April 2023 Art News

Interesting things are happening at the Colosseum. For the better part of a decade, the piazza surrounding Rome’s iconic amphitheater has been a mess.

Thematically and stylistically, Wangechi Mutu’s art is a bubbling stew of ingredients that don’t always cohere. Part Afro-Futurism, part cyber-punk, and part body horror, Mutu’s sculptures, collages, and mixed-media paintings cover a lot of ground.

Without Claude Monet, there is no Mark Rothko, no Jackson Pollock, no Clyfford Still. His masterful rendering of light, bold coloration and gestural brushwork were not just resplendent, they represented the first forays into abstraction. On this episode of Expert Voices, Brooke Lampley discusses Monet’s Coin du bassin aux nymphéas, which will be offered as a highlight of Sotheby's Modern Evening Auction on 16 November. Coin du bassin aux nymphéas represents one of the very best of Monet’s late works and exemplifies his tremendous influence on the generation of artists who would follow.

Even as the art world continues to make strides toward gender equity, its history still holds major gaps. One such gap is the work of artist Jeanne Coppel. The Romanian-born French painter was a trailblazer in the use of abstraction in the 20th century.

Ever since their construction, the monuments and structures of ancient Rome have amazed and astounded their viewers with their grandeur and the ingenuity of their engineering. Throughout its history, Rome conquered much of modern Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East, encompassing nearly 1.7 million square miles of territory at its height.

Greater attention is often paid to the causes of wars than to their aftermath. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 is immortalized in paintings, but the resettlement of defeated American Loyalists after 1783 is not.