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Painting Stolen Fifty Years Ago By New Jersey Mobsters Returned To Owner

"The Schoolmistress," a painting by notable artist John Opie around 1784, was taken from the home of Francis Wood, 96, in Newark in 1969. - NBC

Late Frank Lloyd Wright House Modeled On Guggenheim Sells For Under-Asking Price

A Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home in the town of New Canaan, Connecticut, has sold for $6 million—25 percent below its asking price—to an undisclosed buyer. - Artnet

Can Immersive Art Help Save The UK’s Legendary, Lost High Streets?

"The visual art world is at a tipping point where traditional museums and galleries will have to begin involving immersive art in their offering or risk becoming irrelevant." So why not show art in derelict department stores as well? - The Guardian (UK)

Climate Protesters Throw Soup At The Mona Lisa

"'What’s the most important thing?' they shouted. 'Art, or right to a healthy and sustainable food?' They added: 'Our farming system is sick. Our farmers are dying at work.'" - The Guardian (UK)

Why Did The Santa Barbara Museum Of Art Suddenly Cancel A Show And Let A Curator Go?

The show was focused on the legacy of Michael Fried's 1965 show Three American Painters. The new show, Three American Painters: Then and Now, was conceived and organized by SBMA’s former Deputy Director and Chief Curator Eik Kahng." Now show, and curator, are gone. - Hyperallergic

Art, Oligarchs And Fraud

We think of oligarchy as a foreign concept, but the truth is that American oligarchs abound, and many of them collect art. It’s a time-honored strategy. - Mother Jones

Major Museums Remove Native Artifacts In Response To New Federal Rules

The American Museum of Natural History will close two major halls exhibiting Native American objects, its leaders said on Friday, in a dramatic response to new federal regulations that require museums to obtain consent from tribes before displaying or performing research on cultural items. - The New York Times

Victoria & Albert And British Museums To Loan Looted Asante Gold And Silver To Ghana

"Under the (three-year) deal, 17 objects from the V&A and 15 from the British Museum will go on show later this year at the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi, the capital of Asante region. Many of the items have not been seen in Ghana for 150 years." - The Guardian

Missing For A Century, Klimt Portrait Has Been Rediscovered

"Portrait of Fräulein Lieser belonged to a Jewish family in Austria and was last seen in public in 1925. Its fate after that is unclear but the family of the current owners have had it since the 1960s. (One) auction house estimates the painting's value at more than $54 million." - BBC

Are Those Immersive Van Gogh Shows Just A Money Grab?

Leading digital artists have claimed that some of the most popular commercial immersive experiences, particularly those based on the work of deceased artists, such as Van Gogh and Dalí, are a money grab that provide little reward to visitors beyond Instagrammable moments. - The Guardian

This Year’s Whitney Biennial Reflects The Chaotic Precariousness Of Now

The drastic phase of the pandemic, with its restrictions, may have receded. But the landscape left in its wake is a panorama of compounding crises — and for artists, like everyone else, a period of high uncertainty and anxiety with the U.S. election looming. - The New York Times

The Campaigners Working To Bring Looted Nepali Religious Art Back Home

"'Kathmandu valley was an open museum,' says Rohit Ranjitkar, director of the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust. 'There were centuries-old treasures. I think local people did not value it or there was less awareness. So many things were knowingly or unknowingly gifted or thrown out or sold by local people.'" - The Guardian

Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum Suspends Four Staffers For Misconduct During Last Year’s Insane Pokémon Show

"The workers had allegedly provided potential visitors with insider information on how to get limited tickets to the exhibition. One employee even allegedly embezzled a box of (van Gogh-style) Pokémon cards produced for the show." (Those cards were withdrawn after people literally rioted to get them.) - ARTnews

Why Was The Art Gallery Of Ontario’s First Indigenous Curator Abruptly Fired In November?

News that Wanda Nanibush, the first Canadian and Indigenous art curator at the AGO, was leaving the institution shocked the Canadian art world. The news was linked to a leaked letter accusing her of “posting inflammatory, inaccurate rants against Israel”. - The Art Newspaper

National Art Gallery Burns Down In Georgia’s Breakaway Region Of Abkhazia

More than 4,000 items were destroyed and only about 150 pieces survived in the blaze that broke out early Sunday morning. Abkhazia broke away from the Republic of Georgia during the post-Soviet civil war of 1992-93 and is propped up by Russia, which maintains thousands of troops there. - CNN

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