Arts news

• ‘Artists should let the cat out of the bag’: Lubaina Himid to represent Britain at 2026 Venice Biennale

  24-02-2025 21:00
  She was once forced to exhibit in a corridor by the ICA’s toilets. Now the 70-year-old artist is going to the ‘Olympics of art’ where she has ‘all sorts of things to say about Britain’s history and the British pavilion itself’Lubaina Himid, the artist known for her large stage-set-style installations that draw attention to figures overlooked by history, has been picked by the British Council to represent the UK at the 2026 Venice Biennale.“I’m ener
  
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• ‘No longer on the margins’: how women are outperforming men in Africa’s art market

  24-02-2025 13:00
  In 2024, the top five highest-priced sales of African art were all by women, according to research, reflecting increased recognition and demand for their workWhen female African artists collectively surpassed men in auction sales in 2023 for the first time, many dismissed it as an anomaly. But the trend persisted. In 2024 women maintained a strong 52.8% share of sales, despite a broader decline in the African art market.“This shift marks a significant moment in art market history, particul
  
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• ‘No longer on the margins’: how women are outperfoming men in Africa’s art market

  24-02-2025 13:00
  
  In 2024, the top five highest-priced sales of African art were all by women, according to research, reflecting increased recognition and demand for their workWhen female African artists collectively surpassed men in auction sales in 2023 for the first time, many dismissed it as an anomaly. But the trend persisted. In 2024 women maintained a strong 52.8% share of sales, despite a broader decline in the African art market.“This shift marks a significant moment in art market history, particul
  
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• Andrew McIntosh Patrick obituary

  24-02-2025 12:37
  From 1954 until 2004, Andrew McIntosh Patrick, who has died aged 90, worked at the Fine Art Society in London, when the firm was synonymous with its 1876 New Bond Street premises designed by EW Godwin. With an open fire, period furniture and walls often stacked vertically with paintings, it was like stepping into a posh private home albeit with the contents for sale. The atmosphere was augmented by a welcome from Andrew, seemingly always at his desk on one side of the room, and his colleague, Pe
  
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• ‘Lucian Freud was thrilled when Leigh Bowery stripped naked’: how a wild club kid became the great painter’s muse

  24-02-2025 06:00
  When outrageous clubbers Sue Tilley and Bowery posed for the eminent artist, some of the most spectacular portraits of the century were born. Tilley talks about sex, cash and Bowery’s untimely death‘Leigh would have been livid that it wasn’t a painting of him that broke the record,” says Sue Tilley with a laugh. She’s talking about the £17.2m paid by Roman Abramovich in 2008 for a Lucian Freud nude of her, called Benefits Supervisor Sleeping. It was then the h
  
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