MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Two Wisconsin men were charged Friday with stealing a rare Stradivarius violin worth millions of dollars from a concert violinist in late January, prosecutors said. The violin, which was made in 1715 and had an appraised value of $5 milli... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The National Gallery in London has bought its first ever painting by a U.S. artist, “Men of the Docks” by George Bellows, departing from its previous policy of acquiring only paintings by artists working in Western Europe. The gallery, which... More »
MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – A rare Stradivarius violin worth millions of dollars that was stolen from a concert violinist in an armed robbery last week has been recovered from a Milwaukee residence, law enforcement officials said on Thursday. Authorities discovered ... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Works by Picasso and Van Gogh helped the London arm of Sotheby’s hit its highest-ever sales figure for a single auction, coming close to the overall London record set by rival Christie’s a day earlier, as art sales boomed in the British capi... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The high-end art market kicked off 2014 with a bang when sales at Christie’s impressionist, modern and surrealist art auction set a new record high for any London sale on Tuesday evening. Staggeringly high prices for art at the top end of th... More »
LISBON (Reuters) – Christie’s auction house canceled the sale of 85 paintings by the Catalan Surrealist Joan Miro on Tuesday after an uproar over whether debt-ridden Portugal, their legal owner, could sell the treasures to buyers abroad. The auctioneers withdr... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany must publish the full list of artworks found in the flat of an elderly recluse last year which are mostly believed to have been looted or extorted by the Nazis, a German court ruled on Friday, citing the need for transparency in a ca... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Early works by artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, known for his provocative, powerful and sometimes controversial paintings, will be exhibited and sold in online and in-house auctions in March, Christie’s said on Friday. Approximately 50 works t... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – German museums are willfully ignoring their duty to come clean about works they hold that were looted from Jews by the Nazis, the head of the World Jewish Congress said on Thursday, and the government must do more to force them to act. Germa... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – An abstract painting by German artist Gerhard Richter will go on sale for the first time at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Sale in London, alongside works by Lucian Freud and Andy Warhol, Sotheby’s said on Wednesday. Richter’s “Wand (Wall)”, pai... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – The lawyer of a German recluse who hoarded a trove of Nazi-looted art said on Tuesday he was still waiting for German authorities to provide “clear evidence” that the paintings had been stolen. Hannes Hartung said his client was prepared for... More »
(Reuters) – Defending champion Tiger Woods plunged to new depths when he missed a secondary cut on the PGA Tour for the first time after struggling badly in Saturday’s third round of the Farmers Insurance Open outside San Diego. Though he made the second-round... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Christie’s art sales surged to a record high of £4.54 billion ($7.13 billion) in 2013 as new buyers and rising Asian demand contributed to a buoyant art market in a fragile global economy. Sales at the London-based auction house rose 16 perc... More »
DUBLIN (Reuters) – Booker Prize-winning author Roddy Doyle, creator of some of Ireland’s most renowned characters, will tackle one the country’s best known when he teams up with Roy Keane to write the former footballer’s memoir. Former Manchester United captai... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A celebrated portrait by Francis Bacon of his lover and muse George Dyer could raise up to 30 million pounds ($49 million) on auction in London next month, Christie’s said on Wednesday. A Bacon triptych sold last year set an auction record o... More »
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Juan Gelman, the celebrated Argentine poet and fierce critic of the South American nation’s “dirty war” against leftists, died Tuesday in Mexico City, Mexico’s national art council said. Gelman, who was born in Buenos Aires but lived in... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – London has a new theatre lit entirely by candles, transporting audiences back 400 years to the kind of performances seen on winter nights in Shakespeare’s time. Constructed mainly of oak, the building sits alongside the established open-air ... More »
MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines aims to recover three paintings, including one by French Impressionist Claude Monet, that a former aide of Imelda Marcos has been jailed in the United States for trying to sell. Vilma Bautista, 75, a one-time secretary to the... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – Sotheby’s has rebutted claims that an $8.2 million Chinese calligraphic scroll it sold at auction in New York last year is a fake, defending its reputation as it seeks to gain a foothold in the fast-growing China art auction market. The New... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Imelda Marcos’ former secretary was sentenced on Monday to up to six years in a New York prison for a scheme to sell art that once belonged to the former Philippine first lady, including a Claude Monet water-lily painting that netted $32 m... More »
