ART
Marion Maneker
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September 16, 2025
The Directors’ Cut
A candid conversation with four museum directors of wildly varying kinds of institutions, about what it means to be stewards of art in an especially uncertain environment.
Marion Maneker
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September 14, 2025
The Adam Pendleton Moment
The youngish artist and critical darling is seeing no end to the demand for his theoretically informed, process-driven work, which carries a message about the struggles of Black people in America and the world. That’s quite an achievement in this American cultural moment.
Marion Maneker
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September 12, 2025
Elaine’s
The estate of Elaine Wynn, a savvy collector and even savvier investor, is donating its most spectacular painting for a sweet tax break rather than selling it for a potential loss. Meanwhile, Christie’s is prepping an auction of 20 works from the Wynn collection that could illuminate whether the current market malaise is a function of poor supply or just limited demand.
A Realist’s Guide to the Art Market
Auction results so far this year paint a mixed picture, offering reasons for sobriety as well as optimism. Are we looking at a “bloated infrastructure struggling to support itself” or a “buyer’s market”? Yes.
Marion Maneker
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September 9, 2025
Man Ray in the Mirror
The preview of the Met’s Man Ray show on Monday also marked a major promised gift of dada and surrealist works to the museum. Like the Lauder gift of cubist art, this one from John Pritzker will give the museum a much-needed core collection.
Julie Brener Davich
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September 7, 2025
Bottle Rockets
Once the gold standard for collectors, Bordeaux wines have seen better days and higher values. A new offering of nearly 1,000 prewar bottles, straight from the house of Rothschild, hopes to reset the market.
Marion Maneker
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September 5, 2025
The Art World’s Season Opener
Art fairs are all about discovery—of artists old and new—and priming the pump for the coming season of openings. This year, they are also about affordability, and both the Armory and Independent 20th Century fairs showed galleries looking to find the sweet spot of accessibility in the sub-six-figure market.
The Sotheby’s Side Deal Discourse, Part II
In the aftermath of side-deal-gate, a number of sources emerged to offer a more nuanced view of the economics that might compel a Sotheby’s dealer to treat their employer more like a platform than a partner. Maybe that’s the future Patrick Drahi has been envisioning all along.
Marion Maneker
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September 2, 2025
Bright Lichtensteins, Big City
The pop artist’s works are enjoying a buying renaissance as the estate works with Sotheby’s to strategically bring them to sale. Meanwhile, the strength of the market for his lower-priced works is enticing younger buyers and reinforcing the health of the broader market.
Julie Brener Davich
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August 31, 2025
The Old Masters’ New Wave
A rising generation of women is pushing to break into the old boys’ network at Maastricht, while trying to lower the barriers to entry along the way. Of course, it still helps to have inherited the family business.
Brynn Wallner
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August 29, 2025
An Influencer Inside the Rolex Box
At the end of every summer, the luxury gravy train arrives in Flushing, where brands use their suites, and two weeks of Grand Slam tennis, to market their wares via an army of influencers. But what’s all that brand marketing doing to the U.S. Open itself?
The Side Dealers of Sotheby’s
The New Yorker’s Patrick Drahi blockbuster documented what many of us knew: Sotheby’s employees do significant moonlighting, apparently with the owner’s tacit approval. But if this unseemly practice doesn’t faze Drahi, the art world’s biggest clients may not be so tolerant.
Marion Maneker
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August 26, 2025
Museum Curation in the MAGA Age: Part II
On a drive through Maine’s mashup of liberal arts college towns and Trump Country, we saw a marvelous Gertrude Abercrombie show, admired Ann Craven’s sunsets along with the real thing, and ran into Alex Katz holding court at the Colby College Museum.
Marion Maneker
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August 24, 2025
Museum Curation in the MAGA Age
In our post-monocultural attention-deficit age, museums have attempted to curate more shows, often highlighting lesser-known artists. In fact, this isn’t wokeism or tokenism at all, but rather a way for institutions to gel with their local communities.
Julie Brener Davich
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August 22, 2025
Dream Weaver
Legendary collector Pauline Karpidas has a genius for bringing together the fantastical and the surreal, and somehow making it work. The eclectic contents of her London flat, on offer at Sotheby’s next month, will feature a wide range of paintings and furniture. But for design collectors, the main draw is a rare, high-volume trove of Lalanne.
Raters of the Lost Art
The Wildenstein Plattner Institute is dedicated to the resource-intensive production of catalogues raisonnés—scholarly compendia of an artist’s entire oeuvre. Executive director Elizabeth Gorayeb explains why the work is a “money pit”—and why it’s so essential.
Marion Maneker
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August 19, 2025
Putting the Art in Artificial
Why is Silicon Valley seemingly so excited about replacing human artistry? A frank conversation about Big Tech’s art “disruption” fantasies, and where that leaves creatives and enthusiasts.