The Week in Art

• MFA Boston returns enslaved artist’s work to his heirs, Wifredo Lam, Ghirlandaio’s Adoration of the Magi

  The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston, US, has agreed to return two works from 1857 by the enslaved 19th-century potter David Drake to his present-day descendants. By the terms of the contract, one vessel will remain on loan to the museum for at least two years. The other—known as the “Poem Jar”—has been purchased back by the museum from the heirs for an undisclosed sum and now comes with “a certificate of ethical ownership”. Ben Luke talks to Ethan Lasser, the MFA’s chair of the art of Americas, about this landmark agreement. At the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the exhibition Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream opens on Monday. Lam, who was of African and Chinese descent, is now widely regarded as a key, and singular, figure in Modernist painting. Connected in his long life to the Surrealists and Pablo Picasso, and to literary greats including Aimé Césaire and Edouard Glissant, his distinctive practice was above all centred on a profound engagement with Black diasporic culture. Ben talks to the two lead curators of the exhibition, Beverly Adams, curator of Latin American Art at MoMA, and the museum’s new director, Christophe Cherix. And this episode’s Work of the Week is the Adoration of the Magi (1488) by Domenico Ghirlandaio. The painting is in the Ospedale degli Innocenti, the first hospital for unwanted or orphaned infants, or foundlings, in Europe, built by the great Renaissance architect, Filippo Brunelleschi. The Innocenti, as it is called, is the subject of a new book, called The Innocents of Florence: The Renaissance Discovery of Childhood, by Joseph Luzzi, and Ben speaks to him about the painting and its significance in the Innocenti’s collection.Wifredo Lam, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 10 November-11 April 2026.The Innocents of Florence: The Renaissance Discovery of Childhood, published in hardback by WW Norton, from 11 November in the US, priced $29.99, and from 28 November in the UK, priced £23.New subscription offer: eight-week free digital trial of The Art Newspaper. The subscription auto-renews at full price for your region. Cancel anytime. www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-8WEEKSOFFER Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Gauguin “fake” is real, Mrinalini Mukherjee and her circle, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt’s head piece

  The authenticity of the final self-portrait by Paul Gauguin, made in 1903 and housed in the Kunstmuseum in Basel, was earlier this year called into question. Now, the museum has completed its promised analysis, and confirmed that the painting is not a fake and is by Gauguin. Ben Luke talks to The Art Newspaper’s special correspondent, Martin Bailey, about the saga. In recent years, the late Indian sculptor Mrinalini Mukherjee has come to increasing prominence. Now, a show at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, called A Story of South Asian Art: Mrinalini Mukherjee and Her Circle, explores her work in the context of six other artists including her parents, Leela Mukherjee and Benode Behari Mukherjee. The exhibition’s curator, Tarini Malik, tells Ben more. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Character Head No.25 by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, the 18th-century sculptor who was born in Germany, and lived in modern-day Austria and Slovakia. The bust features in the exhibition Franz Xaver Messerschmidt: More than Character Heads, at the Belvedere in Vienna, and we talk to the exhibition’s curators, Katharina Lovecky and Georg Lechner, about the work.New subscription offer: eight-week free digital trial of The Art Newspaper. Cancel anytime. The subscription auto-renews at full price for your region. www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-8WEEKSOFFERA Story of South Asian Art: Mrinalini Mukherjee and Her Circle, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 31 October-24 February 2026.Franz Xaver Messerschmidt: More Than Character Heads, Belvedere, Vienna, 31 October-6 April 2026. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Louvre heist: the fallout, RoseLee Goldberg on the Performa Biennial, Wayne McGregor on his new installation

  It is an event that has shocked the world and prompted a national reckoning in France: the robbery of eight jewels from the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre last Sunday. Ben Luke talks to Anaël Pigeat, editor-at-large of The Art Newspaper France and journalist at Paris Match, and Dale Berning Sawa, a regular contributor to The Art Newspaper, about the heist, the reaction, the political fallout and what it tells us about the place of culture in French society today. The Performa Biennial is celebrating its 20th anniversary edition from next week, and Ben talks to its founder RoseLee Goldberg about the biennial and the publication of the updated version of Goldberg’s classic book Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present. And this episode’s Work of the Week is On the Other Earth, a new installation by the choreographer Wayne McGregor. It is unveiled next week at Stone Nest in London, as part of a major exhibition of McGregor’s work at Somerset House, called Infinite Bodies. Ben speaks to McGregor about the installation.The Performa Biennial 2025, 1–23 November. Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present, RoseLee Goldberg, Thames and Hudson, $29.95/£24.99.Wayne McGregor: Infinite Bodies, Somerset House, London; On the Other Earth, Stone Nest, London, 30 October-22 February 2026; On the Other Earth is booked in one-hour slots, visit somersethouse.org.uk for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Frieze in London, Hypha Studios and Renoir’s drawing for The Great Bathers

  Amid much debate about the health of the art market, Frieze is back in London, with its two fairs, Frieze London and Frieze Masters. Ben Luke talks to The Art Newspaper’s art market editor, Kabir Jhala, about the mood in the big tents in Regent’s Park. Beyond Frieze, of course, is a vast parallel art world, with thousands of unrepresented artists and curators keen to realise their big ideas. Hypha Studios has for some years been finding vacant property in cities around the UK to provide free exhibition and studio space to artists, curators and other creatives. This week, it launched Hypha Curates, an online sales platform. Ben talks to the non-executive director of Hypha Studios, Will Jennings. And this episode’s Work of the Week is a drawing by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. A study in red and white chalk for one of his greatest works, the painting known as The Great Bathers in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, it’s a key piece in a new exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, called Renoir Drawings. We speak to the exhibition’s curator, the director of the Morgan Library and Museum, Colin B. Bailey.Frieze London and Frieze Masters, until Sunday, 19 October.Visit hyphastudios.com and hyphacurates.comRenoir Drawings, Morgan Library and Museum, New York, 17 October-8 February 2026; Musée d’Orsay, 17 March-5 July 2026. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Nigerian Modernism, Tehran’s art scene after the war, Wayne Thiebaud’s Cakes

  Tate Modern continues to explore the histories of Modern art beyond the European and North American canons that were once its focus. This week it opened the exhibition Nigerian Modernism, and The Art Newspaper’s digital editor, Alexander Morrison, speaks to the show’s co-curator, Osei Bonsu, and to one of the 50 artists in the exhibition, Jimoh Buraimoh. Before the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June of this year, the art scene in the Iranian capital, Tehran, was thriving. Sarvy Geranpayeh, one of our correspondents for the Middle East, travelled to Tehran for The Art Newspaper and tells Ben Luke how the art world has responded in the aftermath of the conflict. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Cakes (1963) by Wayne Thiebaud, a painting in the National Gallery of Art in Washington that has travelled to the Courtauld Gallery in London for Wayne Thiebaud: American Still Life, the first UK museum exhibition of his art. We visit the show and speak to Barnaby Wright, its co-curator.Nigerian Modernism, Tate Modern, London, until 10 May 2026.Wayne Thiebaud. American Still Life, Courtauld Gallery, London, 10 October-18 January 2026.LAST CHANCE student subscription offer: stay connected to the art world from your first lecture to your final dissertation with a three-year student subscription to The Art Newspaper for just £99/$112/€105. Gift, quarterly and annual subscriptions are also available.https://www.theartnewspaper.com/subscriptions-student?offer=4c1120ea-bc15-4cb3-97bc-178560692a9c Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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