(Reuters) – U.S. philanthropic foundations have pledged more than $330 million to help preserve the Detroit Institute of Art’s collection and assist in shoring up the cash-strapped city’s employee pensions, the mediators overseeing Detroit’s bankruptcy negotia... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A Picasso portrait of his lover and eventual wife Jacqueline Roque and a canvas by Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte are among the star attractions of February auctions that Christie’s said on Monday could net almost $380 million. Chr... More »
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) – A napkin-size Renoir painting bought for $7 at a flea market but valued at up to $100,000 must be returned to the museum it was stolen from in 1951, a federal judge ordered on Friday. The 1879 Impressionist painting “Paysage Bo... More »
(Reuters) – When the Metropolitan Opera began its live-to-cinema opera transmissions on December 30, 2006, its then-new general manager Peter Gelb says many people predicted the expensive experiment would fail. “I think there were a lot of people who expected ... More »
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – For his first major show in Turkey, famed Indian-born British sculptor Anish Kapoor brought huge works that have never before been exhibited to a gallery that ripped down walls to accommodate him. Massive slabs of rough-hewn slate, polishe... More »
(Reuters) – For decades, visitors to the Detroit Institute of Arts have been amused, inspired and perhaps warned of the dangers of overindulgence by the peasant revelers of 16th century painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Now, as a result of Detroit’s bankruptcy... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actor Ryan O’Neal will be allowed to keep a portrait of his late and longtime partner Farrah Fawcett painted by famed artist Andy Warhol after a jury deemed him the rightful owner on Thursday in a dispute with the University of Texas. T... More »
(Reuters) – The value of the collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts falls within a range from $454 million up to $867 million, auction house Christie’s said in its final report to the city’s state-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr. The appraisal only ... More »
OSLO (Reuters) – Five Picasso designs etched into concrete may face the wrecking ball at government buildings in Oslo that anti-Islam militant Anders Breivik bombed in 2011. Spread across two buildings, including the prime minister’s 17-storey High Block offic... More »
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. National Archives Museum opened a civil rights gallery on Wednesday, with a 13th century copy of the Magna Carta accord, considered one of the founding documents of modern government, as its centerpiece. The new 3,450-square-foo... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – An American foundation bought nearly two dozen Native American artefacts and will return them to the Hopi tribe in Arizona, which had mounted legal challenges to their planned sale by a French auction house. The Annenberg Foundation said on W... More »
(Reuters) – Detroit’s Heidelberg Project has been struck by eight suspicious fires since May, the latest on Sunday, which have destroyed a large part of the art installation that has drawn international attention since the 1980s, authorities said. The art proj... More »
MIAMI (Reuters) – A 5-day Miami Beach art show broke sales and attendance records this week, helping to boost the city’s image as a cultural hub, as international galleries displayed an estimated $3 billion of paintings, photographs and sculptures at the 12th ... More »
PARIS (Reuters) – French auctioneers sold a trove of Hopi Native American artifacts on Monday over the objections of the Arizona tribe, which considers them sacred, and a last-minute appeal from the United States. The sale of about three dozen masks dating fro... More »
DETROIT (Reuters) – A Detroit-area entrepreneur has offered to donate $5 million to help protect the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts from being sold or otherwise monetized as part of Detroit’s bankruptcy, the Detroit Free Press reported on Friday. ... More »
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Christie’s will hold its debut art auction in India later this month, hot on the heels of its first major sale in China, as it seeks to tap into Asian buyers’ growing importance in the global art marketplace. The auction, to be held in Mu... More »
DETROIT (Reuters) – The auction house Christie’s put a price tag on one of Detroit’s highest-profile city assets, its share of the Detroit Institute of Arts collection, stating that nearly 3,000 works controlled by the city are worth between $452 million and $... More »
MIAMI (Reuters) – A gleaming addition to Miami’s waterfront will greet the art world elite as they jet into town this week for the 12th edition of Art Basel Miami Beach: a $131 million art museum the city hopes will anchor its burgeoning cultural scene. “Our c... More »
LONDONDERRY (Reuters) – French-born film installation artist Laure Prouvost won Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize on Monday for a short film clip that in part tells the story of a fictional grandfather digging a hole to Africa and disappearing down it. An emo... More »
CAIRO (Reuters) – Prominent Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm, renowned for his witty criticism of authorities in Egypt, passed away on Tuesday at age 84, state media reported. Negm, who was born in the Sharqiya province in 1929, was imprisoned several times for ... More »
