NewsMuseums & Heritage
Frick Collection takes its jewels on a Brutalist sojourn
Evocative surprises await: while its Gilded Age home is closed for renovation and expansion, the Frick displays its masterworks in austere Modernist surroundings on Madison Avenue
NewsMuseums
'It feels slightly surreal!' German museums can open from Monday—but with complicated caveats
In a surprise ruling, the government prioritises museum openings ahead of restaurants and sports facilities
NewsGreece
Archaeologists appeal to Greek prime minister to halt restructuring of five big antiquities museums
Experts oppose culture ministry's proposal to separate Greece's major museums from the state archaeological service
NewsScience
Dr Fauci’s 3-D printed coronavirus model given to Smithsonian
The educational aide will be part of a forthcoming exhibition at the National Museum of American History
NewsMuseums & Heritage
As state restrictions drag on, pressure grows for more California museums to reopen
With lockdown lifted for nail salons and zoos, anger rises over arts institutions’ continued closure, estimated to cost the sector $22m a day
NewsVenice
Billionaire collector Nicolas Berggruen takes steps to buy historic Venetian palace and turn it into a cultural thinktank
If the sale goes ahead, La Casa dei Tre Oci will be the Berggruen Institute's space for its European programming with plans to partner with major museums such as Tate and MoMA
NewsJacob Lawrence
Travelling Jacob Lawrence show spurs discovery of a second missing painting in New York
Museums now appeal for information on three unlocated panels in the artist’s 1950s “Struggle” series
NewsArts funding
UK Budget 2021: further £408m boost for struggling culture sector
Chancellor Rishi Sunak digs deep, adding £300m to the £1.57bn Cultural Recovery Fund, £90m more for museums, and £18m for cultural community projects
NewsAntiquities & Archaeology
Walk through the 2,000-year-old Mausoleum of Augustus, Rome's first emperor
The circular tomb—used through history as a fortress, a sculpture garden and an entertainment venue—reopens as a museum after an €11m restoration
NewsVictoria & Albert Museum
V&A to say goodbye to departments by material—woodwork, metalwork etc—and 20% of its curators
Museum's director Tristram Hunt says that government help has not been enough to cover all costs incurred by pandemic and admits “curators will be more stretched”
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Local researchers work to uncover story behind mysterious mural in English church
Residents of a Surrey village are piecing together the history of the colourful and detailed paintings done by a local woman more than 100 years ago
NewsMuseums & Heritage
From Goya to Goldin: new museum puts Spanish city of Cáceres on the art world map
Dealer Helga de Alvear has donated her entire collection of 3,000 works, which include pieces by Tacita Dean, Louise Bourgeois, Olafur Eliasson and Wassily Kandinsky
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Swiss museums can reopen from 1 March as country eases lockdown restrictions
Fondation Beyeler will shows Arp and Rodin while Kunstmuseum Bern has a show on Latin American political art
NewsMuseums & Heritage
A gift of blue-chip Modern art comes to the Seattle Art Museum
The Friday Foundation, run by the heirs of collectors Jane Lang Davis and Richard E. Lang, has donated 19 works by artists including Bacon, Rothko, Krasner, Pollock, Frankenthaler, Kline and de Kooning
NewsMuseums
Are museums as Covid-risky as saunas? Culture leaders outraged over late reopening of English art spaces
Commercial galleries, non-essential retail, and even gyms have been given the green light to open before museums under the UK government's "roadmap" to lift coronavirus restrictions
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Lintels at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco to return to Thailand
Museum director says Justice Department’s legal case only served “to cloud the respectful and serious process of deaccession and repatriation”
NewsArts funding
‘Many museums will be lost’: US association appeals to Congress to support funding for institutions
Invoking the pandemic, advocates seek federal money for agencies that support museum programmes as well as operations grants and charitable tax deductions
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Beloved Smithsonian building returns to its pioneering roots
Celebrating an anniversary, Arts and Industries landmark will revisit its beginnings as an incubator of new ideas
Newslayoffs
Whitney lays off 15 more staff members, citing ‘extremely low’ attendance
Museum’s director notes that it may take until 2025 for tourists to return in force to New York
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Officials confirm: museums in England can reopen from 17 May under Boris Johnson’s lockdown roadmap
Commercial galleries will be permitted to open from 12 April under the new plan to gradually lift Covid-19 safety measures
NewsAppointments & departures
Charles Venable, president of Indianapolis museum, resigns after controversial job post
The board has issued an apology and pledged to improve its representation of the local community
NewsInternships
Asserting a quest for more equity, the Met introduces its first crop of fully paid interns
Students talk about their career goals and how being compensated proved to be an incentive
NewsUnions
After long talks, Guggenheim’s unionised employees sign agreement with the museum
Accord includes average pay increases of 10% and annual bonuses for on-call workers
NewsHeritage
Bavarian frescoes are confirmed to be among the oldest in northern Europe
New examinations of John the Baptist wall paintings in Augsburg cathedral date them to more than 1,000 years ago
Newsdiversity
Indianapolis museum apologises for posted job description describing a ‘core, white art audience’
