‘The Water Is a Washing Away’: The Salvation of Calida Rawles’s Aquatic Portraits
“Ms. Rolle didn’t have a car, so I offered to pick her up for her photo shoot,” Calida Rawles explained, when describing the process of getting her new subjects together for her solo exhibition “Away With The Tides“, at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). For the show, the LA-based artist chose to pay tribute […]
Inside the Extravagant Castle Where Henry VIII Courted Anne Boleyn
The childhood home of Anne Boleyn has been restored to its former Tudor glory so that visitors can immerse themselves in the origin story of the most notorious of Henry VIII’s six wives. The historic Hever Castle, which lies about 32 km west of London, was built in the 13th century and later became the […]
A Historic Drawing Once Owned by George Washington Goes to Auction
Despite its symbolic heft, the key to the Bastille is fairly unremarkable: seven inches of wrought iron with fleur-de-lis teeth. George Washington treasured it. Upon receiving the key in 1790, he invited New York’s finest to examine it at a soiree. Newspapers across America promptly printed exact representations, encouraging the masses to ogle a trinket […]
‘The Photo’ and Its Aftermath
You don’t need an art critic or a professional commentator to tell you why The Photo is “iconic,” to use the overused term. Trump looks defiant in the face of death. There’s an American flag in the background. It’s well composed. None of this is expert-level analysis. It’s what you already knew the first time you […]
New British Museum Director Proposes ‘Lending Library’ to Address Parthenon Marbles Return
When Nicholas Cullinan became head of London’s British Museum in March, he inherited the thorny problem of what to do with the Parthenon Marbles. Now, it appears he may have hit on a solution: a Parthenon Marbles “lending library” that would allow the works to go back to Greece without leaving the British Museum collection. […]
A New Side of Rothko Emerges in a Show of His Intimate Works on Paper
Following the “once-in-a-lifetime” exhibition at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris last year, a very different, but no less valuable presentation of Mark Rothko paintings is coming to the capital of Norway. The exhibition “Mark Rothko. Paintings on Paper” at Oslo’s Nasjonalmuseet (National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design) is the first and so far the […]
Spotlight: A Career-Spanning Ai Weiwei Exhibition Takes Over Galleria Continua’s San Gimignano Outpost
Every month, hundreds of galleries add newly available works by thousands of artists to the Artnet Gallery Network—and every week, we shine a spotlight on one artist or exhibition you should know. Check out what we have in store, and inquire for more with one simple click. What You Need to Know: In San Gimignano, […]
Iowa Museum Makes Historic Repatriation of Benin Bronzes
The Stanley Museum of Art at the University of Iowa has made a historic repatriation of artifacts known collectively as Benin bronzes to Nigeria. Museum officials announced that the institution has handed over a brass plaque and wooden altarpiece from its collection to Ewuare II, the Oba of Benin, in a July 15 ceremony at […]
The Hunt: The Ghent Altarpiece’s Missing Panel, On the Lam for 90 Years
No painting in history has endured trials and tribulations quite like the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. Since its completion in 1432, Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck’s masterpiece has been victim to burning, dismemberment, rampaging Calvinists, censorship, a surreptitious sale by a renegade vicar, theft by Napoleon, and even looting by Nazis who believed the […]
Wet Paint in the Wild: Joel Mesler Throws a Pool Party at 30 Rock
Welcome to Wet Paint in the Wild, the freewheeling—and free!—spinoff of Artnet News Pro’s beloved Wet Paint gossip column, where we give art-world insiders a disposable camera to chronicle their lives on the circuit. To read the latest Wet Paint column, click here (members only). Man, it’s a hot one. But thanks to Joel Mesler, […]