The Māori portraits, Chieftainess Ngatai-Raure and Chief Ngatai-Raure, were painted by the Czech-New Zealand artist in 1884. The art works were stolen from the International Art Centre gallery and auction house in a “smash-and-grab” incident in April 2017, only a few days before they were to be sold.

The thieves reversed a stolen van into the front window of the gallery and auction house before loading the two paintings into a white Holden Commodore SSV sedan.

The paintings were two examples of Lindauer’s prolific portrait work featuring Māori subjects, ranging from leaders to ordinary people. In March, an auction for a portrait of Harawira Te Mahikai, chief of the Ngāti Kahungunu Tribe, sold for nearly $615,000 US including fees ($1,009,008 NZD).

Last December, New Zealand police announced that Chieftainess Ngatai-Raure and Chief Ngatai-Raure had been returned with only minor damage. According to the Herald, police were “deliberately vague” in providing details on what happened to the portraits, referring only to “an intermediary who sought to return the paintings on behalf of others” to the artworks’ owners.

“To me this is a good news story,” Detective Inspector Scott Beard said at a press conference in December. “You get involved in investigations, you want to resolve them, you want to solve them. The cultural significance and value of these paintings, we never gave up hope. And now we’ve had them returned.”

“We’re still looking for people to come with information that can assist us solving who did the burglary and who stole these [paintings].”

On June 7, the Herald reported the return of the two stolen Lindauer portraits was made through an agreement with two senior criminal figures, but “wide-ranging suppression orders” made by the country’s Court of Appeal will permanently suppress their identities. “Strict non-publication orders” also prevent the reporting and public disclosure of how the Lindauer paintings were safely returned to police.

“The gang members are currently serving long periods of imprisonment but their criminal offending cannot be reported without breaching the suppression orders,” reported the Herald‘s investigative journalist Jared Savage. “There is no suggestion either of the two gang members was involved in the theft of the paintings, rather that they were able to use their standing in the criminal world to obtain access to something the police wanted.”

When Chieftainess Ngatai-Raure and Chief Ngatai-Raure were returned to police, there was fingerprint and DNA testing done. However, no charges have been laid.

On June 7, the museum issued a statement about the exhibition Ngura Pulka – Epic Country officially being postponed. Scheduled to open this month, the show featured the work of Aboriginal artists from the APY Art Center Collective (APY ACC) and was billed as one of the largest community-driven art projects to be displayed at the NGA.

“All parts of Ngura Pulka are being entirely conceived, created, directed, and determined by Aṉangu people,” said a statement on the gallery’s website. “Home to 2,500 people, the APY Lands, in remote South Australia, support a network of Aṉangu communities, including seven key art centres.”

However, in April, the museum announced it was reviewing the exhibition’s artworks after a report from The Australian alleged that white studio staff had been painting on the works attributed to residents of Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY), sparsely populated lands in remote South Australia that are home to more than 20 Aboriginal communities. The Australian also published video that it said appeared to show a non-Indigenous art assistant making creative decisions and painting on a depiction of the Tjukurpa — the creation period of ancestral beings that also formed the religion, law, and moral systems that govern Anangu society.

The NGA said the decision to postpone the opening Ngura Pulka – Epic Country had been made due to an independent panel review needing more time to “fully complete their work” to check if the works were consistent with the museum’s provenance policy, as well as the Australian government also announcing it would undertake a joint investigation.

“The National Gallery will work with the artists and Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) community leaders in relation to the exhibition and will await the outcome of both reviews,” the museum statement said. “The National Gallery is committed to continuing to work with APY Lands artists and supporting their ground-breaking work.”

The NGA originally said it expected to receive findings from the independent review by May 31.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the APY ACC issued a statement supporting the gallery’s decision to postpone the exhibition. “Light is always the best defense to darkness,” it said.

“Given recent accusations that we believe are without merit, we welcome the most rigorous and robust reviews of the work. Knowing the truth and authenticity of the works and having an abundance of pride in this project and every facet of our important program and the business we’ve built, we are content to wait for the independent panel to make their findings.”

The items included a Corinthian bronze helmet from the 3rd or 4th century BCE and an Attic kylix bowl from 550–40 BCE, ceramics, as well as four gold coins that were stolen from the National Archaeological Museum in Parma in 2009.

“The condition of the helmet indicates that it was stored in the ground for a very long time,” said a press release from the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office. “It was probably unearthed in southern Italy in the course of a pirate excavation.”