Institution edits wording of director’s job opening to eliminate “white” after an outcry
NewsStatues
Keep problematic monuments and ‘explain them’, UK government to tell cultural leaders
Opponents argue that some public statues reinforce racism, chauvinism, sexism and homophobia
NewsNational Gallery of Victoria
That's my grandad! Descendant of sheep shearer depicted in one of Australia's best-loved paintings sees work for first time while it visits rural Victoria
To celebrate the 130th anniversary of Tom Roberts’ 1890 painting Shearing the Rams, the National Gallery of Victoria sends work to Wangaratta Art Gallery, close to where the painting was conceived
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Royal British Columbia Museum CEO Jack Lohman resigns, after internal report finds a ‘dysfunctional and toxic workplace’
An investigation into management was prompted by the departure of the museum’s head of Indigenous collection, who complained of racism and discrimination
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Lacma ends director’s free housing perk
The museum is selling a smaller property it bought last year as a residence for Michael Govan, as pandemic continues to squeeze finances
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Oaxaca museum in Mexico is locked in standoff with private foundation
Director spends night inside as the institution’s funders fail to pay salaries
NewsOpenings
Fast forward: revamped Australian Centre for the Moving Image promises a high-tech experience
The Melbourne museum of screen culture reopens with a contactless device that allows visitors to curate virtual collections
NewsDeaccessioning
Rumbles of dissent emerge over Met’s proposal to expand deaccessioning
As the museum mulls art sales to finance collections care, critics worry that its example could open the floodgates for US art institutions
NewsVictoria & Albert Museum
Immerse yourself in V&A’s new digital platform of 1.2 million objects
Collections website unites technical data, open-access images, videos and even sewing patterns from the museum of art, design and performance
NewsAcquisitions
Acquisitions round-up: flag and sledge from British polar expedition saved from leaving UK
Our pick of the latest gifts and purchases to enter international museum collections
NewsConservation & Preservation
Foundation that championed women’s art in Florence will close down after restoring 70 works by artists including Artemisia Gentileschi
The philanthropic organisation Advancing Women Artists will halt conservation projects due to lack of funds
NewsWallace Collection
Art library and archives at London's Wallace Collection could close to public as part of cost-cutting plans
Petition claims management want to ‘orientate the museum to income generation’
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Exhibitions at new $450m Hong Kong Palace Museum will offer ‘a fresh, contemporary interpretation of Chinese culture’
Director Louis Ng insists that the institution—due to open in 2022—will be distinct from its namesake in Beijing's Forbidden City
CommentDiary of an art historian
Museums have hastily cut their staff to save money—what will happen when visitors return and they need them back?
With vaccines now being deployed and a return to normality on the horizon, institutions may find they have been shortsighted in letting their employees go
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Museum revolution: 100 French directors call for 'essential' reopening
Petition urges culture minister to lift coronavirus restrictions on museums and galleries so they can "take care of visitors now"
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Spanish government signs deal securing €1bn Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection
New arrangement, to last 15 years, means key works by Gauguin, Monet and Picasso have been saved for the nation
InterviewMuseums & Heritage
Adversity forces reinvention: Matthew Teitelbaum on turbulent times at the MFA, Boston
After charges of racism levelled at his museum in 2019, Teitelbaum had to deal with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. And then there was the Guston controversy
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Photo collector and ophthalmologist William Tsiaras gives 500 works to Colby College Museum of Art in Maine
The Greek-American started acquiring photography for museums through his personal friendships with artists such as Lucas Samaras, Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan
NewsMosul
Mosul’s artists, resurgent, speak out on new Google platform
Through videos, audio clips, 3D models of destroyed sites and images of their works, Iraqis describe what they endured and their hopes for the future
NewsAcquisitions
When everything turned upside down: Georg Baselitz donates six pathbreaking paintings to the Met
Portraits date from 1969, a pivotal point for an artist departing from conventional motifs
NewsNazi loot
An arms dealer casts a shadow over Kunsthaus Zurich
Petition calls for more transparency in planned display of the collection of Emil Georg Bührle, who bought Nazi-looted art with a fortune built on weapons
NewsAttribution
Its attribution restored, a Rembrandt portrait goes on view in Pennsylvania
A scientific analysis and conservation effort unveiled signature brush strokes and other marks of the master
NewsBuilding projects
National Arts Club in New York opens new galleries renovated during the pandemic
Restoration work uncovered the original plaster from the building’s former occupant, New York governor and 1876 presidential candidate Samuel Tilden
NewsPompeii
From Roman dining to the victims of Vesuvius: Pompeii hails reopening of archaeological museum
The Antiquarium reveals treasures and recent discoveries charting the ancient Roman city's rich history before deadly volcanic eruption
