A view of Museum Island and the Bode Museum in Berlin.

The week in art news – museums in Germany to open from Monday

Plus: V&A to merge departments and cut 140 jobs | UK government announces £390m to help arts venues reopen | Alan Bowness (1928–2021) | and missing Jacob Lawrence painting discovered in Manhattan

5 Mar 2021
Panel 28 (detail; 1956) from Struggle: From the History of the American People, (1954–56), Jacob Lawrence.

Missing Jacob Lawrence painting discovered in Manhattan apartment

The panel from one of the American painter’s great narrative series is the second to have shown up by chance in quick succession

3 Mar 2021

The week in art news – Amnesty report points to massacre in Ethiopian town of Axum

Plus: Swiss museums reopen next week, while UK museums must wait until May | Experts confirm message on The Scream is by Munch | and National Gallery in London and Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin update Hugh Lane bequest deal

26 Feb 2021
The Scream (detail; 1893), Edvard Munch.

Experts confirm Edvard Munch wrote secret message on The Scream

Experts have confirmed that the writing on The Scream is in Munch’s handwriting

22 Feb 2021

The week in art news – head of Indianapolis Museum of Art resigns after controversial job ad

Plus: National Gallery in London launches design competition to rethink Sainsbury Wing, and more stories

19 Feb 2021
Mayor Louis Aliot at the Hyacinthe Rigaud Museum, Perpignan, on 9 February.

The week in art news – far-right French mayor reopens museums in defiance of Covid shutdown

Plus: Getty Trust launches $38.5m LA arts recovery fund | Neal Benezra to depart as head of SFMoMA | Mayor of London names members of diversity commission | CEO of Royal British Columbia Museum resigns after racism inquiry

12 Feb 2021
Photograph from an exhibition of the Guelph Treasure in Berlin in 2015.

The week in art news – US Supreme Court rules for Germany in Guelph Treasure case

Plus: Germany announces a second €1bn bailout for culture | Dutch government agrees to return all stolen objects to former colonies | and French museums press for reopening

5 Feb 2021

The week in art news – Botticelli painting sells for $92m at auction

Plus: Centre Pompidou to close for three years of renovations | TEFAF Maastricht postponed to September | City of Bruges to build major new exhibition space

29 Jan 2021
All the fun of this year’s fair has been postponed from June to September.

The week in art news – Art Basel postponed to September

Plus: Bozar damaged by fire | and City of London to remove statues with slavery links

22 Jan 2021
Photo: Maxime Aubert/Griffith Center for Social Science and Cultural Research

The week in art news – world’s oldest animal painting found in Indonesia

Plus: Smithsonian scales back $2bn redevelopment plan | Naomi Beckwith appointed deputy director and chief curator of Guggenheim | and Champs-Élysées to be turned into ‘extraordinary garden’

15 Jan 2021
The Indian parliament building (Sansad Bhavan), designed by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker in 1912–13, in New Delhi.

The week in art news – Indian Supreme Court approves plans for new parliament complex

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of India dismissed objections to the construction of a new parliament complex in New Delhi. The plans, announced…

8 Jan 2021
A view of the National Mall and the United States Capitol from the top of the Washington Monument

The week in art news – lone US senator blocks bills to create national Latino and women’s museums

Mike Lee, the senior senator for the state of Utah, voted on Thursday against a pair of bills to create…

11 Dec 2020
Demonstrators protesting against job losses at the Tate in July 2020.

The week in art news – Tate to cut 120 gallery jobs to reduce losses

The Tate has announced that it will be making a second round of redundancies, just months after cutting 295 jobs…

4 Dec 2020
Manchester Art Gallery will not reopen on 2 December after the national lockdown in England ends.

The week in art news – continuing restrictions mean a patchy reopening for European museums

As a second phase of national lockdowns across Europe comes to an end, the reopening of museums will proceed at…

27 Nov 2020
The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center in Washington, D.C., with the Washington Monument and National Mall in the background.

The week in art news – Smithsonian and other US museums close amid Covid surge

A surge in Covid-19 cases has led to the closure of museums in multiple states across the US. The Smithsonian…

20 Nov 2020
Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

The week in art news – controversial road tunnel near Stonehenge gets the go-ahead

The Secretary of State for Transport has approved plans to build a road tunnel for the A303 motorway near Stonehenge.…

13 Nov 2020
A view of the closed National Gallery in London in June 2020.

The week in art news – museums and galleries in England close in new lockdown

Museums and galleries in England are now closed under new national restrictions imposed to control the spread of Covid-19. These…

6 Nov 2020
The Baltimore Museum of Art, which in May sold five artworks at auction for nearly $8 million to raise funds for new acquisitions. Would capitalising those works have allowed the institution to pursue its acquisition strategy without compromising its existing holdings?

The week in art news – Baltimore Museum of Art pulls works from controversial sale

On Wednesday, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) withdrew paintings by Clyfford Still and Brice Marden from the Contemporary Art…

30 Oct 2020
Marian Goodman Gallery’s outpost in Golden Square

The week in art news – Marian Goodman closes London gallery

Plus: Baltimore Museum of Art board chair defends deaccessioning sales, and more recent stories

23 Oct 2020
The MAC (Metropolitan Arts Centre), Belfast, Northern Ireland. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The week in art news – museums in Northern Ireland to close for four weeks

The Brooklyn Museum is to sell another round of works from its collection, and more recent stories

16 Oct 2020
National Trust

The week in art news – National Trust cuts 1,300 jobs

Plus: Nancy Spector resigns from the Guggenheim; and more recent stories

9 Oct 2020
Courtesy National Museum of African American History and Culture

The week in art news – Kevin Young appointed director of Smithsonian’s African American history museum

The Smithsonian Institution has announced that Kevin Young will be the next director of the National Museum of African American…

2 Oct 2020
Guston in the studio with Painter’s Table (1973).

The week in art news – Philip Guston show postponed to 2024

In a joint statement released on Monday, but not widely reported until later in the week, the four museums due…

25 Sep 2020
Lucretia (c. 1526–37), Lucas Cranach the Elder.

The week in art news – Brooklyn Museum to sell 12 works at auction

The Brooklyn Museum has consigned a dozen works from its collections to Christie’s for auction, in the first significant example…

19 Sep 2020