Despite fierce protests from researchers, curators and museum heads, the Louvre is pushing forward with its decision to move 250,000 artworks and artifacts to a new storage facility north of the city, in Liévin, a move that many say will cripple research attempts in the capital.  “A museum without its reserves is like a plane without engines: it looks all beautiful and glittering, but it won’t move,” says an open letter from 42 of the museum’s 45 curators. (more…)

The Art Newspaper notes that over one third of collectors in the top 20 of the Art News Top 200 Collectors List have opened museums or foundations to manage their collections, counting Bernard Arnault, Peter Brant and Eli Broad among them. (more…)

A long-running investigation into the contested work Saul and David has resulting in the painting’s reattribution as the work of Rembrandt, an attribution that was previously denied in 1969.  “For eight years, a large team of international experts has contributed to the research. A wide range of trusted and innovative research techniques have been employed,” says Mauritshuis Museum Director Emilie Gordenker The result is significant: the Mauritshuis has one of its most famous Rembrandts back.”  (more…)

A piece in the Financial Times notes that the value of the global art market topped €51 billion last year, an astounding figure that comes as Christie’s topped a $1 billion in sales this week alone.  Featuring in-depth analysis, the article notes the U.S. and China as the top shareholders in market value, and as well as the interesting detail that most dealer inventory rarely moves in under 6 months, despite that current clamor for works on the market.    (more…)

A recent chemistry study by scientists at the University of Antwerp has uncovered evidence showing that the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh have slowly but surely been changing colors over the course of a century due to a rare lead pigment used for red paints that gradually fades when exposed to light.  “Normally, the idea is these paintings are there for a hundred years, or five hundred years, and they’re static – nothing really changes,” says researcher Koen Janssens. “But the opposite is actually true when you look in detail.” (more…)

Global art sales topped $16 Billion in 2014, according to the new figures released this week by Artnet, with Andy Warhol at the top of the list of top-selling artists for his $653.2 million in sales.  “The headline number is not so much a comment on the art market as it is on global wealth,” says Jeff Rabin of advisory firm Artvest Partners. “We haven’t seen a considerable increase in the number of objects sold. We have seen price appreciation at the top end.” (more…)

A group of researchers working at Geneva’s Fine Arts Experts Institute have made the claim that about half of all artworks in circulation today are fakes, an estimate “When you buy an apartment, you always get an appraisal first. But in the art world, until recently, you could buy works for 10 million euros without sufficient documentation,” says FAEI chief Yann Walther. (more…)

The Rauschenberg Foundation has announced a series of grants for artists-activists, interested in making work that engages social practice and change.  Grants range from smaller travel grants (anticipated to be from $2,500 to $10,000) up to $100,000.  The foundation is planning on announcing its next grant proposal series in November, focusing on climate change. (more…)

A researcher at Texas State University, San Marcos claims to have pinpointed the exact time frame and date at which Claude Monet painted his foundational work Impression, Soleil Levant.  Physicist Donald Olson compared numerous astrological charts, historical records, and photographs of the Normandy town of Le Havre (where the painting was made), before calculating a model that points to an extremely precise date of Nov. 13, 1872, around 7:35 a.m.   (more…)

A new study has found an interesting link between a synthetic dopamine used to treat Parkinson’s Disease, and sudden bouts of intense creativity. “I started painting from morning till night, and often all through the night until morning. I used countless numbers of brushes at a time. I used knives, forks, sponges … I would gouge open tubes of paint–it was everywhere,” says one patient.  “But I was still in control at that point. Then, I started painting on the walls, the furniture, even the washing machine.”  (more…)

The Art Newspaper investigates the current payscales for independent curators, from Milan Expo 2015’s €750,000 salary for Germano Celant, to much lower rates for small-scale fairs and biennials.  “We’re not talking about the kind of field where you say, ‘A senior vice-president makes this and a schoolteacher makes that,’” says consultant András Szántó. “One of the interesting things about the art world as a labour market is that it is so fragmented.” (more…)

A Wall Street Journal article notes a recent study showing that art stimulates areas of the brain involved in vision, pleasure, memory, recognition and emotions, evidence of how strongly and naturally inclined the brain is towards enjoying art.   (more…)

