Latest Art News

John Mahli Lawa' Hampton, photo by Hayden Schutz.

WINNIPEG.- Following an extensive international search, the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq announced the appointment of John Mahli Lawa' Hampton as Director & Chief Executive Officer (CEO), effective December 10. As WAG-Qaumajuq’s Director & CEO, Hampton will lead the art museum’s finances, operations, and capital expansion projects while fostering a culture of creativity and innovation and advancing the strategic vision of Canada’s oldest civic art gallery, connecting art, culture, learning, and… More

Fourteen-minute bidding battle for a 2,000-year-old marble sculpture leads a white-glove auction spanning Roman antiquities, Old Master paintings, French royal furniture and Islamic art.

NEW YORK, NY.- A Roman marble torso dating from the first century A.D. stole the spotlight at Sotheby's in New York on Wednesday evening, October 21, selling for $34.3 million after an intense, nearly 14-minute bidding contest and establishing a new auction record for a Roman antiquity. The dramatic result helped propel the auction house's Magnum Opus Evening Auction to $63 million, surpassing its $47.6 million high estimate and achieving a 100 percent sell-through rate. The evening marked the… More

View of How to Feel Real, MO Museum, Vilnius, Lithuania, 2026. Photo: Domas Rimeika. Courtesy of MO Museum. © Domas Rimeika.

VILNIUS.- What does it mean to live in an age in which technology defines every level of reality? Will our sense of self and our societies shatter into fragments—only to be pieced together again by markets or political campaigns? In a world where everything is personalised, what makes us truly individual? Do we still have a choice, or are we increasingly shaped by the codes that surround us? At a time of deep uncertainty, marked by climate crisis, wars, and global instability, it is no longer… More

Cardboard Cathedral, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2013. Photo: © Stephen Goodenough.

METZ.- Sixteen years after the opening of the Centre Pompidou-Metz, Shigeru Ban takes over the museum he designed with Jean de Gastines to showcase over forty years of architecture: from early experiments to major cultural buildings, from emergency structures in the wake of disasters to explorations of wood, paper, and recyclable materials, the exhibition reveals an architectural vision of remarkable coherence. For Building a Better World, Shigeru Ban personally oversees both the curation… More

Installation view of Wilhelmina Barns-Graham's exhibition at Tate St Ives.

ST IVES.- Tate St Ives opens a major retrospective dedicated to Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912–2004), one of the most innovative figures in British modernism and a key member of St Ives’s groundbreaking mid-century artistic community. This long overdue celebration of Barns-Graham’s work marks the first exhibition to span the full breadth of her practice, tracing its evolution from early landscapes and interior paintings to the increasingly abstract and gestural compositions of her later years… More

Iria Leino, Conviction (166), 1980. Mixed media on canvas, 76.5 x 62.5 x 8 cm. 30 1/8 x 24 5/8 x 3 1/8 in. Photo: Angel Gil / Galerie Forsblom.

HELSINKI.- In Iria Leino’s art, the Finnish landscape is intertwined with a spiritual quest. Born in Helsinki and active as an artist in New York from the 1960s onward, Leino seamlessly incorporated imagery drawn from Finland’s lakes, forests and waterways, as well as from meditation and the avant-garde artist circles of SoHo. In her work, Leino sought to preserve her Finnish heritage and connection to nature, fueled by her spiritual search in Buddhism. From Pouring to Paintings-as-Sculpture is… More

Millard Rogers (1988); photograph by O. Joseph Galli, from the Mary R. Schiff Library & Archives, Cincinnati Art Museum.

CINCINNATI, OH.- The Cincinnati Art Museum has launched an innovative new curatorial leadership model, appointing its first Director of Academic Partnerships & Research and launching an international search for Director of Curatorial Affairs & Initiatives. Honoring a high-impact past director of the museum, Millard F. Rogers, director 1974-1994, CAM also announces a $4 million anonymous gift to endow the permanent curatorship of European paintings, sculpture and drawings at the museum. Peter Jonathan… More

Endowment Campaign Städel remains Städel. With your contribution to our endowment.

FRANKFURT.- The Städel Museum has launched an ambitious fundraising campaign aimed at securing its financial independence for future generations, inviting the public to contribute to an endowment fund with a long-term target of at least €100 million. Announced on October 21, the initiative marks what the museum describes as the first comprehensive endowment campaign undertaken by a German art museum. Under the slogan "Städel remains Städel," the institution is asking visitors, supporters, and the… More

Song Dong. Photo: Perottino.

TURIN.- From 23 October 2026 to 27 June 2027, MAO, Turin is hosting Song Dong. Soul Out, the first solo exhibition in Italy of works by the artist Song Dong (Beijing, 1966), curated by Li Zhenhua and Davide Quadrio, with Francesca Filisetti and Rebecca Ricci, and with the curatorial and scholarly contribution of Manuela Lietti. The exhibition is conceived as a site-specific project that involves the whole museum, transforming it into a narrative device in which Song Dong's works enter into… More

Sexual Fantasies, 2023 © Myriam Boulos.

AMSTERDAM.- Foam presents the first museum solo exhibition of Lebanese photographer Myriam Boulos, recipient of the 19th Foam Paul Huf Award. Bringing together an intimate and deeply personal body of work, largely made in her hometown of Beirut, Boulos turns her camera towards the spaces, bodies and intimate encounters that exist beyond the immediately visible. Her photographs explore sexuality, desire and fantasy, while reflecting on the ways bodies and land are shaped by systems of power and… More

Installation view, Moderna Museet. Jan Håfström, The Lost World, 2026. © Jan Håfström Photo: My Matson/Moderna Museet.

