The last portrait by Gustav Klimt goes to auction next month, anticipated to fetch upwards of £65 million. “Many of those works, certainly the portraits for which he is best known, were commissions,” says Helena Newman, Sotheby’s worldwide head of impressionist and modern art.”This, though, is something completely different – a technical tour de force, full of boundary-pushing experimentation, as well as a heartfelt ode to absolute beauty.” (more…)

Brett Littman is leaving his post as head of the Noguchi Museum, Artforum reports. “On behalf of the board of Trustees, we would like to extend our gratitude to Brett for his contributions to the museum,” said board cochairs Spencer Bailey and Susan Kessler. “Brett leaves the Museum in a strong position. We wish him great success in his future endeavors.” (more…)

Maurizio Cattelan won his  copyright infringement lawsuit this week after accusations by another artist claiming Cattelan plagiarized his work involving a taped-up banana. “To find otherwise would further limit the already finite number of ways in which a banana may be legally taped to a wall without infringing on Morford’s work,” said U.S. District Judge Robert Scola. (more…)

The U.S. will rejoin UNESCO and pay back dues, the Associated Press reports. “It’s a historic moment for UNESCO,” says UNESCO director general, Audrey Azoulay. “It’s also an important day for multilateralism.″ (more…)

The Albright-Knox Gallery has reopened in Buffalo after a long renovation and rehang of its collection. The opening show featured its permanent collection prominently to showcase the new space designed by OMA. (more…)

A Dutch Supreme Court has ordered museum artifacts borrowed from Crimea returned to Ukraine, maintaining the works are part of the nation’s cultural heritage. (more…)

Channel 4 in the UK is facing criticism after emails pointed to warnings that a work attributed to Banksy and sold for £250,000 was being billed as not genuine by another company. (more…)

Hannah Gadsby’s Picasso show at the Brooklyn Museum has already seen impressive attendance, up 51 percent over the weekend before, the New York Times reports. (more…)

The NEA announced its latest string of grant recipients this week, with $35.6 million earmarked for a range of projects that “demonstrate the vitality of the humanities across our nation” according to Shelly C. Lowe, the endowment’s chairwoman, and “support humanities programs and opportunities for underserved students and communities.” (more…)

The Guardian has a piece this week on the royal collection, and the range of works often received as gifts now worth millions. (more…)

Bernice Rose, an art historian and MoMA curator who was a vocal champion of drawing, and helped its establish its current role in arts study, has died at the age of 87. “She recognized early that for a generation of artists who emerged in the 1960s, the art of drawing knew no boundaries,” says Christophe Cherix, the museum’s chief curator of drawings and prints. (more…)

Renzo Martens and Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC) will represent the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale 2024.  (more…)

The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania (ICA) has appointed Denise Ryner as its Andie B. Laporte Curator. “With her experience working at the intersections of art and academia, Denise brings an exciting perspective and expertise that will enhance the reach, relevance, and impact of ICA’s exhibitions,” says Zoë Ryan, the ICA’s Daniel W. Dietrich, II Director, and Hallie Ringle, ICA’s Brett Sundheim Chief Curator. “On behalf of the ICA Board and staff, I am thrilled to be welcoming her to join our team as we advance our mission as an experimental hub for contemporary art from around the world.” 

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Students and faculty joined a walkout in support of striking RISD workers this week in Providence, Art News reports. The workers’ union is currently in the midst of contract renegotiations. (more…)

The UK has imposed sanctions on Nazem Ahmad, a collector accused of using works from his holdings to finance Hezbollah. “The firm action we have taken today will clamp down on those who are funding international terrorism, strengthening the UK’s economic and national security,” says Treasury minister in the House of Lords, Joanna Penn. (more…)

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Artist Miguel Ángel Payano Jr., who lived in China for over a decade before returning to NY, gets a profile in NYT this week.“I’m a Sinophile,” he says. “I became an artist in China.” (more…)

Cecily Brown gets the profile treatment in The Guardian this week as the artist opens her ambitious Met show. “Like a magpie at work, there’s no hierarchy of sources,” Brown said. “It’s just the feeling of someone who looks at everything, takes what they will when it’s needed, churning it around, and spewing it back out as something else.” (more…)

A Spanish court has sentenced an art collector to prison for selling a set of fake works, including a series of forged works attributed to Edvard Munch and Roy Lichtenstein. (more…)

The Guardian has a piece this week on what it was like to be painted by Alice Neel. “One day Alice said she wanted to paint me and to bring some things I could wear, so I packed a little suitcase and had various costumes,” says artist and sex activist Annie Sprinkle. “I’d just had my labia pierced and I was showing it off, and she really wanted to see that. She picked a leather outfit and I put a feather in my hair.” (more…)

Alice Walton’s Art Bridges Foundation is apparently behind the $4.5 million purchase of a Robert Colescott at Bonhams this month. “This work in particular presents a hopeful and powerful message, and we are pleased that it resonated so strongly with individuals and institutions alike,” says Ralph Taylor, Bonhams’s global head for postwar and contemporary art. (more…)

The Joan Mitchell Foundation has accused Louis Vuitton of reproducing the artist’s work without permission. “It’s important for folks to understand that this wasn’t something we agreed to,” says foundation exec Christa Blatchford. “How did it even happen, is my question. I honestly don’t understand how it happened on their side. I really don’t.”

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A rare pair of floral paintings by Queen Victoria will go to auction next week, expecting prices of £8,000 and £10,000, Art News reports.  (more…)

Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz is proposing that the British Museum return one of its ancient Assyrian treasures to Iraq in exchange for the donation of his fourth plinth sculpture to the UK. “As I pondered my gift to the nation of Great Britain, I began to fantasise that it could be attached to a second gift: the return of one of the British Museum’s lamassu to the country of Iraq, to replace what was destroyed by Daesh [or Islamic State],” he writes in an open letter. (more…)