. (Reuters) – In the bowels of what was once a jail in Charleston, South Carolina, Cody James, 22, is carving limestone blocks into a mantelpiece for one of the city’s historic homes. The 19th-century jail that housed Union prisoners during the C... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – An American artist is attempting to create a photographic portrait of Berlin that will capture the city over 100 years in a single shot from pinhole cameras in 100 secret locations. Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats’s ultra long-exposure proj... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Art experts will be combing the archives, analyzing correspondence and scrutinizing sketches and photographs to try to identity a mystery man whose portrait was discovered hidden under “The Blue Room,” a 1901 painting by Pablo Picasso. Inf... More »
SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Twenty previously unknown poems by Chile’s Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda have been discovered among sheaves of manuscripts in boxes and will be published this year. The poems were stumbled upon when the Pablo Neruda Foundation was ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – British actress Gemma Arterton is best known as a Bond girl in “Quantum of Solace” and as a princess in “Prince of Persia”, but she’s back to her working-class roots for a musical version of the film “Made in Dagenham” about a strike at a ca... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – British actress Gemma Arterton is best known as a Bond girl in “Quantum of Solace” and as a princess in “Prince of Persia”, but she’s back to her working-class roots for a musical version of the film “Made in Dagenham” about a strike at a ca... More »
LAUGHARNE Wales (Reuters) – This year’s centenary of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’s birth has sparked a creative explosion and for some is also a chance to reassess a writer whose bohemian reputation as a drunk and a womanizer has sometimes eclipsed his work. The y... More »
LAUGHARNE Wales (Reuters) – This year’s centenary of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’s birth has sparked a creative explosion and for some is also a chance to reassess a writer whose bohemian reputation as a drunk and a womanizer has sometimes eclipsed his work. The y... More »
WASHINGTON/BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear Argentina’s appeal over its battle with hedge funds that refused to take part in its debt restructurings, an unexpected move that risks toppling Latin America’s No 3 economy ... More »
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – President Cristina Fernandez said on Monday that Argentina would honor its payments to holders of its restructured debt and so avoid a default despite suffering a setback in its long-running legal battle against “holdout” investors. Th... More »
SAO PAULO/CUIABA (Reuters) – World Cup fever intensified across Brazil on Friday as violent protests subsided, fans streamed to a second day of riveting matches and a crushing defeat for defending champions Spain set the tournament alight. Despite a last minut... More »
SAO PAULO (Reuters) – World Cup fever gathered steam across Brazil on Friday as fans streamed to a second day of matches and violent protests subsided, although a last-minute scramble to get some host cities ready kept organizers on edge. Brazil’s opening vict... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A massive Pablo Picasso theater curtain that has graced the hallway of New York City’s landmark Four Seasons Restaurant for more than 50 years will be moved to a museum, the artwork’s owner said Thursday. “Le Tricorne,” a 19-foot (5.8-mete... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Anyone attending the premiere of Berlioz’s rarely seen opera “Benvenuto Cellini”, directed by Monty Python alumnus Terry Gilliam at the English National Opera, could be forgiven for thinking it was a preview for the Python reunion show in Ju... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Original manuscripts and drawings by former Beatle John Lennon, produced for two acclaimed books he wrote in the mid-1960s, sold for $2.9 million on Wednesday, more than double the pre-sale estimate, Sotheby’s auction house said. All of th... More »
TADRART ACACUS Libya (Reuters) – Vandals have destroyed prehistoric rock art in lawless southern Libya, endangering a sprawling tableau of paintings and carvings classified by UNESCO as of “outstanding universal value”. Located along Libya’s southwestern tip b... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Original manuscripts and autographed drawings for two acclaimed books produced by former Beatle John Lennon in the mid-1960s will be sold at auction next week in New York, Sotheby’s said on Thursday. Eighty nine lots, ranging in price from... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A family portrait by Colombian artist Fernando Botero and works by Uruguayan artist Joaquin Torres-Garcia and Brazilian sculptress Lygia Clark led Latin American art auctions in New York. Christie’s sold a total of $17.6 million and Sotheb... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – New musicals, original plays, revivals and star performers boosted Broadway’s grosses this season more than 11 percent and pushed attendance up 5.6 percent, according to figures released on Tuesday. Forty-four productions opened during the... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – (This May 13, 2014 story was refiled to correct the final words in quote in last paragraph and adds how Reuters received a copy of Umanets’ video statement) A Mark Rothko painting vandalized at London’s Tate Modern gallery 18 months ago went... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A family portrait by Colombian artist Fernando Botero and a depiction of psychological turmoil by Chilean painter Roberto Matta are expected to be the highlights of Latin American art sales in New York next week. Botero’s 1969 “Man Going t... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Stradivarius violin forgotten in a closet for decades and formerly owned by a reclusive U.S. heiress to a copper fortune could sell for as much as $10 million in a sealed bid auction next month, according to Christie’s. If the 1731 violi... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Five centuries after he ruled the roost in Tudor England, Henry VIII’s chief minister Thomas Cromwell is playing to packed houses in London in two plays based on the best-selling novels of Hilary Mantel. It is further evidence of how her dou... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – The head of Paris’ Picasso museum was sacked on Tuesday as a looming staff revolt and a disputed renovation threatened the long-delayed reopening of the world’s largest collection of the Spanish artist’s works. Culture Minister Aurelie Filipp... More »
