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The latest attempt to halt the impending construction of President Donald Trump’s 250-foot-tall triumphal arch involves a local government body. The five-member Arlington County Board filed a lawsuit Thursday in the Eastern District of Virginia, related to the project’s questionable review process. Democracy Forward, the advocacy group representing the Board, along with the Arlington County attorney’s office, referred to the proposal as a “vanity project” that would be “massively intrusive and harmful.” Democracy Forward notes November 5 as the date of the National Capital Planning Commission’s next meeting, at which point the committee could “rubber stamp” the start of construction. The County Board is asking the court to prevent any demolition or construction until a full environmental review is completed. In early September , Interior Secretary Doug Burgum posted on X that “after a very long wait (over 125 years!), we are preparing to start, over the ...

The Renoir Museum is getting back two of its paintings that were taken during a pre-dawn raid . The paintings were recovered by the local authorities in Cagnes-sur-Mer, in southern France, where the museum is located. Mayor Bryan Masson, a member of France’s far-right National Rally, said in a statement that these “two paintings are far more than works of art. They are part of our city’s history, our cultural heritage and the legacy Auguste Renoir left to Cagnes-sur-Mer. Their recovery is a tremendous relief for the people of Cagnes-sur-Mer and for everyone who cares deeply about our museum.” The stolen paintings were Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano (1910) and Jeune fille au puits (1886), which are estimated to be worth €9 million ($10.5 million). Six suspects have been arrested in relation to the theft. In September, thieves stole four paintings by the Impressionist painter, but abandoned two of four paintings, Portrait of Madame Pic...

Delirious All Blacks fans in the stands earlier this year. By Kevin McCarthy It’s so 2026 for everything to be moving at hyper speed. Even the very worthwhile tour of South Africa and Baltimore seems ages ago. Admittedly some of All Black bodies won’t feel that way, as indeed the injury list will testify. But...

During the past 12 months, the art world lost some of its most dedicated collectors, who were known for the outsize holdings as well as their patronage of institutions, many of which benefited from their largess. Agnes Gund and Barbara Jakobsen were longtime trustees of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Dorothy Vogel was a librarian whose holdings of postwar art transformed the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Susan Marx helped make the Aspen Art Museum what it is today. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston would be 700 artworks less rich without the generosity of John P. Axelrod, and the Blanton Museum of Art can now tell a fuller story of Latinx art thanks to a donation of 5,000 works from Gilberto Cárdenas. To hear more about the impact that these six collectors had on the institutions they supported and the people they met, ARTnews spoke with curators and fellow collectors about the times they spent together. ...

Funding trouble has been brewing at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam since at least 2023, when the museum began negotiating with the Dutch Ministry of Culture over the budget for a much-needed building renovation. In the summer of 2025, two years into the negotiations, museum director Emilie Gordenker told the New York Times that the current situation was “dangerous for the art and dangerous for our visitors.” The necessary repairs were so urgent that Gordenker worried the museum—one of the top tourist destinations in Amsterdam—might have to close. On October 8 came news that the museum has reached an agreement with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science following mediation talks that both parties entered into in order to avoid a public court case. The Van Gogh Museum will now be able to proceed with the planned three-year renovation, set to begin in the fall of 2028. During this time, the museum will remain partially open to the public, and the perma...

Three years ago, dealer Thaddaeus Ropac started to question the health of the art market in London. The mixed auction results of 2022 and 2023 reflected what he saw as a stagnant period. And Paris, with the recent premiere of Art Basel, seemed to be emerging as the dominant location. “London lost part of the market because Paris became very attractive,” he told ARTnews in a recent interview. Still, Ropac is bullish on London: his gallery has just renewed its lease there for another 10 years. And he isn’t the only one. Global behemoth Hauser & Wirth, which has had a presence in the city since 2003, has planned a 15,000-square-foot gallery on Mayfair’s South Audley Street that is currently under construction. In today’s uneven market, dealers and advisers are being especially picky about which fairs to attend. But as Europe braces for a double round of art fairs—Frieze in London from October 14–18, followed by Art Basel Paris from October 21–25—London is hav...