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Finally We’ve Gotten Around To Recognizing That Some of The “Monuments Men” Were Women

"The Dallas-based foundation honoring the group updated its name ... to recognize their contributions, highlighted their work in a new exhibit ..., and is set to publish for the first time in English a memoir in which one of the women describes spying on the Nazis while working at a Paris museum." - AP

Did A Moscow Auction House Just Sell A Painting Looted From A Ukrainian Museum?

The work in question, sold for roughly $1 million early this week, is Ivan Aivazovsky's painting Moonlit Night. Ukraine's prosecutor-general tweeted that the item had been looted from the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore. The auction house claims that it sold a different Aivazovsky work with the same title. - Artnet

The “Art Crime” Professor And The State Of The Art

"I am frustrated by how often repatriation activists have to reinvent the wheel, which is another reason that I think social media has been so important." - ARTnews

Cairo Restores And Reopens A Large Portion of The Saladin Citadel

"Cairo's citadel, one of the Egyptian capital's most prominent landmarks, opened another wing housing two semi-circular towers to the public on Sunday. … (The 12th-century fortress) was the base of Egypt's government for over 700 years." - Reuters

A Staggering $100M Canadian Art Fraud

A decades-long forgery scheme ensnared Canada’s most famous Indigenous artist, a rock musician turned sleuth and several top museums. - Smithsonian

Bellevue Arts Museum Declares A Crisis, Says It Might Have To Close

“We’re at the place where the straw breaks the camel’s back,” Kate Scher said. She called the crisis a “combined product” of the museum’s lack of long-term funding, the pandemic, and shifts in audience habits and philanthropic priorities. - Seattle Times

Pro-Palestine Protestors Take Over MoMA

MoMA had shut down completely. It would not reopen until the following day. Visitors were ferried to the exits. Outside, a soft-spoken museum employee was assisting would-be museumgoers with refunds. “They’re protesting Gaza—our trustees are funding it,” he explained. “We can’t let you see the artwork. There are too many protesters.” - The Nation

The Oldest Rock Art In South America Is Far Older Than Was Thought

"After more than a decade of work, scientists from Argentina, Chile and the United States have successfully dated the Huenul 1 cave paintings in Argentina’s Patagonia region. … The oldest paintings in the cave date back 8,200 years, several millennia earlier than previously suggested." - El País (Spain) (in English)

Maine’s Portland Museum Of Art Lays Off More Than 10% Of Its Staff

"The 13 layoffs include salaried and hourly employees on (the) roughly 100-person staff. Front-line support staff … will not be impacted by staff reductions." In addition, museum director Mark Bessire is taking a voluntary 20% reduction in his annual salary. - Portland Press Herald

Will A Show Of Chuck Close’s Final Work Help Restore His Place In Art?

Arne Glimcher said the controversy surrounding Close is not his concern. “There has been too much about Chuck that isn’t about the art,” he said. “I only want to talk about the art.” - The New York Times

The Paintings British Artists Love At Their National Gallery

The beloved paintings come from many places, but not any of the countries that make up the United Kingdom. - The Observer (UK)

In The West Bank, Palestinian Artists Mount A Show With A Backdrop Of Despair

The exhibition, "showing at the Palestinian Museum in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a collection of protest that is as much about the art that is not there, lost in the war that rages in Gaza, as about the art that is on display." - The New York Times

Chileans Start Social Media Campaign To Get Easter Island Statue Back From The British Museum

"The online campaign began after an influencer encouraged his followers to ‘spam' the museum's Instagram posts with 'return the moai' comments. The British Museum said it deactivated comments on one social media post." - BBC

This Artist Emerged From COVID’s Early Days Of Isolation With An Instagram Following, And Then A Gallery

Danielle Mckinney had "spent her entire professional life pursuing photography without showing in a commercial gallery, but soon she had dealers on both coasts, solo shows lined up and a waiting list of collectors and institutions interested in acquiring her paintings. She was excited and perplexed." - The New York Times

How The Met Is Bringing The Harlem Renaissance Back Into The Spotlight

The last Harlem show at the Met, in 1969 (!), contained no Black artists. This one is going to be different. Some works were stored in family members’ basements, for instance, and needed serious renovation. - The New York Times

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