Paint Drippings is excerpted from The Back Room, our lively recap funneling only the week’s must-know art industry intel into a nimble read you’ll actually enjoy. Artnet News Pro members get exclusive access—subscribe now to receive this in your inbox every Friday.
Art Fairs
– Sales rolled in at TEFAF Maastricht this year with a specific focus on female artists. Though the fair’s most expensive piece on offer, a $48 million Wassily Kandinsky painting, is still seeking a buyer. (Artnet News)
Auction Houses
– We tallied the most expensive works sold at auction in the past year, spanning the ultra-contemporary to Old Masters categories. Among them are a $67 million Basquiat, a $46 million Diebenkorn, and of course, the $139.4 million Picasso from Sotheby’s Emily Fisher Landau sale. (Artnet News)
– The Brooklyn Museum is auctioning off over 200 furnishings and four historic period rooms, one of which is installed in the museum’s fourth-floor decorative arts and design galleries. (Artnet News)
Galleries
– David Kordansky Gallery has announced representation of Maia Cruz Palileo in collaboration with Monique Meloche, Thaddeus Ropac will represent the estate of Hans Josephsohn, Alexis Ralaivao has joined Kasmin, and Van Doren Waxter has announced representation of the Rosemarie Beck Foundation. (Press releases)
– Goodman Gallery has opened a fourth gallery and project space on the Sabi Sand nature reserve in South Africa. (Financial Times)
– London’s Mayor Gallery is relocating to 9 Bury Street in the city’s St. James neighborhood, beginning with a dual show of artists Billy Apple andBraco Dimitrijević. (Press release)
– Helena Anrather has announced it will close this month. Founded in 2017 in New York’s Chinatown neighborhood, the gallery made a mark by championing sculpture and conceptual photography. (Press release)
Dalila Scruggs joins the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Photo: Jeffrey Mercado.
Institutions, Biennials, and Organizations
– Fortress House, a new contemporary art museum in Gibraltar, will open in Autumn 2025. Henry Little, formerly of the art finance advisory firm Fine Art Group, will helm the institution, which will be in an 18th-century colonial-era building currently under refurbishment by Gamma Architects. The museum will present a permanent collection display of works mostly from 1970 onwards, including artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Lucian Freud, Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith, and Rebecca Warren, among others. (Press release)
– Elizabeth C. Babcock will join the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum in Washington, D.C. as its founding director in June. She is currently the first president and CEO of San Diego’s Forever Balboa Park. She succeeds Nancy Yao, who stepped down before assuming the post last year following an investigation into her mishandling of sexual harassment allegations while director at the Museum of Chinese in America in New York. (Artnet News)
– The Smithsonian American Art Museum announced the appointment of Dalila Scruggs as the Augusta Savage Curator of African American Art, a newly created role. (Press release)
– Andrea Jahn, the head of the Saarland Museum in Saarbrücken, Germany, has resigned following controversy over the institution’s cancelation of a video installation by artist Candice Breitz last year. (Artnet News)
– Sara Fenske Bahat, the interim CEO of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts resigned last week amid intense pushback surrounding the institution’s response to artists who led pro-Palestine protests there. (Artnews)
– James Voorhies has been appointed as the chief curator of the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach. (Press release)
Tech and Legal News
– Eleven people face trial in a French court after being accused of fabricating and selling more than $1 million worth of fake African artifacts in Paris. (Le Parisien)
– A Dutch court has ruled that three climate activists who targeted Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring in October 2022 will no longer go to prison. They had been sentenced to two months. (Artnet News)