A colourful new face for Tottenham Court Road Underground station was revealed on Monday (3 July).
Daniel Buren’s ‘Diamonds and Circles’ was unveiled as a permanent installation in the station’s ticket hall and entrances. Part of the £500m programme to develop Tottenham Court Road Tube into a key interchange in London, Buren’s artwork comprises brightly coloured shapes and stripes, which explore the station’s geometry. Continue reading
Arriving at the opening of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s new Exhibition Road Quarter the Duchess of Cambridge mouthed “wow”.
The £54.5 million development designed by British architect Amanda Levete comprises the world’s first completely porcelain tiled public courtyard and a column-less underground exhibition space. A History of Art graduate, the Duchess was invited to tour the new spaces on Thursday afternoon (29 June) and unveiled a commemorative plaque to mark their opening. Continue reading
What does the term “public art” mean to you? The fourth plinth on Trafalgar Square has seen a huge variety of different things temporarily located on it, all of which are pieces of public art. Public art, though, embraces a far wider array of things than one might imagine – inscriptions on a building, ornate entrance gates, street signs, even bollards as well as the more conventional paintings, light installations and sculptures. Indeed, the Tate defines public art as:
“…art that is in the public realm, regardless of whether it is situated on public or private property or whether it has been purchased with public or private money.” Continue reading
A painting valued at nearly £20,000, which was stolen from a Belfast home nine years ago has been reunited with its owners.
William Conor’s ‘Bringing in the Turf’ was displayed in the home of the Malpress family for 50 years before it was targeted by thieves. Purchased by Frank and Turid Malpress, it was replaced with a copy to serve as bait after Police Service Northern Ireland (PSNI) alerted the family that thieves were operating in their neighbourhood. Continue reading
A Spanish court has ordered the exhumation of the body of Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí to facilitate a paternity test.
Fortune teller and tarot card reader Maria Pilar Abel Martínez lodged a paternity claim in 2015 against the Spanish state and the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation to which the artist left his estate upon his death in 1989. Born in 1965, Martinez insists she is the product of a clandestine affair, which took place between the artist and her mother Antonia in 1955. Continue reading
With an auction record smashed twice in one night, the opening of the Serpentine Pavilion and the announcement of a plan to digitise the UK’s national sculpture collection it has been a stunning week in art. Continue reading
A Dutch private investigator dubbed the ‘Indiana Jones of the art world’ believes he holds the key to solving the most lucrative art heist in US history.
A European art advisor and part-time sleuth, Arthur Brand claims to have two good leads, which suggest 13 masterpieces worth US$500 million (£395 million) stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 are in Ireland. One lead is from a notorious Dutch criminal who showed new photos of the artworks in the 1990s in an attempt to sell them, and the other lead cannot be divulged. Continue reading
Paintings by Picasso and Basquiat could soon be handed over to the FBI as part of an investigation into a US$4.5 billion (£3.5 billion) Malaysian embezzlement scheme.
Given to the actor Leonardo DiCaprio as gifts, the artworks were purchased by individuals caught up in the US Justice Department’s investigation into the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) fund. Continue reading
A multimillion pound oil painting by Parmigianino will be shipped to the United States after no buyers were found in the United Kingdom to step and rescue it from export.
‘Virgin and Child with Saint Mary Magdalen and the Infant Saint John the Baptist’ (c. 1535-40) was purchased from the private collection of the Dent-Brocklehurst family by Los Angeles’ J. Paul Getty Museum in 2016. UK Culture Minister, Matt Hancock, placed a temporary export bar on the painting by Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (called Parmigianino) to enable a UK buyer to match the £24.5 million asking price by June 2017. Continue reading
A conservator “got such a fright” that she jumped upon discovering a 118-year-old painting hidden inside a hut in Antarctica.
The watercolour of a small bird labelled ‘1899 Tree Creeper’ was uncovered by Josefin Bergmark-Jimenez from the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust in September 2016. It was tightly packed among papers in a portfolio found inside the hut, one of two dwellings built at Cape Adare in East Antarctica by the 1899 expedition of Carsten Borchgrevink. Until now the surprise find has been kept secret to enable the Trust to focus on restoring 1,500 artefacts discovered in the huts. Continue reading
Art Law & More 