(Reuters) – Italian racer Doriano Romboni died on Saturday after being struck by another rider’s bike at an event in memory of late compatriot Marco Simoncelli, who was killed in a similar fashion two years ago. The popular Simoncelli died at the 2011 Malaysia... More »
TOKYO (Reuters) – With his face hidden behind sunglasses and a white surgical mask, the artist is almost as invisible as the radioactive contamination he is protesting against – yet his stickers are graphic reminders of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Known as... More »
BEIJING (Reuters) – Sotheby’s will hold its first major auction on the Chinese mainland on Sunday as competition between the New York-based auction house and its long-time rival Christie’s moves into one of the world’s hottest art markets amid a government cra... More »
DETROIT (Reuters) – A group of the largest creditors in Detroit’s Chapter 9 bankruptcy case are pushing for an independent valuation of the Detroit Institute of Arts’ 66,000-piece collection, according to a federal court filing on Tuesday. This is the first co... More »
BUCHAREST (Reuters) – A Romanian court sentenced the ringleader of a gang that stole paintings from a Dutch museum in one of the world’s biggest art heists to six years and eight months in prison on Tuesday. Radu Dogaru and fellow gang member Eugen Darie, both... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A triangulated aluminum sculpture by Brazilian artist Lygia Clark that sold for $1.8 million at Phillips’ Latin American auction, capped a week of regional art sales in New York in which Brazilian works commanded the top prices. Clark’s 19... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A broken heart and a graffiti-covered car door will be the first two pieces from street artist Banksy’s New York series to go up for public sale next month in Miami. The sale by an artist whose pieces have gone for as much as $1.87 million... More »
ROCKAWAY, New Jersey (Reuters) – When news of a hidden trove of Nazi-looted art in Munich came to light this month, an 87-year-old man in a quiet retirement community in New Jersey straightened a copy of a Rembrandt self-portrait hanging on his wall, completel... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Red and white wooden mazes sculpted by Brazilian artist Sergio Camargo topped Sotheby’s Latin American art sale in New York on Wednesday, selling for $2.1 million and setting a record for the artist. Camargo’s 1964 “Untitled (Relief No. 21... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo’s “Women Reaching for the Moon” fetched $1.4 million and was the top selling work in Christie’s Latin American art auction in New York, where contemporary Brazilian abstract artists also made a strong showing. ... More »
VIENNA (Reuters) – The Viennese museum that houses one of Gustav Klimt’s greatest artworks says it has evidence that its previous Jewish owner sold it to the Austrian state in an amicable transaction, rather than too cheaply under duress. The Secession museum ... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – A German prosecutor investigating a billion-dollar art hoard found in a Munich apartment called for some of the works to be returned to their reclusive owner while experts examine if others were stolen or extorted by the Nazis. Reinhard Neme... More »
BUCHAREST (Reuters) – The ringleader of a Romanian gang that stole paintings including two Monets and a Picasso from a Dutch museum in one of the world’s biggest art heists could be sentenced next week to up to 18 years in prison, his lawyer said Tuesday. Radu... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Imelda Marcos’ former secretary was convicted on Monday of conspiring to sell art that the former Philippine first lady acquired during her husband’s presidency, including a famous Claude Monet water-lily painting. After deliberating 2-1/2... More »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – It’s Friday evening at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, and, like always, commuters are catching trains to their bedroom communities and weekend travelers are jumping on the Pacific Surfliner. And then there’s a less harried crowd... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The novelist Doris Lessing, who tackled race, ideology, gender politics and the workings of the psyche in a prolific and often iconoclastic career, died in London on Sunday at the age of 94, her publisher HarperCollins said. The British-Indi... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – The German recluse whose billion-dollar art hoard was seized by authorities has broken his silence to ask for the pictures back and to deny his father, an art dealer for Hitler, ever extorted any from Jewish owners. In an interview with Der ... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Fernando Botero reworking of Paul Cezanne’s “The Card Players” and a Rufino Tamayo portrait of women are expected to be the top-selling works in Latin American art auctions next week in New York. Sotheby’s predicts sales of up to $29.6 m... More »
BOSTON (Reuters) – Emerging market billionaires, driven by vanity, easy money from the world’s central banks and a quest for safe investments, are taking the contemporary art market to new heights. Art collectors made news for a second straight night on Wednes... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – Bob Dylan has swapped his guitar for a blowtorch for his latest artistic endeavor, welding massive iron gates from scrap metal that went on show in London on Thursday. The “Mood Swings” exhibition at the Halcyon Gallery in central London mar... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Art collectors dug deep into their pockets on Wednesday and smashed records for a second straight night as Sotheby’s held the biggest auction in its history, led by a record-setting $105 million work by Andy Warhol. The auction of post-war... More »
