#famous-works

#famous-works

Frida Kahlo, during her 1933 trip to New York, created a colorful haven in her hotel room by covering the walls with prints by José Guadalupe Posada, which depicted sensational news and political imagery.

Kamrooz Aram is everywhere this year, from Mumbai Art Week to the Whitney Biennial, and critic Aruna D'Souza is grateful. She pens a beautiful meditation on his work, reading his abstract paintings as not simply a denunciation of Western modernism nor a reassertion of Islamic visual motifs, but something else entirely - something gestural, exuberant, riotous, and incomparably his own.

In the 1880s Seurat was the leader of the avant-garde group of painters who used pointillist dots of pure colour to create their pictures. The eye blends Seurat's colours harmoniously, giving his paintings a luminosity and vigour.

"This first pleasant experience with a modern painting started me on a road of adventure that has been both exhilarating and satisfying," Pearlman once said of another painting by Soutine, called Village Square. "I haven't spent a boring evening since that first purchase."

We visited the Female Artists of the Mougins Museum, in Mougins, a small village on a hill near Cannes. Full of exclusively female artists from Berthe Morisot in the 19th century and Frida Kahlo in the early 20th to contemporary figures such as Tracey Emin it houses an incredible collection of often overlooked art and artists. We visited on a rainy October day and it was remarkably quiet and calm. I particularly enjoyed the abstract works well worth a trip up the hill.

Van Dyck's stay in Italy was pivotal to the development of his artistic language, above all because it accelerated his emancipation from the model of his master Rubens.

Tate Modern museum in London announced its slate of 2027 exhibitions, including an opera-inspired installation by David Hockney in the revered Turbine Hall marking the artist's 90th birthday, Algerian artist Baya's debut U.K. solo show, and the first-ever exhibition devoted entirely to French impressionist Claude Monet since the Tate Modern opened 26 years ago.

Fontana is a rare example of a woman Old Master, one of only a few who managed to attain career success on her own and was the first woman elected to the Academy of Saint Luke in Rome. This painting is one of the most ambitious from her early career. Reflecting visual references to Michelangelo-a departure from her usual reference to Correggio and Raphael-the vibrant hues and dramatic composition reflect prevailing Florentine trends of the late 16th century.

Running from March 17 to July 19, 2026, Renoir and Love will be one of the top special exhibitions of the year in Paris. Celebrating how affection, connection and human relationships shaped Renoir's work during a defining period of his career. Bringing many key works together for the first time in decades, the exhibition offers a fresh perspective on how Renoir approached love not as an abstract ideal, but as something lived and experienced within the changing social life of late-19th-century Paris.

As 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, the auction house Christie's is hosting multiple auctions later this month as part of "Americana Week." Was I the only one who didn't know that Jimmy Carter was also a painter? The lots include a painting by that president, Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington for James Madison, and Grant Wood's original study for "American Gothic" (1930).

For some eminently wealthy individuals, amassing a first-class art collection is an ideal way to spend their money. And while some high-profile art collectors end up donating their collections to museums or other cultural institutions, others take a different approach, reselling their art after a certain amount of time. Which brings us to this week, when billionaire David I. Koch's collection of Western art hit the auction block at Christie's, setting a number of records in the process.