News

Germany to replace advisory panel for Nazi-looted art with binding arbitration

Plus: Met employees and volunteers call for the museum to defend Palestinian cultural heritage, and Russian security forces raid artists’s homes before the presidential elections

17 Mar 2024

French court finds Guy Wildenstein guilty of money laundering and tax fraud

Plus: tax relief for museums and galleries in the UK is made permanent, and Lucas Samaras (1936–2024)

10 Mar 2024

The week in art news – a looted Ethiopian shield is withdrawn from auction

Plus: The Palestinian artist Fathi Ghaben has died after being unable to leave Gaza for medical treatment

2 Mar 2024

The week in art news – Birmingham Council to axe entire arts budget by 2026

Plus: The V&A gets another chance to keep its 12th-century walrus ivory carving

23 Feb 2024

Arts Council England retreats after freedom of expression row

Plus: Mick Moon (1937–2024), and a round-up of the week’s most important museum appointments

18 Feb 2024

Courtney J. Martin to leave Yale for the Rauschenberg Foundation

Plus: a 2,000-year-old papyrus scroll has been decoded and the CEO of Bonhams has resigned

9 Feb 2024

The week in art news – man dies after falling from Tate Modern

Plus: Rubin Museum to sell its building and move to touring model | Pompidou staff settle three-month strike and claim victory

4 Feb 2024

The week in art news – Carl Andre (1935–2024)

Plus: V&A and British Museum lend Asante regalia to Ghana for the first time | Temple to Ram inaugurated on site of Mughal-era mosque in Ayodhya

28 Jan 2024

Iwona Blazwick steps down from the Istanbul Biennial

Plus: art dealer Brent Sikkema found dead in Brazil | Scottish museums face funding crisis

21 Jan 2024

In a surprise appointment, Rachida Dati is the new French culture minister

Plus: artists in Berlin protest against funding requirement to sign anti-Semitism clause | and Freeman’s and Hindman auction houses are to merge

14 Jan 2024

The week in art news – cyber-attack sends US museums offline

Plus: Poland withdraws its Biennale submission | swingeing cuts to UK arts budgets by local councils cuts continue | and Ian Wardropper to retire as Frick director

7 Jan 2024
Uffizi director Eike Schmidt in front of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, at the reopening of the gallery’s room dedicated to the artist in 2016. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images

Major leadership changes in Italian museums

Plus: the Academy of Arts in Berlin warns against violations of civil liberties in Germany and the Met returns 14 trafficked artefacts to Cambodia and Thailand

20 Dec 2023

British Museum report into thefts recommends reforms – and deputy director Jonathan Williams is leaving

Plus: the new president of Argentina has abolished the ministry of culture | and Notre-Dame is to reopen in December 2024

15 Dec 2023

Russian billionaire and Swiss art dealer finally settle nine-year legal dispute

Plus: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts restitutes 44 antiquities | Jesse Darling wins the Turner Prize | and more art news

10 Dec 2023

The week in art news – entire Documenta selection committee resigns

Plus: Russian artist Aleksandra Skochilenko jailed for seven years for anti-war protest, Joe Tilson (1928–2023), and B.N. Goswamy (1933–2023)

19 Nov 2023

The week in art news – climate activists attack Velázquez painting at the National Gallery

Plus: director of Hungarian National Museum sacked, Odesa museum damaged by Russian missile strike, and the rest of the week’s top stories

10 Nov 2023

Artforum editor fired over publication of open letter about Gaza

Plus: Robert Irwin (1928–2023), Italy appoints right-wing journalist as Venice Biennale director and the rest of the week’s top stories

28 Oct 2023

Thefts were an ‘inside job’, British Museum chair tells Parliament

Plus: The Cleveland Museum of Art is suing the Manhattan DA’s office and bomb threats have led to multiple evacuations of Versailles and the Louvre

20 Oct 2023

The week in art news – Swiss museum asked to cancel Cézanne sale

Plus: France and German set up a joint fund to research colonial provenance and hoard of coins with links to the Glencoe massacre discovered in Scotland

15 Oct 2023

UK government publishes ‘retain and explain’ policy for controversial statues

Plus: Carnegie Museum of Natural History will no longer show humans remains and US tourist smashes Roman statues in the Israel Museum

6 Oct 2023

British Museum launches public appeal for the return of stolen objects

Plus: Buddha sculpture stolen from Bakarat Gallery, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco sues its architect, and the rest of the week’s top stories

29 Sep 2023

The week in art news – Full scope of Roman Abramovich’s art collection revealed for the first time

Plus: curator in Florida fired over provenance concerns, Guy Wildenstein on trial again in Paris, and the rest of the week’s top stories

24 Sep 2023
A cruise ship passes close to the church San Giorgio Maggiore, in Venice on 26 September 2014.

The week in art news – UNESCO keeps Venice off the endangered list again

Plus: Egon Schiele works seized from US museums, Moroccan heritage sites damaged in earthquake, and the rest of the week’s top stories

17 Sep 2023
Bust thought to depict a daughter of Marcus Aurelius (c. 160–80). Photo: Daderot/Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Roman bust seized from Worcester Art Museum

Plus: Polish museum director dismissed by local government, Manchester Museum returns 174 items to Indigenous Australians, and the rest of the week’s art news

8 Sep 2023