BEST?

Second Time’s a Charm – A second long-lost painting by Jacob Lawrence, hidden for decades in a nurse’s uptown apartment, was discovered in Manhattan.

Ancient Auto Discovered – Archaeologists have unearthed the ‘Lamborghini’ of ancient chariots at Pompeii.

Christie’s Carbon Goals – The auction house announced an ambitious plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2030.

Banksy Strikes Again – The anonymous street artist painted a mural of a prisoner escaping from the defunct Reading Prison in the UK, which once housed Oscar Wilde.

Grimes Gets in On NFTs Unsurprisingly, the musician and artist jumped on the digital-art spaceship this week, selling more than $5 million of NFT art in less than 20 minutes.

Angelina Makes Bank – A Winston Churchill painting that Brad Pitt once gave to Angelina Jolie was just sold for $11.6 million.

Phillips’s “New Now” Hits Big – The auction house’s sale of contemporary art netted a whopping $9.5 million, well over its high estimate.

Reunited at the Louvre – Two pieces of Renaissance-era armor, stolen from the Paris museum almost 40 years ago, were returned this week.

Burning the Banksy – A group of financial traders burned a Banksy print on camera to turn it into an NFT.

Pushing the Envelope – Scientists engineered a way to read the contents of a 300-year-old envelope without unfolding it and destroying the paper.

WORST?

Dr. Seuss Books Pulled – Six children’s books by the rhyming author will no longer be published due to racist imagery.

True Origins of CPAC Sculpture Revealed – That giant gold sculpture of Donald Trump presented at CPAC was actually fabricated in China, and partially made by a Mexican artist.

Dissenting Artists Persecuted – A new report reveals that dissenting artists were persecuted at extremely high rates in 2020, with governments using the pandemic as an excuse to come down hard.

Boy Scouts Stage a Fire Sale – The troubled organization is selling its Norman Rockwell paintings as part of a settlement fund for victims.

Judy Chicago’s Desert X Project Axed – Activists in California successfully lobbied to pull Judy Chicago’s smoke-filled project from the biennial, citing environmental concerns.

Mass Resignations – Half of the board overseeing Pompeii’s sites resigned in protest of newly hired director Gabriel Zuchtriegel.