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British Artist Tess Jaray, Known for Her Hard-Edge Abstractions, Has Died at 88

British artist, printmaker, and educator Tess Jaray, known for her hard-edge abstractions, died on May 24 at age 88. The news was first reported by the Guardian in May. Jaray was born in 1937 in Vienna into a Jewish family with artistic connections: her father was an engineer and inventor, and her mother had studied fashion; her father’s aunt was collector and gallerist Lea Bondi Jaray, and his godfather was the noted Austrian art historian Ernst Gombrich, author of The Story of Art . After Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Jaray fled with her parents to Britain, where they settled in rural Worcestershire. Her uncle Richard Jaray, a furniture designer and architect, was sent to the Łódź ghetto, where he and his mother were murdered. Other relatives were deported to the concentration camps Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. Jaray studied at St Martin’s School of Art from 1954 to 1957, then enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art, graduating in 1960....
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A $5 M. Guston Leads the Zabludowicz Collection at Christie’s London in a $34 M. Postwar to Contemporary Art Sale

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Europe is seeing a historic heat wave, but things were a bit more lukewarm in Christie’s London salesroom on Thursday evening at a two-part sale featuring 56 contemporary artworks from the collection of Anita and Poju Zabludowicz followed by a 79-lot sale of postwar and contemporary art. A £4 million ($5.2 million) Philip Guston from the Zabludowicz’s holdings led the sale. The evening totaled £25.7 million ($34 million), with the first sale making £15.5 million ($20.5 million) and the second £10.2 million ($13.5 million). The Zabludowicz works were estimated to total between £12.6 million and £19.3 million ($16.6 million–$25.5 million); the hammer total was £12.3 million ($16.2 million), just below the low estimate; with the house’s fees, the sale totaled £15.4 million ($20.5 million). Seven lots were guaranteed; three were withdrawn; seven failed to find buyers, for a sell-through rate of 89 percent. Records were set for Anj Smith, Rose Wylie, and Jakub Julia...
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After Splashy Venice Debut, Florentina Holzinger’s ‘Sea World’ is Coming to Berlin, Brooklyn

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Ring an alarm bell—the buzziest performance of this year’s Venice Biennial is going on tour. An adapted version of Florentina Holzinger’s  Seaworld Venice , created for the Austrian Pavilion, will be presented at Gropius Bau in Berlin in spring 2027, followed by a stop at Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna that fall, before concluding its run in March 2028 at Amant in Brooklyn. Nora‑Swantje Almes, Curator for Live Programs and Outreach at Gropius Bau, who organized its Venice presentation, will oversee this new iteration. In the unlikely event you haven’t heard (of) it, a refresher: Holzinger hung upside down inside a great bronze bell recovered from the Venetian lagoon and suspended above the pavilion. Assuming the role of a human clapper, Holzinger struck its lip again and again, sending a sonorous peal across the Biennial grounds. In an adjoining installation, nude collaborators floated inside a dunk tank flanked by port-a-potties; visitors were encouraged...
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Egyptian Archaeologists Unearth Two Tombs That Could Represent Early Development of Funerary Pyramids

Archaeologists working in Upper Egypt discovered two tombs dating to the Early Dynastic period, both of them at the fabled location known as Gabal El-Teir—or, as translated from Arabic, “Mountain of the Birds.” The tombs date from 3100 to 2686 B.C.E. and “will allow researchers to trace the development of funerary architecture,” according to Archaeology Magazine , which noted that thick walls at the bottom that taper toward the top of the structures could represent an early stage in the development of pyramids. As r eported by Ahram Online , “The first early Dynastic tomb represents a rare architectural model distinguished by its unique geometric design, while the second tomb closely mirrors it in layout and is notably better preserved.” The publication cited Hisham El-Leithy, Secretary-General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), describing the discovery as similar to the storied tomb of King Den in Abydos and pointing out that “this resemb...
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Masterpieces from the Reuben Collection to Go on View at the Courtauld Gallery in London

The Courtauld Gallery in London announced this week that it will put on view works from the Reuben Collection alongside works from its own holdings this fall. Opening September 18, the exhibition, titled “Modern Painting from the Courtauld and Reuben Collections,” will feature works by Paul Cezanne, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani, René Magritte, Man Ray, and Pablo Picasso. Cezanne’s Turning Road  (1905) and Modigliani’s Nude  (ca.1916), from the Courtauld’s collection, will “set the stage for works from the Reuben Collection by painters who built on such innovations to chart new artistic directions,” according to a release. The Reuben Collection will loan works such as Picasso’s canvases Marie-Thérèse Walter (1937), Dora Maar (1939), and  Still Life with Basket of Fruits and Flowers  (1942); Magritte’s The Dominion of Light (1949) and The Intimate Friend (1958); and Man Ray’s monumental 1915 painting Black ...
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Matchday Highlights: UH Rams (24) v Tawa (19) – first win over Tawa in a decade

Visitors the Upper Hutt Rams came screeching back over the final 15 minutes to beat Tawa 24-19 at  windy Lyndhurst Park on Saturday. Tawa were left ruing a number of missed opportunities and a pair of second half yellow cards which cost them the game. They had earlier sprung to life midway through the first...
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Israeli Artist Yaacov Agam, Known for His Optical and Kinetic Artworks, Has Died at 98

Israeli artist Yaacov Agam, known for his optical and kinetic artworks, has died at 98. The news was reported by outlets including the Times of Israel , Haaretz , and the Jerusalem Post . The son of an Orthodox rabbi, Agam was born Yaacov Gipstein in Rishon LeZion, Palestine (now Israel), in 1928. After studying art in Jerusalem, he traveled to Zurich in 1949 to study with artist Johannes Itten, who introduced him to Bauhaus ideas on color and abstraction; he was also influenced by Vasily Kandinsky’s 1911 treatise, On the Spiritual in Art: And Painting in Particular . In 1951, he moved to Paris, where he was still living at the time of his death. Agam’s first solo exhibition was at 1953 at Galerie Craven in Paris, where he presented two series of works. One series displayed different images depending on the viewer’s position relative to the piece. Such artworks would become something of a signature for the artist, who dubbed them “Agamographs.” He also sh...
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