SYDNEY (Reuters) – In Yoko Ono’s new exhibition “War is Over (if you want it)” in Australia, the writer, artist and peace activist hopes to unite people to dream and work towards a better future through art. “It’s what we can do to change society,” Ono, the wi... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The record breaking $142.4 million sale of Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” shows confidence in the art market and that the very wealthy see it as a safe haven for their money, experts said on Wednesday. Bacon’s 1969 three-p... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Francis Bacon’s painting “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” became the most expensive work of art ever sold when it fetched $142.4 million in one of the biggest auctions in history at which Christie’s sold more than $691 million worth of art.... More »
BERLIN/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Germany began publishing an online list on Tuesday of works that were discovered in a huge art stash in a Munich flat last year and believed for the most part to have been stolen or extorted by the Nazis. The move was welcomed by la... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Art works by Francis Bacon and Andy Warhol are poised to break records this week at New York’s two big auction houses at sales that would boost an already surging market for top-tier works. Christie’s sale on Tuesday is led by Bacon’ 1969 ... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany, under pressure to hasten inquiries into Nazi-looted art works stashed in a recluse’s flat, has sent legal experts to help local authorities in Munich resolve myriad ownership issues, Focus magazine reported on Sunday. The federal go... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – New evidence of the authenticity of a drip painting said by some to be abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock’s final work, was presented at a conference of art experts on Friday. The painting, including polar bear hairs trapped in the pai... More »
BERLIN/MUNICH (Reuters) – On the doorbell of the apartment in Munich’s bohemian Schwabing district is a name once distinguished for architecture and music but infamous since the Nazi era by association with the plundering of art works owned by Jews: Gurlitt. T... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – Previously unknown paintings by Henri Matisse and Otto Dix are among a vast trove of Nazi-looted art found in a Munich apartment that includes works by some of Europe’s most celebrated artists, German experts said on Tuesday. Customs investi... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Colombian artist Fernando Botero showcases his enchantment with the circus, reliving the magic he felt as a boy during his first visit to the big top, in a new book “Circus: Paintings and Works on Paper.” Botero, best known for his paintin... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – A Jewish group accused Germany on Monday of moral complicity in concealment of stolen paintings after it emerged authorities failed for two years to report discovery of a trove of art seized by the Nazis, including works by Picasso and Matis... More »
BERLIN (Reuters) – A vast trove of modern art seized under Germany’s Nazi regime, including works by Picasso, Matisse and Chagall, has been discovered in a Munich apartment among stacks of rotting groceries, German magazine Focus reported. The 1,500 art works,... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The renegade graffiti artist Banksy snubbed the art world again on Tuesday when he dropped off one of his paintings at a New York City thrift store. The Housing Works thrift store, part of a chain that sells donated knickknacks to fund cha... More »
DUBAI (Reuters) – Bahraini authorities have shut and dismantled an exhibition on anti-government protests staged by the main Shi’ite opposition group al-Wefaq, saying it violates the law and incites hatred. Unrest has gripped Bahrain, a Western ally which host... More »
VIENNA (Reuters) – The director of Vienna’s Leopold Museum, home to extensive collections of work by Austrian artists such as Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, has quit in a row over Nazi-looted art. Tobias Natter said he could no longer stay at the museum after ... More »
ROME (Reuters) – A rarely seen Neapolitan collection of sumptuous jewellery, hidden away for centuries and estimated to be more valuable than England’s crown jewels, opened in Rome on Tuesday. The “Treasure of San Gennaro”, precious objects donated in tribute ... More »
BEIRUT (Reuters) – An estimated $1.3 million worth of art from more than 130 artists, mostly from Syria and Lebanon, is being auctioned at below-gallery prices in Beirut to raise money for Syrian refugee children. “This is first time that you have so many arti... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Frieze Art Fair got smaller in 2013, but industry insiders said that would make it no less important for international players who flock to London every October to see cutting-edge contemporary works. The world’s largest art fair combine... More »
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – In what may be the first use of vuvuzelas in opera, the blaring horns popularized by South African soccer featured in the premiere of Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer’s “The Red Heifer” about a murder blamed on Jews in northeastern Hungary... More »
