Category Archives: Art

Argentina couple under house arrest amid search for painting stolen by Nazis

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Daughter of former Nazi official and her husband to be questioned after raid on home failed to find masterpiece

A federal court in Argentina has ordered house arrest for the daughter of a former Nazi official and her husband after a raid failed to locate a painting stolen from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam.

Authorities raided a home in the coastal city of Mar del Plata last week after a Dutch newspaper identified a painting seen in a real estate photo as an Italian masterpiece registered on a database of lost wartime art.

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Archaeologists in Peru discover 3D mural that could date back 4,000 years

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The unprecedented find has shifted archaeological understanding about the first civilisations in the Americas

Archaeologists in Peru have discovered a multicoloured three-dimensional mural that could date back 4,000 years, in an unprecedented find that has shifted archaeological understanding about the first civilisations in the Americas.

The centrepiece of the three-by-six metre mural is a stylistic depiction of a large bird of prey with outstretched wings, its head adorned with three-dimensional diamond motifs that visually align the south and north faces of the mural. It is covered with high-relief friezes and features designs painted in blue, yellow, red and black.

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Looming crisis for NSW’s regional galleries averted with $15.4m in state arts funding

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Labor announced on Thursday Create NSW’s Arts and Cultural Funding Program will provide financial assistance for 62 organisations statewide

Arts organisations and galleries across New South Wales have voiced their relief after the state government announced $15.4m funding over two years, allaying worries of a looming crisis for NSW’s regional galleries.

Sixty-two arts organisations across NSW will receive $15.4m funding for the next two years through Create NSW’s Arts and Cultural Funding Program (ACFP), the state government announced on Thursday, with $7.5m going to 31 regional arts organisations, including 10 regional galleries.

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Old master painting looted by Nazis disappears from home in Argentina

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Search for artwork seen in estate agent’s photo continues after police raid on house finds tapestry hanging in its place

Argentinian police have said they will continue hunting for an old master painting looted by the Nazis and spotted by chance in an estate agent’s listing after a search of the property in the seaside town of Mar del Plata failed to uncover the work.

“The painting is not in the house … but we’re going to keep searching for it,” the federal prosecutor Carlos Martínez told local media. He said items that could be useful for the investigation, including two firearms, engravings and prints, had been seized.

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Old master painting looted by Nazis spotted in Argentinian property listing

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Dutch newspaper AD says it has traced Giuseppe Ghislandi’s Portrait of a Lady to house near Buenos Aires

More than 80 years after it was looted by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam, a portrait by an Italian master has been spotted on the website of an estate agent advertising a house for sale in Argentina.

A photo shows the painting, Portrait of a Lady (Contessa Colleoni) by the late-baroque portraitist Giuseppe Ghislandi, also known as Fra’ Galgario, hanging above a sofa in the living room of the property, in a seaside town near Buenos Aires.

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Denmark to reportedly remove ‘ugly and pornographic’ mermaid statue

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Danish agency for palaces and culture requests removal of 14-tonne sculpture from Dragør Fort in Copenhagen

A debate has erupted in Denmark over the fate of a mermaid statue that is to be removed from public view after being decried as “ugly and pornographic” and “a man’s hot dream of what a woman should look like”.

The Danish agency for palaces and culture is reportedly removing the 4x6 metre Den Store Havfrue (the Big Mermaid) from Dragør Fort, part of Copenhagen’s former sea fortifications, because it does not align with the cultural heritage of the 1910 landmark.

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Archibald prize 2025: finger-painted portrait of musician William Barton wins people’s choice award

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Loribelle Spirovski’s painting of didgeridoo/yidaki player wins the $5,000 prize decided by the public, with more than 40,000 votes cast

Artist Loribelle Spirovski has won the 2025 Archibald prize people’s choice category for her portrait of didgeridoo player William Barton, painted entirely with her fingers.

Spirovski, a four-time finalist at the Archibald prize, Australia’s most prestigious portraiture award, won the $5,000 people’s choice category, picked from the Archibald prize finalists each year by the public. This year 40,842 votes were cast for the people’s choice category, the highest number of votes ever received.

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Norfolk woman hands over 16th-century painting identified as stolen 50 years ago

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Exclusive: Barbara de Dozsa had argued ownership because work by Italian artist Solario had been bought in good faith

A 16th-century Madonna and Child painting that ended up with a woman in Norfolk after it was stolen from a museum in Italy half a century ago is to be returned to its rightful owner.

After years of soul-searching, and persuading by an art lawyer who was acting pro bono, Barbara de Dozsa decided to hand it over to the Civic Museum of Belluno, which last saw the painting in 1973.

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Kew Gardens to host largest outdoor exhibition of Henry Moore’s sculptures

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Show will include 30 monumental pieces displayed across gardens and 90 works filling Shirley Sherwood Gallery

Henry Moore believed “sculpture is an art of the open air” and that his works should be seen in “almost any landscape, rather than in or on the most beautiful building”.

Now the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is planning the world’s largest outdoor exhibition devoted to the miner’s son who became one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century, it will announce on Monday.

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‘Shock to creative ecology’: NSW regional art galleries face funding crisis after state pulls financial support

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Peak arts bodies urge review of decision that jeopardises institutions which are the ‘lifeblood’ of regional Australian cultural life

Three out of four regional public art galleries in New South Wales are facing a funding crisis after the state government pulled its financial support as a result of a massive restructure of its cultural funding arm, Create NSW.

