Sotheby’s has landed a major collection for its fall auctions, selling works from the holdings of Steven and Ann Ames, including a pair of Gerhard Richter works valued at $20-$30 million each.  “They have a Richter from every major period and a de Kooning from every major period,” says Amy Cappellazzo, chairwoman of Sotheby’s fine art division. “That’s an immense and important study about painting.” (more…)

The New York Times reports that billionaire J. Tomilson Hill is opening a museum in Chelsea, where he wants to show his $800 million collection, and to use the space for arts education. “They’re cutting out arts programs in the public schools,” he says.  “These are kids who wouldn’t even think The Frick was accessible to them,” Mr. Hill said. (more…)

Three Christie’s employees have left the company, shortly after the auction house announced its sales had dropped last year from $4.5 billion to $3 billion in the past year.  “As a private company, we don’t comment on speculation around our employees,” the company said in a statement.  “However, like any business, we continue to review the deployment of resources and focus investment on areas of growth so as to best to serve our clients.” (more…)

The New York Times reports on the quiet sale of a major Florine Stettheimer work from the collection of Nashville’s Fisk University, a sale that drew criticisms from many in the field.  “Shame on them,” says Lyndel King, director of the Weisman Museum at the University of Minnesota and chairwoman of the Task Force for the Protection of University Collections. “It’s very much against the ethics of our profession.” (more…)

The Art Newspaper follows the story of Udnie, a long-unknown muse of Francis Picabia that scholars now believe was model and silent-film actress Audrey Munson.  Munson “posed for him for several days, but never in still position,” she is quoted.  “He had me walk about the studio in different lights, taking different postures. He wanted to paint me in action, he said, not in repose.” (more…)

The Swiss Institute has announced the location and opening date of its new temporary gallery, “Swiss In situ.” Occupying a 5,000 sq. ft space in Tribeca, Swiss In situ will function as the institute’s main center until a more permanent location is announced next year. The temporary gallery plans to mirror its status as “transitional” through its exhibitions, by focusing them on fleeting and “temporary structures–including publishing formats, social experiments, and architectural forms.” The gallery will open with an exhibition by Swiss publishers, Nieves and Innen called, “Nieves and Innen Zine Library.” The exhibition will feature “hundreds of pocket-sized, image-based publications [Nieves and Innen] have commissioned over the past 15 years,” along with artist and publisher talks at the opening event on August 4. (more…)

Robert Irwin is profiled in the Art Newspaper this week, as he opens his major permanent installation at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa.  “What I’ve been doing all these years, you couldn’t sell, you couldn’t house it, you couldn’t put it in a museum,” he says. “Marfa was a good place for me to fantasize some idea of what I might do, which for a long time was all I had… It was a nice place for me to stretch my legs a little and try some things.” (more…)

The current market stature for Modigliani is driving extensive research and pursuit of a catalog raisonné, the Art Newspaper reports.  “Let’s just say that an exciting first step has been taken, with further news to come,” scholar Kenneth Wayne says. (more…)

The New York Times has a profile on Richard Bellamy this week, the founder of New York’s influential Green Gallery, and the dealer who first provided space and a voice for many of New York’s influential minimalists, including Donald Judd, Robert Morris, and many more.  “I think,” Robert Morris says of Bellamy’s impact on this group,  “it had to do with the fact that we — the artists and Bellamy himself, who we regarded as more of an artist than a ‘director’ — were sitting in a space on 57th Street, when we all belonged downtown in our ratty lofts. There was something slightly ridiculous about occupying that zone where the serious, moneyed New York galleries were located.” (more…)

The Louvre-Lens has committed to restoring a Charles Le Brun work that had been missing for over 200 years, and which was discovered with so much dirt and grime on its surface that it was almost unrecognizable.  “This was a hugely successful painting,” says Nicolas Milovanovic, the chief curator in the Paris museum’s paintings department. “When [the art collector and chief minister of France] Cardinal Mazarin saw it, he wanted a copy. A third version was made for Anne of Austria. We know [there are] around ten other versions. It was a painting that pleased many people.” (more…)

The Observer takes a look inside the collection of dealer turned museum owner Judy Goffman Cutler, whose National Museum of American Illustration in Newport, Rhode Island holds an impressive collection of pieces from American artists.  “I have the second largest collection of Rockwells anywhere,” she says.   (more…)