A 16th-century Venetian casket, stolen from the Castello Sforzesco museum in Milan in 2006, was also recovered and returned to Italy. It had been illegally trafficked through the United Kingdom to Belgium and then to Germany, where it was offered for sale. The casket, produced in the Embriachi workshop, featured “a distinctive combination of wood inlays and animal bone carvings.”

In December 2019, the Carabinieri cultural heritage police in Italy identified an auction house in Munich was selling the kylix bowl, a drinking cup used in ancient Greece, despite its illegal export from the country. The bowl was investigated and secured by the Bavarian State Criminal Police under the country’s cultural property protection law.

The four Roman-Byzantine gold coins, which were individually minted, were introduced as a new monetary unit by Emperor Constantine the Great in 309. The solidus and aureus remained in circulation for more than a millennium until the conquest of Constantinople. They were recovered from both companies and private owners.

German police had recovered the items through investigations starting in the summer of 2019.

The repatriation of the items took place in a ceremony in Rome between Guido Limmer, vice president of the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office, and Vincenzo Molinese, Generale di Brigata, on June 5. “The return underlines once again the very good cooperation between the Italian and Bavarian authorities,” said Limmer. “It is the result of the deeper thought that protects cultural assets as a common European heritage.”

The artifacts—dating from the 8th century BCE through the Middle Ages—included clay vases, clothing elements, precious metals and jewels, weapons, tools, furnishings, sarcophagi, funerary urns, detailed mosaics, painted decorations, as well as a variety of statues in bronze, marble and limestone.

The illegally exported items came from “clandestine exacavations” and “offer a cross-section of the many productions of ancient Italy and the islands,” including “numerous and diversified archaeological contexts (funerary, cultural, residential and public) … concentrated in particular in Etruria and Magna Graecia,” according to a statement from the Ministry of Culture.

The most valuable artifacts were identified as a bronze tripod table, two parade horse headboards from the Appulo-Lucan area, two funerary paintings, several Imperial-age marble heads, as well as a wall painting depicting a small temple likely taken from a Vesuvian residence.

The items were recovered from the English company Robin Symes Ltd through an investigation by the Carabinieri cultural heritage police, in collaboration with the Italian Culture Ministry, the State Attorney General and the Italian Embassy in London. According to a press release, the company belonging to Symes had opposed “repeated recovery attempts” by the Italian Judicial Authority, and was also sued in Italy through the State Attorney General.

The repatriated items were presented during a press conference at the National Museum of Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome on May 31 led by Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano  and the head of the Carrabinieri, Vincenzo Molinese.

Symes’ legacy of trafficking antiquities also popped up last month when Greece recovered 351 antiquities also from the art dealer’s liquidated company after a 17-year legal battle and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office repatriated an item to Iraq. Symes was convicted of contempt of court for lying about antiquities he held in storage locations around the world in 2005. He sentenced to two years in prison, but only served seven months.

The exhibition featured 28 works by Vermeer, making it the largest exhibition ever devoted to him. Among those works were famous paintings such as the Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Milkmaid.

Seven of the 28 works had never been on display in the Netherlands, among them three paintings from the Frick Collection in New York as well as ones from the National Gallery of Art, which hosted its own Vermeer blockbuster in 1999.

The Rijksmuseum extended visiting hours for the show, but said it purposely limited the number of visitors to ensure “the best experience possible.”

“Vermeer is the artist of peacefulness and intimacy,” Rijiksmuseum general director Taco Dibbits said in a press statement. “We wanted the visitors to enjoy it to the fullest. This was only possible by limiting the number of visitors.”

Massive public interest resulted in tickets selling out within days of its opening in February. Several days after the show went on view, the museum shut down general sales on its website. Unverified eBay listings marketed tickets priced as highly as $2,724.

With tickets in such short supply, more than half (55 percent) of visitors for the Vermeer show came from the Netherlands. The top five international nations for visitors were France (17 percent), Germany (16 percent), United Kingdom (16 percent), and the United States (14 percent).

Notable visitors included the French President Emmanuel Macron during his official state visit, director Steven Spielberg, actors Gillian Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis, and Pachinko author Min Jin Lee.

Thousands of people frantically checking the Rijksmuseum’s website also helped drive traffic to the show’s website. The museum said nearly 800,000 people visited the online component, an interactive feature showcasing all of the paintings that was narrated by actor Stephen Fry.

According to the museum’s press office, more than 100,000 copies of the Vermeer catalogue have also been sold, “more than any other exhibition catalogue in the history of the Rijksmuseum.” The catalogue was designed by Dutch graphic designer Irma Bloom, who has several works in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The Rijksmuseum also published the book Vermeer. Faith, Light, and Reflection by the co-curator of the show and the museum’s head of fine arts, Gregor J. M. Weber, as well as the children’s book Miffy x Vermeer. The museum did not provide sales figures for these two other titles, but the latter is currently sold out online.

