A recent article on Arnet reviews the story over assailant Andrew Shannon’s attack on a Claude Monet painting, and notes that he is not the first to punch one of the artist’s Impressionist masterworks.  In 2007, a group of vandals entered the Musée D’Orsay and punched a hole in another of the artist’s Argenteuil landscapes.   (more…)

Portrait of Dirck van Os, a 1658 painting long discredited as a Rembrandt copy, has been returned to public view at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha as an officially authenticated portrait by the Dutch master.  “People here sensed the underlying quality,” says Joslyn executive director, Jack Becker, “but you need the scholarly community to rehabilitate a picture like this.” (more…)

Marc Quinn is interviewed in The Guardian this week, answering a quick round of questions on his fears, hopes and secret passions, including an interesting answer to the question of what era he would visit in time: “To the beginning of the 20th century with knowledge of all the artworks to come,” he says. “If I then made them all myself, would it have the same effect on culture?” (more…)

More information is being released on the upcoming Damien Hirst biography, the Art Newspaper reports.  The book, which will see release next year, will include a look at Hirst’s early work curating the now famed show Freeze in London’s docklands, and the Sensation show at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. (more…)

Georg Baselitz, Ohne Titel – 3.IV.2002 Der Schachspieler im Profil, (2002), via The Albertina

In honor of German-born Georg Baselitz’ 75th birthday, Albertina Gallery, Vienna, Austria, is presenting a cross-section of its broad collection of his work. Baselitz (b. 1938) is of the most easily recognized living modern artists, working as a painter, printmaker, sculptor, and draughtsman. He has had shows at institutions including MoMA, The Guggenheim, The Royal Academy, The Saatchi Gallery, The Gagosian Gallery, and Centre Pompidou.

Georg Baselitz, Untitled, 16 April (2006), via The Albertina (more…)

Writer Geordie Greig has released a biography on painter Lucian Freud, capping his 30 years pursuing the famously reclusive artist for interviews and insights into his craft.  Titled Breakfast with Lucian, the book charts the writer’s history with Freud, and his occasionally fractious relationship with the artist, including one scene where Freud pointed a serrated knife at Greig.  “‘Lunatic Artist Stabs Editor of Evening Standard is not a good way to be remembered,’ I said,” recounts Greig. “I can think of worse ways,” was Freud’s reply. (more…)