STOCKHOLM.- Jan Håfström is one of the most noted artists in Swedish contemporary art. He has been active for sixty years with exhibitions both in Sweden and internationally. At Moderna Museet, visitors will encounter art that he has been working on recently, and that comes directly from his studio. Jan Håfström (born 1937) works with painting, sculpture, prints, installation, drawing and film. He debuted in the 1960s and his artistic work moves between the personal and the universal. Ever since… More

Allison Chance will lead the museum’s advancement team and its philanthropic strategy. Photo: Courtesy of Allison Chance.

WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art today announced Allison Fleming Chance as its next chief advancement officer (CAO). Chance joins the museum from the U.S. Soccer Federation, where she was the vice president of individual giving. She brings more than two decades fundraising and leadership experience at major arts and cultural institutions, including the Smithsonian. Chance previously served as a major gifts officer from 2012 to 2015 at the Institution’s central… More

ATADA's current bylaws place authenticity at the center of the organization's definition of the material represented by its dealer members.

DALLAS, TX.- The change from Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association to Authentic Tribal Art Dealers Association substituted a consequential word. “Antique” primarily concerns age. “Authentic” raises questions of identity, authorship, cultural context and representation. For dealers, collectors, museums, appraisers and Indigenous artists, those distinctions have practical consequences. ATADA's current bylaws place authenticity at the center of the organization's definition of the material… More

Mirror Shield Project, Cannupa Hanska Luger, 2016. Photograph courtesy of the artist.

WASHINGTON, DC.- For Freedoms , an artist-led organization deepening civic engagement by centering artists as essential to shaping a free and pluralist society, presents two new exhibitions marking the third and final year of its three-year artist residency with the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at the George Washington University. Night and Day, by artist Eric Gottesman, and Reflect, by artist Cannupa Hanska Luger, will be on view at the Corcoran October 28, 2026 – February 19, 2027. Night… More

American Art, New York; purchase 31.408. Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation and the Burchfield Penney Art Center.

NEW YORK, NY.- The Whitney Museum of American Art presents Charles Burchfield: Elemental, an exhibition exploring Charles Burchfield’s (1893–1967) lifelong pursuit of what he described as the “tremendous force of nature.” Drawn entirely from the Whitney’s collection, the presentation brings together ten watercolors created between 1916 and 1960, tracing more than four decades of the artist’s singular engagement with the natural world and his transformation of landscape into an expression of emotion,… More

Adebunmi Gbadebo, Periwinkle 2026, Cyanotype, screenprint with handmade inks, lithograph, and collage, Edition of 20, 29 ½ x 44 ½ inches. ©Adebunmi Gbadebo.

EVANSTON, IL.- The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University announces the acquisition of Many Mornings Later (2025–26) by American artist Adebunmi Gbadebo, whose work is currently featured in the 2026 Venice Biennale. The large-scale handmade paper work was selected by The Block’s 2025–26 Collection Council, a group of donors whose contributions support the growth and care of the museum’s collection. Throughout the academic year, Council members participate in a collaborative process of… More

Oil on canvas painting by Wifredo Lam (Cuban, 1902-1982), titled Personnage 1 (1939), 36in x 23¼ in. Estimate: $150,000-$250,000.

MILFORD.- Shannon’s Fine Art Auctioneers will host their annual Fall Fine Art Auction on Thursday, October 29th at 6pm Eastern Time. The auction, featuring over 200 lots, will showcase examples of quality American art, Modern art, and European paintings. A rare painting attributed to Alfred Jacob Miller titled Green River leads the auction. Painted in 1851, this work depicts a rendezvous of Native Americans, fur traders, and pioneers. Miller first travelled to the Rocky Mountains in 1837 and… More

The Hades costume drew design inspiration from the dark suits worn by industrial capitalists, Depression-era gangsters and politician Huey Long. Photo by Jaclyn Nash.

WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History received a donation of costumes today from the Tony and Grammy Award-winning Broadway musical Hadestown in a ceremony following its matinee performance in New York City. Hadestown follows two intertwining love stories from Greek mythology—the young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice and the inharmonious King Hades and his wife Persephone—and invites audiences on a hell-raising journey to the underworld and back. The museum will receive… More

Karen Gunderson, Dark Waves Rising, 2026. Oil on linen, 75 x 75 inches.

NEW YORK, NY.- Yancey Richardson presents Dark Waves Rising, an exhibition of new paintings by Karen Gunderson, the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York in over ten years and first with the gallery since joining in 2025. Gunderson will debut paintings from two bodies of work, Moon and Water, that have been unfolding and evolving over several decades. Dark Waves Rising sees Gunderson continuing her pursuit of the haptic with paintings that shift and adapt to their environment through an… More

Alexander Kaletski, Sugar Free, 2006. Mixed media on cardboard, 82.25 x 54.5 in (208.9 x 138.4 cm).

NEW YORK, NY.- Anna Zorina Gallery presents Cardboard Chapel, a solo exhibition by Alexander Kaletski that includes a fifty year retrospective of his painting on cardboard. The title draws from the Sistine Chapel as a monumental example of how patronage of the arts has been used to shape and disseminate ideas, beliefs and stories throughout history. Kaletski considers how this powerful force operates today and he finds it in the marketing that surrounds us. Nowadays, financial support funds the… More