Artist Bill Viola is set to unveil a new large-scale video installation at St Paul’s Cathedral, depicting Mary holding the body of Jesus after his crucifixion.  The piece is considered a companion to his Martyrs series.  “One is concerned with birth and the other death; one with comfort and creation, the other with suffering and sacrifice,” Viola says.  “If I am successful, the final pieces will function both as aesthetic objects of contemporary art and as practical objects of traditional contemplation and devotion.” (more…)

15th Century Flemish Master Dieric Bouts’s St Luke Drawing the Virgin and Child will stay in the United Kingdom, following funding help from the UK Lottery to prevent the export of the work outside of the country.  “It’s fantastic news that this stunning painting will remain in the UK for the public to see. I’m delighted that the export deferral has allowed this outstanding work of art to find a new home at the Bowes Museum,” says new Culture Minister Matt Hancock.  (more…)

The Art Newspaper reports on the opening of Hans Ulrich Obrist and Yongwoo Lee’s Shanghai Project, multi-disciplinary biennial that has struggled with planning issues, scheduling, and problems with securing funding.  “Shanghai Project has restructured its priority from exhibitions to public programs and prioritised the difference of its context,” says Lee. (more…)

James Turrell installed one of his signature lighting systems in Berlin’s Dorotheenstadt Cemetery chapel this summer, playing a series of changing light arrangements against the fading light at dusk each night.   (more…)

Bortolami Gallery is launching a series of “mini-Marfas,” exhibition spaces in unexpected locales and structures across the United States, where their artists will have free reign to show their work.  Early entries in the series include a show of works by Eric Wesley in a former Cahokia, Illinois Taco Bell, and a Daniel Buren show in Miami.  “It’s a way for us to expand our reach without opening full-scale operations in another city or in New York,” says associate director Emma Fernberger, “and just getting to see more of the country.”  (more…)

Gladstone Gallery will reprise the sculpture and video of Matthew Barney’s 1991 performance Blind Perineum this fall, a piece in which the artist scaled across the ceiling of the space using ice picks.  “There are vast numbers of artists and other interested people who have heard about it but have never seen it,” Barbara Gladstone. “People think the performance was in front of an audience, but it never was.” (more…)

Artist Rashid Johnson has joined the board of the Guggenheim Museum, making him the first artist appointed to the position since the museum’s founding.  “The collective wisdom of the museum’s board will be considerably widened and deepened with Rashid Johnson’s joining,” says director Richard Armstrong.

(more…)

Kanye West will give a guest performance at next week’s Watermill Center Benefit, an event to help fund the institution’s continued expansion and library construction.  “If we lose our history, we lose our memory,” artistic director Robert Wilson says. “So we try to have here some awareness of what happened in the past.” (more…)

Robert Irwin is featured in W Magazine this week, as the artist prepares to open his new permanent installation in Marfa, subtly altering the frame of the Fort D.A. Russell hospital so that its walls and windows play on intersections of structural line and light.  “That’s the main event, all the windows. People think they’re looking for artwork but what they’re actually seeing is beautiful nature,” he says. “I liked the architecture of the fort. All I did was take that form and elaborate it—make the walls thicker, so you get a more substantial physicality to look out of. A real sense of frame.” (more…)

The U.S. government has filed lawsuits seeking to seize $1 billion in assets that it claims were diverted from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad fund by Malaysian government officials.  Among those named in the lawsuits are financier Jho Low, who recently made major purchases for works by Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet, seized by Swiss officials on suspicion that they were purchased with the appropriated funds. (more…)

London’s new mayor, Sadiq Khan, has announced plans to democratize the arts in the British capital, proposing a plan for a “Love London” card that will offer discounts and access to cultural events around the city.  “I don’t want Zone 1 to hog the best arts and culture in our city. There are 33 boroughs, I want to democratize the arts so that every Londoner can benefit from the world’s best art. Love London will give you a discount to enjoy that,” he says. (more…)

The Detroit Institute of Arts as launched a multi-year commitment to deepen its holdings of African-American art, launching a new series of acquisitions, exhibitions, artist commissions, community partnerships, staff development and internships.  “We want to be the best,” says director Salvador Salort-Pons. (more…)

Art News takes an intriguing look at 57th Street, the original gallery district in New York, and its continued place in the New York art world.  “We have a lot of European artists we represent and I don’t think they were in love with Chelsea,” says Marian Goodman. “You see so many galleries in a row that you have to question the interest level [of visitors] after a while when they go to Chelsea. Very often they start to forget what gallery they’re in and what art they show.” (more…)