The show, co-organized by Gadsby and Brooklyn Museum senior curators Catherine Morris and Lisa Small, features more than 100 works. Alongside many Picassos, there are contemporary works by Cecily Brown, Judy Chicago, Renee Cox, Käthe Kollwitz, Dindga McCannon, Ana Mendieta, Marilyn Minter, Joan Semmel, and Faith Ringgold.

“The Pablo-ms begin before you even enter the first gallery,” wrote Alex Greenberger in ARTnews. “Above the show’s loud, red signage on the museum’s ground floor, there’s a 26-foot-long painting by Cecily Brown, Triumph of the Vanities II (2018), featuring an orgy of brushy forms set against a fiery background. The painting looks back to the bacchanalia of Rococo painting and the intensity of Eugène Delacroix’s hues. It has little to say about Picasso, an artist whom Brown has spoken of admiringly.”

New York Times critic Jason Farago was even more scathing in his review of the show. “The ambitions here are at GIF level, though perhaps that is the point,” he wrote.

Adlan Jackson’s review for Hell Gate put a finer point on it. Its headline was “Don’t Go to ‘It’s Pablo-matic.’”

In response to the reviews, Small posted a photo of her with Morris and Gadsby on her Instagram story with the caption “that feeling when it’s Pablo-Matic gets (male) art critics’ knickers in a twist.” Morris reposted the image to her Instagram stories, adding, “A @nytimes critic got very emotional about our show,” along with a GIF of the words “sorry not sorry.”

The museum’s director of digital communications, Brooke Baldeschwiler, posted an Instagram story featuring a video about the exhibition starring Gadsby with the caption “Come @ us haters.”

The collaboration with Gadsby came out of the 2018 hit Netflix special Nanette, which included heavy criticism of Picasso and his influence. Picasso “just put a kaleidoscope filter” on his penis when he helped start the Cubist movement, Gadsby claimed.

“It’s Pablo-matic” is one of many exhibitions being staged this year to mark the 50th anniversary of Picasso’s death. On the podcast This Week in Art, produced by the Art Newspaper, Small called the 50th anniversary invitation from the Musée Picasso the “perfect opportunity to partner” with Gadsby.

Morris told This Week in Art that the show was conceived around the themes of power in the art market and feminist art history, especially in the years since Picasso died.

After the publication of the negative reviews, the museum also sent out an email blast from Morris and Small, explaining why they mounted the show.

Perhaps no artist enjoys as much global name recognition as Pablo Picasso. In the fifty years since his death in 1973, culture—and art history—have undergone sweeping changes. The way we look at Picasso has changed, too. Let’s talk about how. The past fifty years have encompassed, among many other social movements, the rise of feminism. And so, to mark this anniversary, we are exploring questions about his legacy by displaying Picasso’s art alongside works by a range of women artists.

We think it’s time to add another layer to our understanding of this towering figure of modernism. Museums are, after all, a place where the past and present meet. As curators, we believe our exhibitions should encourage and hold space for nuanced dialogues, even if they are uncomfortable.

And what better way to wade into these waters than with a bit of humor? Comedy is such a powerful tool for sparking conversation and revealing unexpected ideas. That is why we have collaborated with comedian (and, yes, famously outspoken Picasso critic) Hannah Gadsby on this exhibition. With their pointed wit and background in art history, they challenge us to look again. And look differently.

Anne Pasternak, the Brooklyn Museum’s director, wrote an op-ed for the Art Newspaper in which she further explained the show’s genesis. Noting that the point of the exhibition was not to cancel Picasso, she seemed to allude to reviews that extensively quoted—and critiqued—words from Gadsby present throughout the show.

“To those who question whether Gadsby’s voice belongs in this exhibit, I would simply ask: Whose interests are threatened by including it? Or, who benefits from excluding it?” Pasternak wrote.

Farago declined to comment to ARTnews.

The workshops contained stone beds, clay pots, natron salt, resin material, and linen gowns used in the mummification process for humans and sacred animals, as well as ritual vessels, according to Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, in his comments to the press. Waziri said the artifacts date back to the 30th Pharaonic Dynasty (380 BCE to 343 BCE) and Ptolemaic period (305 BCE to 30 BCE). He also unveiled a colorful sarcophagus.