Wagga Wagga, Orange, Armidale, Broken Hill and Tamworth are among 18 regional centres in NSW with major public art galleries that will no longer receive four-year funding from the state government, worth between about $70,000 and $200,000 a year.

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Al Pacino on how he got his Modigliani film off the ground after 30 years

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Exclusive: Actor talks of difficulties of getting ‘art film’ made about tortured artist, played by Riccardo Scamarcio

He is one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, having made his name in the 1970s gangster classic The Godfather. Yet, despite his fame and Oscars recognition, Al Pacino struggled for 30 years to make a movie about one of the 20th century’s greatest artists because “art films” are “always difficult to get off the ground”.

He refused to give up on a drama about Amedeo Modigliani, a tortured genius who faced repeated rejection before his life was cut short in 1920 by tubercular meningitis, aged 35.

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Banksy posts image of new lighthouse artwork believed to be in Marseille

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Image on street incorporates shadow of a bollard alongside words ‘I want to be what you saw in me’

Banksy has posted an image of a new artwork that appears to be in Marseille, in southern France, though its exact location has not been confirmed.

The characteristic image, posted on the artist’s Instagram account, transforms the shadow of a street bollard into the form of a lighthouse. Stencilled across it are the words “I want to be what you saw in me”.

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Eva, one half of performance art duo ‘from the future’ Eva & Adele, has died

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Post on the pair’s Instagram page says ‘Eva returned to the future today’, having died at their home in Berlin after surgery on her spine

Eva, one half of the pioneering German performance art duo Eva & Adele, has died, her partner has announced.

“Eva returned to the future today,” a post on the pair’s Instagram page said on Wednesday. “She has left this world and stepped on to the eternal stage. Her faith in the power of art was never-ending.”

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‘Napalm Girl’ may be work of different photographer, World Press Photo says

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Photo from Vietnam war is now at centre of controversy after documentary claimed it was taken by someone else

The World Press Photo group has suspended the attribution of authorship for one on the most famous press photographs ever taken, after a new documentary challenged 50 years of accepted journalism history.

The photo, officially titled The Terror of War but colloquially known as Napalm Girl, remains one of the most indelible images of the US war in Vietnam. Since its publication in June 1972, it has been officially attributed to Nick Ut, a Vietnamese photographer working with the Associated Press in Saigon.

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Slovenia to vote in referendum on artist pension that has fostered culture war

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Rightwing opposition party claims some artists will receive benefits having contributed little to the state

Slovenia’s populist opposition has mounted a campaign against “degenerate” artists as it seeks to topple government plans for special pension top-ups for award-winning artists in a referendum on Sunday.

Voters in the central European country will cast their verdict on a government bill that details the conditions and terms under which certain artists can claim an allowance to be added to their pensions.

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‘A lot of pride and joy’: the First Nations team representing Australia at the Venice Biennale of Architecture

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These seven architects hope to show First Nations design and connection to Country at the world’s most prestigious architecture exhibition

Australia’s participation in next year’s Venice Biennale remains under a cloud. With Creative Australia holding fast to its decision to cancel its commission of artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino, it’s becoming increasingly likely that the Australian Pavilion might remain dark in 2026.

It is an added weight for the First Nations team who have unveiled their new creation inside the pavilion as part of Venice’s other biennale: the Venice Biennale of Architecture, held every other year in the Giardini.

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Archibald prize 2025: Julie Fragar wins for portrait of artist Justene Williams

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Decision announced at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where all finalists will be exhibited to the public from Saturday

Julie Fragar has won the 2025 Archibald prize for her portrait of her fellow artist Justene Williams.

Announced as the winner of the $100,000 prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on Friday, the winning work was selected unanimously by the judges from 904 entries and 57 finalists.Fragar is just the 13th woman to win the prize in its 104-year history.

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Denmark’s museum objects at risk from ‘extreme’ new mould, say conservators

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The ‘epidemic for Golden Age paintings’ may already be a global problem, with the fungi a possible health hazard

A new type of “extreme” mould is sweeping through Denmark’s museums, threatening some of the nation’s most important paintings and cultural objects, conservators have warned.

Described as an “epidemic for Golden Age paintings”, the highly resistant mould covers objects in a white coating and has been detected in 12 of the country’s museums, including the National Museum of Denmark and Skagens Museum.

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‘The eighth wonder of the world’: China’s terracotta warriors to march on Australia for blockbuster show

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Perth will host huge exhibition of ancient treasures from first emperor’s tomb in June, with 40% of the artefacts leaving China for the first time ever

Two thousand years ago, in a bid to conquer death itself, China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang commissioned a city of the dead: a 49 sq km mausoleum guarded by an army of clay warriors, built to defend his tomb for eternity.

When farmers near Xi’an unearthed the first clay head in 1974, they cracked open one of humanity’s greatest archaeological mysteries, with more than 8,000 Terracotta Warriors discovered over the last 50 years. Now, fragments of that dream of immortality rise again – this time in Perth, where the largest exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors ever staged in Australia will head later this year

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London mural by key postwar artist saved from demolition

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William Mitchell artwork saved but Blackheath community centre in which it was housed will be torn down

A rare piece of postwar art that was under threat of being demolished along with the south London building it was housed in has been saved.

The work, a mural by William Mitchell, was created for a community centre in Blackheath that is to be torn down to make way for social housing. The mural will now be preserved by Heritage of London Trust (Holt).

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