Researchers have proven a long held belief that there is a hidden painting beneath Picasso’s iconic The Blue Room.  Using infrared scanning technology, experts revealed a portrait of a bow-tied man, resting his head on his hand buried under the layers of the finished painting.  “It’s really one of those moments that really makes what you do special,” said Patricia Favero, the conservator of the Phillips Collection.  “The second reaction was, well, who is it? We’re still working on answering that question.” (more…)

An Henri Matisse painting from the collection of Cornelius Gurlitt has been confirmed as Nazi loot, the Art Newspaper reports.  A task-force has uncovered that the 1921 work Femme Assise was taken from the collection of the Paris-based dealer Paul Rosenberg.  “Even though it could not be documented with absolute certainty how the work came into [Cornelius Gurlitt’s father] Hildebrand Gurlitt’s possession, the task force has concluded that the work is Nazi loot and was taken from its rightful owner Paul Rosenberg,” says researcher Ingeborg Berggreen Merkel. (more…)

An ongoing art research project is working to identify air pollution in past centuries, using landscapes and other paintings for clues as to the era’s atmospheric makeup.  In one case, the eruption of the Tambora Volcano in Indonesia caused several years of bright red and oranges sunsets around the world, most notably documented in the paintings of J.M.W. Turner.  “From Turner you see that in this specific year he starts painting sunsets a little more reddish, compared to two or three years before,” says lead researcher Dr. Andreas Kazantzidis. (more…)

New research has shown that a set of watercolors by J.M.W. Turner, previously thought to depict the burning of Parliament, are in fact paintings of a fire at the Tower of London.  The note was discovered by Matthew Imms, a cataloguer at the Tate.  “We could tell that the works were fairly late in Turner’s career so I cast around for other events at that time, and came across various images, popular prints and so on of the Tower of London fire in 1841,” Imms says. “It immediately clicked, because the various uncertain features of the architecture and so on matched quite well.” (more…)

Ten years of research into the identity of a purported Lucio Fontana painting has resulted in the work’s authentication, ArtNews reports.  Le Jour, painted in 1962, had sat in a European collection for many years, with the identity of the artist in question, until the piece was shown to Michele Casamonti of Tornabuoni Art Paris.  “It’s very interesting because it shows the physical position of Fontana in front of the canvas,” Casamonti notes. “It also shows how Fontana studies his gestures before realizing them. Preparation is almost more important than the execution, which is instinctive, total, and immediate.” (more…)

New research is indicating that most artists make their best, most valuable work at the age of 42.  Studying the work of 200 of the most prominent artists around the world, researchers found that the average age at which they produced their highest valued work at auction was usually made at two thirds into their life.  The number fits startlingly well with Fibonacci’s “golden ratio” of 0.6180, which has long been seen to guarantee proper proportions in the arts. (more…)

The Wall Street Journal reports on a lost painting by Magritte, which researchers claim was cut up into separate pieces and painted over.  While the practice is relatively common, the work in question, The Enchanted Pose, was exhibited on its own in 1927 before being reused.  Several parts of the piece have already been located, and museums around the world are searching for other missing pieces. (more…)

A recent investigation into the collection of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has uncovered 139 works looted during World War II.  The results of a 4-year study, the works have been placed on a website, inviting prior owners to make claims on the return of the work, including pieces by Matisse and Isaac Israels.  “We know that there were doubtful transactions concerning works acquired before 1940, after Kristallnacht,” said Siebe Weide of the Dutch Museum Association. (more…)

A group of art researchers, led by self-styled art history detective Silvano Vinceti, claim that they have taken a major step in identifying the remains of the model for Da Vinci’s most famous painting.  Taking DNA samples from remains in the crypts of Florence’s Santissima Annunziata basilica, the group will perform a number of tests before attempting to reconstruct the face of the woman, conventionally believed to be Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Renaissance-era silk merchant.   (more…)

New research into the composition and techniques in the work of Vincent Van Gogh are challenging the perceptions of the artist as a spontaneous, romantic libertine in favor of a portrait of the Dutchman as a skilled and relentlessly committed technician.  Presenting findings at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, a team of researchers have used new technologies and visualization equipment to analyze and uncover Van Gogh’s skillful approach to composing and arranging his paintings.  “There has never been such extensive research into Van Gogh’s paintings and drawings,” says Nienke Bakker, Van Gogh Museum curator. (more…)