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Centre Pompidou will close from the end of 2023 for three-year renovation
The plan is to finish essential maintenance on the building in time for its 50th anniversary in 2027
NewsVictoria & Albert Museum
Raphael Cartoons are ready for their close-up on V&A website
High-resolution images of Renaissance treasures go online, revealing the tiniest details of Raphael’s creative process
NewsMuseums & Heritage
A year after fire, Museum of Chinese in America launches digital platform with Google to celebrate its historical treasures
Viewers can track the recovery after the blaze and view hundreds of images of the New York museum’s artefacts
NewsAcquisitions
Trove of Surrealist publications and paintings donated to Dutch museum
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen's gift from collectors Laurens Vancrevel and Frida de Jong “opens up new horizons on surrealist activities”, says expert
Newscoronavirus
Museums around the world step up to be transformed into vaccination centres
London's Science Museum and a West Midlands museum where Peaky Blinders was filmed are just some of the venues doubling up as Covid-19 vaccine hubs
NewsAppointments
Orange County Museum of Art names Heidi Zuckerman as director
Former leader of Aspen Art Museum says she was beguiled by the California institution’s history and new building by Morphosis
NewsHeritage
From mummies to mosques—new Google Arts & Culture initiative brings Egypt’s archaeological treasures to the masses
New online platform aims to turn traditionally scholarly subject into something "easily digestible and fun to explore"
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Smithsonian downsizes $2bn expansion of its south campus in Washington
The institution unveils planned changes to its historic Castle and Arts and Industries Building
NewsUS Capitol riot
‘Shameful vandalism and desecration’ : Met leaders condemn right-wing crowd's assault on US Capitol
Museum joins other institutions in assailing protestors' rampage and hate-inspiring imagery as a threat to democracy and equality
NewsArchaeology
Archaeologists have discovered world's oldest animal cave painting
The warty pig painting was found in a cave in Indonesia and is thought to be at least 45,500 years old
BlogDiary
The Met invites you to play a game, and then ‘borrow’ a work of art
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Hirshhorn Museum is under pressure to reconsider redesign of its sculpture garden
Critics and city planners question changes to a historic reflecting pool and addition of stacked stone walls in a Modernist environment, while the artist Hiroshi Sugimoto defends his designs but says he is open to negotiating
NewsCommissions
This Victorian house in London hides remarkable Islamic interiors—now it is getting its first contemporary work
Leighton House Museum—which was once the home and studio of artist Lord Leighton—is undergoing restoration and will reopen in 2021
NewsConservation & Preservation
From lockdowns to looting: how Covid-19 has taken a toll on world's threatened heritage sites
Sites of major importance—many in regions already ravaged by conflict—are contending with security problems and funding shortfalls
NewsConservation & Preservation
Volunteers plan to return ‘Albert Hall of the North’ to its glory days
After years of neglect, ornate Victorian auditorium in northern seaside town of Morecambe is being saved
NewsVenice
Culture war erupts over Venice mayor's closure of Doge's Palace and other civic museums until April
Luigi Brugnaro's "entrepreneurial" decision violates Venice's historic agreement with Italian state to keep the landmark open to the public
NewsMuseums
Closure of London's Florence Nightingale Museum fuels fears that the pandemic will force smaller UK institutions to shut
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum in Birkenhead is also under threat of closure as part of cost-cutting measures by local council
NewsIndia
India's Supreme Court approves Modi's £2bn 'vanity project' to redevelop Delhi parliament complex
The reconstruction of the Central Vista is a significant step in the prime minister's efforts to sever the nation from its colonial past
PreviewPinault Collection
Bourse de Commerce: opening of Pinault's long-awaited Paris museum is—pandemic permitting—finally around the corner
Two decades since the billionaire started planning a home for his collection in the French capital, the spectacular space is due to open on 23 January
Newsreopenings
Five Philadelphia museums jointly announce that they are reopening this month
Institutions act on go-ahead from the city after their second closing in November
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Australian museum boom: as most institutions face cuts, National Gallery of Victoria’s massive expansion flies in the face of coronavirus
New NGV Contemporary building is the latest ambitious construction project planned in the country
PreviewThe Year Ahead 2021
Major museum openings and expansions in 2021
From the much-anticipated Grand Egyptian Museum to the Frick’s move to a Brutalist landmark, here are the building projects aiming to change cultural landscapes around the world
NewsMuseums & Heritage
'Long overdue': US will build national museums for American Latinos and women's history after Congress approves historic bill
Bipartisan effort, decades in the making, permits Smithsonian Institution to move ahead with plans
NewsOpenings
Amid Covid-19 adjustments, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles delays opening by five months
The museum’s debut, repeatedly postponed, is now anticipated in September of next year
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Can mediation save a sharing settlement over Nazi-looted Pissarro?