According to Sabri Farag, head of the Saqqara archaeological site, the tombs were for Ne Hesut Ba, a top official from the Old Kingdom of the fifth dynasty of ancient Egypt, and Men Kheber, a priest from the New Kingdom’s 18th dynasty.

Reuters reported that officials said the walls of Ne Hesut Ba’s tomb had inscriptions of cultivation, hunting, and other daily activities, while Men Kheber’s tomb was engraved with “scenes showing the deceased in different positions”.

The archaeological discovery was made after a year-long excavation near the sanctuary of the goddess Bastet, which is home to the catacombs of mummified cats in Saqqara, some 19 miles south of Cairo, according to Reuters. The sanctuary is the same location where hundreds of mummified animals and statues were discovered in 2019.

The National Museum of Antiquities has been excavating at Saqqara since 1975, but the area has been an especially rich source of high-profile discoveries recently. In 2022, Egyptian archaeologists uncovered five painted tombs, the tomb of an ancient dignitary, and a sarcophagus belonging to King Ramses II’s treasurer. Earlier this year, they found an intact 52-foot-long papyrus from 50 BCE, a 3,200-year-old necropolis for the elite, and the oldest known mummy in the country.

Many of these items will be displayed at The Grand Egyptian Museum, a 5.2 million square foot state-of-the-art facility near the Giza Pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo, is scheduled to open later this year after construction is completed. It will house all of the treasures discovered in King Tutankhamun’s tomb, as well as 100,000 antique artifacts.

Please note that we’ve included some non-US citizens who nevertheless spent significant time in the United States. They are marked with an asterisk*.

The unsealed indictment alleges that Timothy Martin and Joanna Smith, along with other unnamed coconspirators, conducted research into potential targets at the National Gallery, alerted members of the media beforehand, and entered the museum with plastic water bottles filled with paint for the purpose of injuring an exhibit. It further alleges that Martin and Smith smeared that paint on the case, base, and floor surrounding Degas’s Little Dancer, Age Fourteen.

The protest by Martin and Smith, which happened around 11 a.m. on April 27, was aimed at bringing attention to the climate crisis. The protesters, members of the climate group Declare Emergency, also demanded President Joe Biden declare a climate emergency, as well as stop issuing new drilling permits and subsidies for fossil fuels.

Federal authorities also allege that Martin and Smith caused $2,400 in damages; the work will be removed for 10 days for repairs. The incident prompted museum director Kaywin Feldman to issue a video statement on Twitter in response.

Both activists self-surrendered and were taken into custody on Friday, according a press release from the Department of Justice. The release also states the case is being investigated by the Washington field office of the FBI, specifically the bureau’s Art Crime Team, with assistance from National Gallery of Art Police and US Park Police.

If convicted, Martin and Smith face a maximum sentence of five years in prison as well as a fine of up to $250,000.

The protest at the National Gallery of Art happened a few days after Declare Emergency shut down a section of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, resulting in traffic congestion around Washington, D.C. In climate protests by a variety of organizations across museums in Europe, Australia, and Canada, high-profile artworks such as those by Vermeer, Goya, Monet, van Gogh, and Rubens are frequent targets.

Precedents for punishment in response to climate protests include that for two activists in Belgium who were sentenced to two months in prison last November for targeting Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring in the Hague. Italian politicians are pushing for fines in response to recent protests at public monuments.

The police department for the protection of cultural heritage, the Carabinieri, worked with the special operations group ROS and the “Cacciatori Puglia” airborne squadron to carry out dozens of searches against individuals suspected of looting and illicit excavations as well as the trafficking of stolen archaeology artifacts with “inestimable historical, cultural and commercial value.”

According to the Italian daily newspaper La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, the operation was nicknamed “Canusium,” a reference to the ancient name of the municipality where the trafficking group based its operations. Investigative work and precautionary measures spanned the regions of Puglia, Basilicata, Campania, Lazio, and Abruzzo, and lasted almost a year.

While 21 suspects have been arrested so far as part of Operation Canusium, investigators said there are a total of 51 suspects, including grave robbers, international traffickers, and a type of middleman known as a fence. The fences placed the illicit archaeology items, among them vases, jewels, oil lamps, and gold coins, up for sale in both domestic and international markets.

The 3,586 artifacts that have been recovered include loom weights, bell-shaped kraters, jugs, cups, plates, miniature vases, oil lamps, and coins from as early as the 4th century BCE.

Prosecutor Francesco Tosto called the found items rare and valuable, estimating the value of the coins to be €50,000–€60,000.

According to CNN, Italian police also recovered 60 metal detectors and other objects consistent with clandestine excavations, including long metal spikes and shovels.