News
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
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
United States returns hundreds of looted antiquities to Italy
Plus: the classical archaeologist and art historian John Boardman has died at the age of 96
Kehinde Wiley denies allegations of sexual assault
Plus: the Manhattan District Attorney returns 133 antiquities to Pakistan | and Brooke Lampley, global chairman and head of global fine art at Sotheby’s, is moving to Gagosian
The week in art news – Christie’s New York sales hold up despite cyber-attack
Plus: Vatican Museums employees bring legal action over working conditions, and the film-maker Mohammad Rasoulof has been smuggled out of Iran
Gustave Courbet’s ‘L’origine du monde’ spray-painted with the slogan ‘MeToo’
Plus: two Just Stop Oil protestors in their eighties attempt to break the glass protecting the Magna Carta, and 3,000-year-old gold jewellery has been stolen from Ely Museum
European Court of Human Rights upholds Italy’s claim to Getty’s Greek bronze
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that Italy can reclaim an ancient Greek statue currently in the…
Pompidou Centre’s economic model unsustainable, says French audit authority
The Pompidou Centre’s economic model is unsustainable, according to France’s Court of Accounts. The auditing authority published its report, covering…
Israeli artist and curators close pavilion at Venice Biennale
Plus: the historic Copenhagen stock exchange building has been devastated by a fire
Former Uffizi director Eike Schmidt runs for mayor of Florence
Plus: Christie’s withdraws four Greek vases from auction and strike at National Museums Liverpool is set to continue
The week in art news – Marlborough Gallery to close after nearly 80 years
Plus: Endeavor, the owner of Frieze, goes private for $13bn; and Kim Conaty is the Whitney’s new chief curator
Nicholas Cullinan appointed director of the British Museum
The director of the National Portrait Gallery will take up his post at the troubled museum in the summer
The week in art news – the Met hires its first head of provenance
Plus: Denver Art Museum returns 11 more artefacts to Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam and some Damien Hirst sculptures may be more recently made than they seem