Arts

Arts

John Nixon, the late Australian avant-garde artist, would sometimes save the shells from his boiled eggs and sprinkle them across blank paint, creating his own starry night. Other times he'd set himself rules, such as painting only in orange for five years. It was 1996 and he was becoming a father, so he wanted a streamlined practice plus, what other artist was associated with orange?

"Rembrandt's etchings were an enduring passion for the late Sam Josefowitz, whose collection of the Dutch master's graphic works remains unparalleled by any other 20th-century collector," the house said in a statement.

Today is Black Friday, the start of the holiday shopping season! Many US retailers have marked down selected wares, including art and craft supplies. To help you parse the offerings, we'll be tracking some of the best deals on artists' tools, from pastels to tablets, to give as gifts or to keep for yourself. We will be updating this page, so check in with us often. A word of advice: Move fast, as many of these products will sell out quickly.

When Mernet Larsen was in her 70s, theproject she had been working on her entire life met a moment. It was the 2010s, and painters everywhere were grappling with how the digital realm affected what we see. People seeing Larsen's paintings for the first time often assumed that they were made using a computer, reading her signature blocky figures as robotic or pixelated-something a machine would create. But they are not computational at all.

Henry Moore believed tactility to be paramount, "as an aesthetic dimension", to both the making and the experiencing of sculpture. He really wanted us to be able to touch his work. However, its value and importance now means that doing so in most museums would be considered a big no-no-and for anyone for whom touch provides sight, this is massively restricting.

Early on in Shih-Ching Tsou's Left-Handed Girl, one of its protagonists, an adorable Taiwanese girl named I-Jing (Nina Ye), is told by her grandpa that her left-handedness is a curse. "Don't use left-hand in my house," he says to her, yanking a crayon from her left hand into her right and sending a bolt of fear through the impressionable 5-year-old. "Left hand is evil," he scolds. "It belongs to the devil."

Gazing at Matthew Stone's new works at The Hole NYC, the question feels impossible to ignore. The exhibition, titled Staggered Paintings, describes the way in which his paintings are constructed: layer upon layer, moving back and forth between mediums of oil paint and AI technology. 'Staggered' implies something disrupted, jolted, or momentarily thrown off balance, and perhaps this is where painting sits today, leaning towards a change as it confronts the unprecedented capacities of digital production, CGI modelling and AI-driven image-making.

Last year, character comedians Adam Riches and John Kearns joined forces for an archly silly tribute to crooners Michael Ball and Alfie Boe. Now Riches is back with another leftfield celebrity riff as he gives his Game of Thrones-era Sean Bean impression (as seen on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and his Edinburgh show Dungeons'n'Bastards) a yuletide twist.

The use of crochet as fine art with this level detail and on this scale can boggle the mind for anyone who practices the craft. Crochet and portraiture are not usually synonymous. Crochet is a textile art and uses a hook to tie yarn into knots. It is most often used to create household goods such as blankets, stocking caps and clothes. It falls somewhere between knitting and tatting in its use. It is an artistic and creative craft that often ventures into functional art.

Shakespeare's beloved comedy takes on the eternal themes: love, jealousy, and unreality. The action turns around the romantic infatuations of a love quadrangle, an approaching wedding, and a clumsy acting troop. It foregrounds the changeability of passion, the agony of unrequited feelings, and the delights of lust. Experiencing the play might feel like drifting through dreams in the small hours of the morning, the real and the fantastical weaving inextricably together. It's both hallucinogenic and sharply lucid theatre.

Hear how Christmas was observed in Shakespeare's time and the folk traditions that people practised to welcome in winter. From wassailing to the winter solstice, 'kissing boughs' to proper mince pyes, this family-friendly guided tour will enchant, fascinate and warm even in the frostiest of weather. But do still wrap up well - don't forget our wooden 'O' is outdoor!

While Robert Musil's century-old adage that "there is nothing in this world as invisible as a monument" still rings true in some ways, many monuments today feel more visible than ever. Statues of Cecil Rhodes and Robert E. Lee have collapsed under the pressures of public protest, exposing monuments for what they really are: flashpoints where histories are negotiated and mythologies are formed.

For Lankton, dolls were more than just kitschy objects - they were powerful, emotional extensions of herself. "(My dolls) are all freaks. Outsiders. Untouchables," she once said. "They're like biographies - the kind of people you'd like to know about. Really interesting and fucked up." Lankton's dolls were born as much from necessity as from imagination. "She wasn't allowed to have a doll as a kid," Monroe tells Dazed. "So, she made them - first with flowers, then with socks.

Polish film posters, old matchboxes, pulpy book designs, escort calling cards from the 90s and Julia Fox - these are just a few of the visual inspirations behind Scary Boots, an arts and literature zine published "roughly quarterly" with each one themed and Risograph printed in limited runs. The harness of all of these influences is Elias Myer, a zine-maker in East London who is moved by homemade, self-published magazines

Through large-scale tapestries of fringed strips of fabric, Abdoulaye Konaté explores the contemporary relevance of ancient signs and symbols. The Malian artist began working with textiles in the 1990s, when it became clear to him how prevalent they are in our everyday lives, from clothing and home goods to tools and more. This early interest began what's become a research-driven artistic practice, and today, he layers long, stitched pieces of Bazin and Kente fabrics into dynamic, largely abstract works.

Inverse Ruin by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh stands within the Archaeological Park of Herakleia in Policoro, Italy a quiet expanse where traces of the Archaic Temple meet the open landscape of the Ionian plain. Developed as part of the broader project Siris, curated by STUDIO STUDIO STUDIO with artistic direction by Antonio Oriente, the installation forms one of several interventions intended to bring clarity to a site shaped by layered histories.

In 2010, Kolinda and I met at a clown convention, where we were introduced to each other while wearing full clown makeup. I had been a clown since 1988, when I enrolled at clown college. Upon graduation, I was hired to perform with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus and then went on to perform at Circus Circus in Las Vegas and as the clown for McDonald's corporation in North Carolina.

"He possesses a quiet, encyclopaedic knowledge of art, and in column after column he connected the dots of culture, history, folklore, civics and psychology in razor-sharp assessments of what a piece of art really means, or how a particular exhibition is poised to change the narrative around a longstanding or misguided idea. In short, he is everything a truly excellent critic should be."

WASHINGTON, DC - On Saturday, November 22, protestors expanded and crunched their bodies, arms rising and falling with flicked wrists, as they marched in front of the Kennedy Center with stoic expressions. Passersby would be excused for mistaking it for an official performance, but the show outside the nation's art center was actually a " dance protest " organized in response to President Trump's rising authoritarianism.

And now he has set a world record at auction. On Monday afternoon (24 November) in Paris, Artcurial sold Reni's early-17th-century, oil-on-canvas work, David and Goliath, for €12.39m (including fees), breaking the artist's previous auction record by a considerable sum. The work's pre-sale estimate was just €2m-€4m and its buyer, according to the auction house, was a private European collector.

Marianne Boesky Gallery Now Represents Aubrey Levinthal: The gallery, which is working in collaboration with Edinburgh's Ingleby and Berlin's Haverkampf Leistenschneider, will feature the Philadelphia-born painter's work at Art Basel Miami Beach ahead of her debut solo exhibition in spring 2027. Chanel Opens Contemporary Art Library in Shanghai: The French luxury brand has unveiled Espace Gabrielle Chanel, an 18,000-square-foot library at the Power Station of Art-China's first public library devoted to contemporary art.