DETROIT (Reuters) – Detroit’s three automakers are mulling a request by the city’s art museum to help it raise money for a key component of Detroit’s plan to restructure its debt and exit bankruptcy, representatives of the companies said on Tuesday. Under an $... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A Mark Rothko painting vandalized at London’s Tate Modern gallery 18 months ago went back on public view on Tuesday after the first-ever effort to strip graffiti ink off a major artwork without damaging the layers of paintwork. Rothko’s “Bla... More »
BERN (Reuters) – A Swiss art gallery discovered on Wednesday that it had been named as the sole heir of Cornelius Gurlitt, the reclusive German owner of a hoard of masterpieces discovered accidentally in a tax probe, who died this week aged 81. The Bern Art Mu... More »
GENEVA (Reuters) – Huge yellow and blue diamonds are expected to fetch strong prices at Geneva jewelry sales next week, as investors seek rare stones fresh to a healthy market, auction houses said on Wednesday. The “Graff Vivid Yellow”, star lot at Sotheby’s o... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The spring art auctions got off to a solid start on Tuesday as Christie’s sold $286 million worth of Impressionist and modern art, its best New York result in the category in four years. Led by Monet’s “Nymphéas,” one of the artist’s semin... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – The elderly German recluse whose Munich apartment contained a secret art hoard, including masterpieces looted by the Nazis from their Jewish owners in World War Two, has died after a heart operation, his spokesman said on Tuesday. Authoritie... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – French authorities are trying to make peace with the son of Pablo Picasso after he accused them of dishonoring his father by delaying the re-opening of the Picasso Museum in Paris. The refurbished 17th century mansion housing the collection h... More »
SHEFFIELD England (Reuters) – Broadway musicals are usually revived when, like “My Fair Lady” or “South Pacific”, they have been big hits. But the British stage, in London and elsewhere, has been giving flops a second chance. This year’s Olivier Award for best... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Six months after the record was set for the most expensive painting in auction history at the biggest-ever sale of art, eyes are trained on New York’s upcoming auctions for signs of whether the boom will continue or the bubble will burst. ... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – Abu Dhabi hopes eventually to lure tourists to its own branch of the Louvre museum, but pending its opening in 2015 some of its treasures have gone on display at the place that inspired it – the Louvre in Paris. “Birth of a Museum: Louvre ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A museum in the British city of Portsmouth that displays the salvaged hulk of King Henry VIII’s flagship “Mary Rose”, which sank in an attack on a French invasion fleet in 1545, is among the six finalists named on Thursday for a 100,000-poun... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A selection of works by elusive British graffiti artist Banksy, including the “Mariachi Player” and his “Rat” stencils, are going on sale in June, a Beverly Hills auction house said on Friday. The “Mariachi Player,” a mural of a mariach... More »
PITTSBURGH (Reuters) – Previously unknown digital work made by pop artist Andy Warhol was resurrected from aging floppy disks by forensic computer experts from Carnegie Mellon University, the school announced on Thursday. A dozen newly discovered images were u... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Even when he was in his 80s and in frail health, the French painter, sculptor and, latterly, master of painted cut-out paper Henri Matisse, still had it. That, in part, is what an exhibition of Matisse’s late-life works, some huge and coveri... More »
INDIO, California (Reuters) – Hip hop duo Outkast reunited for the first time in eight years a the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Friday, and brought a taste of old school hip hop with them to the stage. Outkast, formed by Atlanta rappers Andre 30... More »
INDIO, California (Reuters) – A slew of rising artists and bands kicked off the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Friday, ahead of the much anticipated reunion of hip-hop duo Outkast headlining the first night of the three-day festival. Grammy... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – A new exhibition exploring connections between beloved French sculptor August Rodin and controversial U.S. photographer Robert Mapplethorpe has brought a hint of seedy 1980s New York to the heart of Paris. Born in different centuries and on o... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – A German court released on Wednesday an art trove valued at $1 billion to an elderly recluse who had kept it stashed away for decades in his flat before its confiscation in a tax probe. The decision followed an agreement by Cornelius Gurlitt... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – A German pensioner’s decision to let experts check his art trove for Nazi-looted treasures contrasts sharply with the approach of some museums that may hold works stolen from Holocaust victims, a former minister said on Tuesday. Over 2,000 G... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany reached an agreement with an elderly recluse on Monday on the future of a billion-dollar art trove confiscated by authorities, part of which is suspected of being stolen or extorted by the Nazis. The federal government and Bavaria st... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday revealed a series of portraits of world leaders he painted in a new pursuit that he said has “opened my mind,” even though it left him exposed to joking criticism from his mother. An exhibit... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s biggest solo show, featuring a reproduction of the white cell where Chinese authorities held him for 81 days, was unveiled on Wednesday in Berlin without Ai in attendance because the government still holds his pass... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The question of whether a fragile Picasso painting that covers a wall in New York City’s Four Seasons Restaurant will crumble if taken down to allow repairs went before a state court judge on Wednesday. The dispute between the restaurant’s... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s biggest solo show, featuring a reproduction of the white cell where he was held for 81 days by Chinese authorities, was unveiled on Wednesday in Berlin without Ai in attendance because the government still has his ... More »
