Art · Museums · Heritage · New York
In February 1961, the loss of Picasso's Femme dans un fauteuil of 1918 was discovered at the student union building of the University of Pittsburgh. Painted by Picasso on his honeymoon with Olga Khokhlova near Biarritz, the picture had been lent to the university by the Guggenheim Museum
Archive · Architecture · New York · People
That is to say, the page from issue 7 of the magazine "USSR in Construction" for 1940 is a photomontage. Mayakovsky, in overcoat and hat, holding a gigantic Soviet foreign passport, was superimposed on this historic photograph by Irving Underhill, taken in 1921. The most amusing thing is
Art · Heritage · New York · Society
A couple of weeks ago the court ordered the present owner of the disputed painting, the art dealer David Nahmad, to return it to Stettiner's heirs. Now it has further ruled that the heirs are entitled to interest for the period preceding the judgment in the case of
Art · Observations · New York · Humour
Saw a great big station, Stretched and said: "What station is this? Dibuny or Yamskaya?" And from the platform they said: "This is the city of New York. This is the city of New York, they say." Literal translation And, accordingly, a mosaic in the New
Archaeology · Museums · Heritage · New York · Society
Art-crime specialist Erin Thompson has explained why dozens of American museums still hold antiquities bought from Ali Aboutaam, the Geneva dealer convicted of trafficking in cultural property. Aboutaam built a scheme of shell companies and forged provenances: a restorer scrubbed freshly excavated objects with a toothbrush in an old
Archaeology · The East · Museums · Heritage · New York · People
An interesting man, to be sure, the Manhattan prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos, who since 2003, when he witnessed the mass looting in Baghdad with his own eyes, has devoted himself to fighting the trade in stolen antiquities. The unit of the New York police that he heads has seized thousands of
Art · Heritage · New York · Society
The Zeckendorf family of New York developers has filed suit against the heirs of the Weis collectors, claiming that a 1958 painting by Pierre Soulages, sold at Christie's last autumn for almost five million dollars, was stolen from their family between 1977 and 1980. The canvas came from
Art · Cinema · New York · Society
A documentary about America's last two staff art critics has been released: House of Criticism, directed by Alison Chernick. The film tells the story of the lives of Roberta Smith and Jerry Saltz. Smith joined The New York Times in 1986 on a part-time basis; in 2011
Architecture · Museums · Science · New York · Society
A cunning bacterium has been found in the cooling tower of the Guggenheim Museum, infecting people through clouds of vapour. The bacterium is called Legionella, and its history belongs to the twentieth century. It was isolated after 1976, when participants in a convention of the American Legion fell ill at
Art · Observations · New York · Nature
If one is to recall how American painting began and what it portended, one must name the country's first major artistic movement, the Hudson River School. Its voice is usually presented as a hymn to untouched nature. But can you really not sense the anxiety in these majestic
Coming Up · Art · Museums · New York
MoMA announces "Mondrian Boogie Woogie", running from 21 March to 31 July 2027 and the first survey of Piet Mondrian's New York works. A Dutchman, one of the pioneers of abstraction and co-founder of De Stijl, the international association for non-representational art, Mondrian fled
Art · Cinema · Heritage · New York · Society
Gustav Klimt painted "Portrait of Fräulein Lieser" in 1917 and had not finished it when he died in 1918. The commission came from the wealthy Viennese Jewish Lieser family. For nearly a century the picture was known only from a black-and-white photograph of 1925: it vanished