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – In what may be the first use of vuvuzelas in opera, the blaring horns popularized by South African soccer featured in the premiere of Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer’s “The Red Heifer” about a murder blamed on Jews in northeastern Hungary... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A triptych by British post-war painter Francis Bacon and works by pop master Andy Warhol will provide a health test for the global art market when they go on sale in New York next month. Auction house Christie’s suspects Bacon’s “Three Studi... More »
VIENNA (Reuters) – Lucian Freud did not live to see the first exhibition of his paintings in Vienna, the city his grandfather Sigmund fled in 1938, but he helped plan the retrospective that opens this week. Freud, considered the greatest British painter of his... More »
CHICAGO (Reuters) – A model for the cubist sculpture that Pablo Picasso gave to the city of Chicago could fetch as much as $35 million when it is sold at auction next month – a record for a sculpture by the artist, Christie’s said on Wednesday. Picasso never v... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – A new musical from British impresario and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber will delve into the sex, spies and politics at the heart of Britain’s biggest post-war scandal when it opens in December. “Stephen Ward” charts the rise and fall of a hig... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – French-born painter Balthus is known for his street scenes and portraits, but it is his paintings of young girls, some with erotic undercurrents, that are the focus of the first exhibition of his works in New York in 30 years. “Balthus: Ca... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Seven works by American painter and illustrator Norman Rockwell, including “Saying Grace” and “The Gossips,” will be sold at auction in New York in December, Sotheby’s auction house said on Thursday. Rockwell, who died in 1978 at age 84, p... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Tate museum called for a five-year public funding “contract” with the British government on Thursday to help stabilize its role as a national repository of art in an era of declining public finances for culture. The Tate – which comprise... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Tate museum called for a five-year public funding “contract” with the British government on Thursday to help stabilize its role as a national repository of art in an era of declining public finances for culture. The Tate – which comprise... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Tate museum called for a five-year public funding “contract” with the British government on Thursday to help stabilize its role as a national repository of art in an era of declining public finances for culture. The Tate – which comprise... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Tate museum called for a five-year public funding “contract” with the British government on Thursday to help stabilize its role as a national repository of art in an era of declining public finances for culture. The Tate – which comprise... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Tate museum called for a five-year public funding “contract” with the British government on Thursday to help stabilize its role as a national repository of art in an era of declining public finances for culture. The Tate – which comprise... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Tate museum called for a five-year public funding “contract” with the British government on Thursday to help stabilize its role as a national repository of art in an era of declining public finances for culture. The Tate – which comprise... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Tate museum called for a five-year public funding “contract” with the British government on Thursday to help stabilize its role as a national repository of art in an era of declining public finances for culture. The Tate – which comprise... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Tate museum called for a five-year public funding “contract” with the British government on Thursday to help stabilize its role as a national repository of art in an era of declining public finances for culture. The Tate – which comprise... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – The Tate museum called for a five-year public funding “contract” with the British government on Thursday to help stabilize its role as a national repository of art in an era of declining public finances for culture. The Tate – which comprise... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Belgian painter Rene Magritte’s work, featuring men in bowler hats, mysterious landscapes and bright blue skies, may be familiar to many art lovers, but a new exhibition focuses attention on the artist’s surrealist pieces. “Magritte: The M... More »
LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Spanish opera singer Placido Domingo and British sculptor Antony Gormley won three of Japan’s top arts prizes, the Japan Art Association said on Tuesday. Domingo, Gormley and Coppola were joined by Britis... More »
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Best-selling author John Grisham’s first novel, “A Time to Kill,” has been adapted for the stage and is heading for Broadway next month with an ensemble cast that includes Fred Dalton Thompson of TV’s “Law and Order” and Tom Skerritt, an E... More »
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – It would be the envy of forgers: a technology that can mint near-perfect reproductions of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings at a rate of three a day, with differences only experts can detect. So far, five of the Dutch painter’s best-known work... More »