A Paris court has ordered Léone-Noëlle Meyer and the University of Oklahoma to return to the negotiating table
CommentMuseums & Heritage
California needs a plan to restart the arts
There is not a person in the arts who wants to open until it is safe to do so, but we cannot even prepare to start without state guidelines
NewsAppointments & departures
Peabody Essex Museum director is resigning after just 17 months
Brian P. Kennedy says he will seek a “new challenge” but offers no further details
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Peace offering: how museums help in troubled times
Amid the turmoil of the pandemic and the recent elections, US institutions with Tibetan Buddhist holdings respond with mindfulness events
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Sneak peek: Snarkitecture designs new gallery in Detroit for Library Street Collective
The art space in a historic building in the Belt neighbourhood will open with a show curated by the street artist Kaws
NewsUnions
Employees at the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh vote decisively to form a union
Goals include better pay and benefits, Covid-19 safety and a role in the institutions’ decision-making
NewsPhilanthropy
Billionaire Leonard Blavatnik donates £10m to the Courtauld Institute of Art
Suite of galleries in refurbished Courtauld Gallery will be named after the Ukraine-born industrialist
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Museum of Fine Arts Boston and other US institutions announce a second wave of pandemic closures
Some say they hope to reopen in January, while many others have remained shut for nearly a full year
NewsAppointments
Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art appoints former nonprofit executive as its new director
Alyssa Nitchun hopes to advance New York museum’s role as a queer sanctuary and “provocateur”
NewsAmedeo Modigliani
Revealed: the secrets behind Antonia, Modigliani’s ‘most complex work’
Researchers at C2RMF give an exclusive preview of their forensic study of all the artist's works in French museum collections
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Museums and galleries in London to close from Wednesday under new Covid Tier 3 restrictions
But arts professionals heavily criticise the government decision, saying there is “no logic” behind the move
NewsGreece
Huge historic tobacco factory in Athens to be renovated into cultural space by 2021
Arts organisation Neon are working on the project with the Greek government to mark 200 years since the country’s liberation from the Ottoman Empire
NewsMuseums
Kunsthaus Zurich counts down to ‘quantum leap’ for Swiss art scene after Chipperfield expansion
City hopes the $230m new building will raise its profile as an art destination to match Basel
NewsHeritage
Europe's 12 most endangered heritage sites announced
From a steam cog railway to the baroque Venetian palazzo abandoned by the Armenians , Europa Nostra chooses candidates for its 2021 Seven Most Endangered Sites list
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Lone senator blocks US bills creating museums that would celebrate American Latinos and women
Utah Republican says that such museums would “divide an already divided nation”
NewsMuseums
Leeds museum makes history by hosting Covid-19 vaccination hub
High-risk patients get Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at Thackray Museum of Medicine
NewsHeritage
Quest begins to buy £4m house where Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit
Campaign, which hopes to turn the Oxford home into a literary centre, has been backed by actors from the film adaptation Ian McKellan and Martin Freeman
NewsFunding
Historic Royal Palaces gets £40m lifeline loan and Southbank Centre gets £11m in latest round of UK Covid-19 funding
Rem Koolhaas’ Factory arts hub in Manchester—scheduled for completion in 2022—gets £21m grant
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Freshman art history student uncovers identity of Mughal miniature
Connections have been made between the Colby College Museum of Art’s Man with a Flowered Coat and portraits of the 17th-century commander Sayyid Muzzafar in international collections
NewsMusee d'Orsay
French politicians want Musée d’Orsay named after late French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing
Former minister Rachida Dati calls on Emmanuel Macron to authorise the change
NewsAcquisitions
Ronald Lauder presents major gift of European arms and armour to the Met
Describing the donation as the most significant to the department in nearly 80 years, museum will rename galleries after Lauder
NewsMuseums & Heritage
Victoria and Albert museum to close for two days a week due to coronavirus financial crunch
Visitor numbers will take years to recover with a drastic impact on income, the London institution reports
NewsAcquisitions
Yuichiro Ukai’s manga monster drawing acquired by American Folk Art Museum
The 25-year-old Japanese self-taught artist’s densely layered Yokai is his first piece to enter a museum’s collection
NewsConservation & Preservation
New hope that Istanbul orphanage—Europe's largest timber building—can be saved from ruin
After decades of neglect, a fundraising drive could restore Prinkipo Orphanage as an environmental research centre
CommentDiary of an art historian
'Autism made me an art historian. But museums must do more to welcome disabled and neurodiverse communities'
Museums were quick to implement Covid-19 safety measures and now they need to apply that same rigour to improving accessibility
Bendor Grosvenor