ROME (Reuters) – By Eleanor Biles ROME, April 2 (Reuters) – A painting by French post-Impressionist Paul Gaugin that was stolen in Britain in 1970 has turned up hanging in the kitchen of a retired factory worker in Sicily, Italian police said on Wednesday. Wit... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – For a writer who explored the world of men without women, Ernest Hemingway certainly liked to have women around him. The Nobel Prize-winning author had four wives in all with barely a day between each changeover, as well as friendships with ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – German artist Anselm Kiefer, many of whose huge canvases examine the legacy of the Third Reich, attributes much of his success to Jewish collectors in New York who latched onto his art early in his career when his fellow Germans were not all... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – With sullied stuffed animals, models of a sci-fi city and a statue of astronaut John Glenn covered in broken ceramic, a retrospective on influential contemporary artist Mike Kelley opens on Monday in Los Angeles, two years after the art... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – A German recluse’s pledge to give his billion-dollar hoard of Nazi-looted artworks back to their rightful owners was welcomed on Thursday but also met with skepticism about how it would work in practice and whether all of it would actually b... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – A German recluse whose billion-dollar art hoard was confiscated will return all works looted by the Nazis to their owners or their descendants, his legal custodian told German media on Wednesday. The paintings, drawings and sculptures were s... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ancient ritual wine vessels, modern contemporary paintings and masterpieces representing Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism and Shintoism are among the highlights of Asian art sales in New York next week. The Asia Week auctions at Christie’s and S... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – The shrieks of mad women assault visitors entering the Musee d’Orsay’s new exhibit on Vincent Van Gogh, an arresting look at the painter’s work as seen through the eyes of the late avant-garde French theatre director and playwright Antonin Ar... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, the new musical based on Roald Dahl’s novel, and a revival of the Stephen Sondheim and Harold Prince 1981 box-office flop “Merrily We Roll Along” received seven nominations each on Monday for the 2014 Oli... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Viking exhibition opening on Thursday at the British Museum has axes, swords, helmets, dragon figureheads and, as its centerpiece, a 37-metre-long (121-feet) Viking warship that is the longest ever excavated. What might be jarring, thoug... More »
MIAMI (Reuters) – One of the world’s leading databases of stolen works of art is offering to help the Cuban government recover dozens of modernist works missing from Havana’s National Museum of Fine Arts. The heist was confirmed late last week by officials wit... More »
MIAMI (Reuters) – Almost 100 Cuban art works have apparently been stolen from the country’s national art museum, and some are turning up in Miami, according to one of the city’s leading gallery owners. Art dealer Ramon Cernuda, a prominent collector of Cuban a... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – George W. Bush, U.S. president turned painter, will have his artwork featured in an exhibit for the first time in April. More than two dozen portraits painted by the 43rd U.S. president will be part of exhibit called “The Art of Leadersh... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – When Jennifer Lawrence tripped on her way to accept her best actress Oscar last year, her blush pink princess-like Dior Haute Couture gown was captured in all its glory as the unscripted moment made ripples around the world. That bonus ... More »
MIAMI (Reuters) – A mural created on the side of a building by the elusive British street artist known as “Banksy” sold for $575,000 on Tuesday, along with dozens of other graffiti-style works at a Miami auction being closely watched due to the soaring value o... More »
MIAMI (Reuters) – Three murals created on the sides of buildings by an elusive British street artist known as “Banksy” will be sold on Tuesday along with millions of dollars in other works at a Miami auction being closely watched due to the soaring value of st... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Luxury fashion group Mulberry has unveiled a new collection of bags in collaboration with British model Cara Delevingne, hoping to improve its fortunes after a profit warning and problems overseas. The made-in-England Cara Delevingne Collect... More »
MIAMI (Reuters) – Miami police have arrested a local artist who they say destroyed a $1 million vase by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei to protest that the city’s newly opened museum is only displaying international art. Dominican-born Maximo Caminero, 51, ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Paintings by Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly and Gerhard Richter led the pack at Sotheby’s evening sale of contemporary art in London, only a week after the auction house beat all records for a sale series in the British capital. The contemporary ar... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The artworks at a new gallery in London’s Shoreditch are not for sale, and their creator plans to destroy them when the show is over. Phlegm, known only by his pseudonym, did not attend the opening and does not give interviews. Gallery owner... More »
