Fine Arts News

The Baltimore Museum of Art's plan to sell three pieces of art to fundamentally alter its diversity drew so much criticism it had to be canceled.

more...

Frits Thaulow, Cottages in the Snow, 1891 Bequest of David P. Kimball in memory of his wife Clara Bertram Kimball /Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

more...

There's a web of people working behind the scenes to get artwork from its owner to a museum for a show. That web has been torn during the pandemic but it's still functioning with a kind of robot.

more...

The pandemic is causing The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to consider selling its artwork to cover operational costs as it falls short of $150 million in revenue.

The country's flagship art museum has still not made a final decision on selling its work.

Museum Director Max Hollein says the Met isn't quite facing an "existential crisis." But he tells Rachel Martin on Morning Edition that the museum's "attendance is of course, way, way below from where we were before the pandemic. And it's going to continue to be that way, even when restrictions are going to be lifted."
Back in April 2020, the museum had to lay off 81 employees in its customer service and retail departments and sizably cut the salaries of top executives.

more...

Powerful, no? And gorgeous. Helen Frankenthaler did it in 1973 - 20 years after making a painting that took Jackson Pollock's abstract expressionism a step further. In 1950 she was wowed by the ropes and squiggles of paint Pollock was wrestling onto unstretched canvas on the floor of his barn.


more...

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is rebranding itself, a move that the museum's director says "really emphasizes the 'National' in our name."

more...

Beautiful bronze sculptures and castings from West Africa have long been exhibited in some of the world's most august institutions, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced Wednesday it's returning three of these artworks to Nigeria. They include two 16th-century brass plaques created at the Court of Benin, and a brass head produced in Ife around the 14th century.

"The ... plaques produced at the Court of Benin, Warrior Chief and Junior Court Official, were among the works removed from the Royal Palace in 1897 during the British military occupation of Benin," the Met explained in a statement. (Borders have shifted over the years and the erstwhile Kingdom of Benin, from whence these artworks originated, is in what's now southern Nigeria.)

more...

In this Friday, Oct. 1, 2021 file photo, visitors take photos of the 3D re-production of Michelangelo's David at the Italy's pavilion at the Dubai Expo 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. One of the most talked about attractions at the world's fair underway in Dubai is a towering statue made of marble dust that's raising eyebrows just as its original form did more than 500 years ago.

more...

Mexican painter Frida Kahlo's "Diego y yo" set a new auction record for art by a Latin American artist, selling for $34.9 million at Sotheby's on Tuesday night.

more...

Mikhail Demyanov (1873 - 1913) painting
(Impressionist painter and designer; known for his landscapes and portraits)

more..