Art News Daily

Plus: Thousands of aboriginal artefacts discovered in Sydney | NMM director defends photography collection move | Crystal Bridges announces new exhibition space

Plus: Palmyra: an update | Van Gogh painting to stay at Yale | Huntington announces $10.3 million expansion plans | Ellsworth Kelly receives Getty medal

Plus: Iraq launches operation to retake Ninevah Governate | Frick enters next stage of planning for upgrade | and the weekend’s best art comment

Plus: Pottery fragment suggests early Christian presence in London | Speculation about Cranach Venus continues | Pompeii’s ‘army of spies’

Plus: Are attacks on artistic freedom on the rise? | Italy’s culture reforms come under fire from archaeologists | £3.1 million grant for Old Royal Naval College’s Painted Hall | Martin Creed to get first US retrospective

Plus: Max Hollein appointed director of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco | Major redevelopment for St Peter’s Seminary | Stolen artefacts returned to Italy | Export bar for Robert the Bruce’s seal | UK museums acquire important video art

Plus: Brussels museums shut down following terrorist attacks | Secrets of the Herculaneum scrolls revealed | and Sex Pistols graffiti recommended for listed status

Plus: Shortlist for Hepworth Sculpture Prize announced | Sean Scully wins International Artist of the Year award | Nina Zimmer named director of Kunstmuseum Bern & Zentrum Paul Klee | The weekend’s best reviews & comment

Plus: Possible reprieve for threatened Lancashire museums | Mellon Foundation sets National Gallery of Art a $30 million challenge | Date announced for the Design Museum’s move

Plus: UK museum sector takes stock of the Budget 2016 | Federal agents seize sculptures destined for Asia Week New York | and ‘Soviet Versailles’ to be restored despite accusations of historical revisionism

Plus: Russian deputy culture minister detained on embezzlement charges | Europe’s seven most endangered heritage sites named | Ruins of 16th-century castle discovered in Lille | Export controversy over Joan of Arc’s ring | New guidelines issued to UK museums for VAT refunds

Plus: Trial begins for ‘cols rouges’ accused of theft at Drouot | Hiker discovers ultra rare ‘nostalgic coin’ | Inaugural Lahore Biennale announced | Anita Brookner (1928–2016)

Plus: Hauser Wirth & Schimmel opens in LA | National Portrait Gallery to show Leon Golub’s political portraits | Ed Vaizey to meet local MPs over Bradford museum debate | and the weekend’s best reviews & comment

Plus: Aegean Airlines will sponsor Documenta 14 | Krist Gruijthuijsen named as director of KW Institute for Contemporary Art | Rubens’ Lot and His Daughters up for auction at Christie’s

Plus: Guy Cogeval to continue at Musée d’Orsay | Eritrean capital seeks UNESCO World Heritage listing | Mayor of Liverpool: funding ‘chasm’ developing between London and the north | Martha Tedeschi appointed director of Harvard Art Museums | Mauritshuis acquires rare Savery still life

Plus: UK Culture Secretary will not intervene with Royal Photographic Society collection | Shots fired at Berlin LGBT museum | and three men jailed in connection with former art thief’s murder

Plus: Octogenarian arrested over works stolen from churches | London council allegedly ‘threatened’ over Garden Bridge | Institute for Artists’ Estates to launch this week | Ros Kerslake OBE appointed chief executive at Heritage Lottery Fund

Plus: British Museum tops list of UK visitor destinations | Public figures petition to keep Royal Photographic Society archive in Bradford | Hepworth Wakefield receives major bequest | Mugrabi settles Basquiat dispute with Christie’s | and the weekend’s best comment & reviews rounded up

Plus: Move to London confirmed for Royal Photographic Society collection | Kunsthaus Zurich expansion sparks protest from Orthodox Jewish groups | Kensington buildings to become new art space | And has Banksy finally been unmasked?

Plus: Cranach’s Venus seized by authorities | Trouble brews at the Musée d’Orsay | Researcher claims to have found the only photograph of Van Gogh as an adult

Plus: Geneva’s public reject plans for museum renovations by Jean Nouvel | Christie’s sues Jose Mugrabi over Basquiat painting | ‘Day of reckoning’ for Bradford NMM’s photographic treasures

Fourteen Men Convicted for Planned Museum Thefts | First Cultural Destruction Trial Opens in the Hague | Bonhams Fires Asian Deputy Chairman | Rare Watercolour at Risk of being Exported

Rauschenberg Foundation Eases Copyright Restrictions | The Met Settles Ambiguity over its ‘Recommended Donation’ | Richard Prince Moves to Dismiss Lawsuit | The Weekend’s Best Comment & Reviews

Export Bar for Giacometti's Femme | Royal Collection Trust Refuses Art UK Permission to Display Works | Settlement Reached over Looted Pissarro | Philadelphia Museum of Art Receives Historic Bequest