The artist’s rare archives were released ahead of a dedicated study center slated to open near the museum later this year, Radio France Internationale reported on Sunday. The center is intended for researchers and artists in residence.

This digital portal, however, makes accessible the museum’s vast collection of Picasso artworks, essays, conferences, podcasts, and interviews. A total of 19,000 photos, which have never been seen by the public, are included.

An additional 200,000 texts from Picasso’s workshops are also slated to be digitized and added to the portal in the coming years.

The Spanish painter and sculptor is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, most notably as cofounder of the Cubist movement with Georges Braque. Born in 1881, he lived most of his life in France; he died in 1973. In 1992 his family archives were entrusted to the French state, which has continued to oversee them.

Last year, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the painter’s death, there were a number of exhibitions highlighting his lasting legacy.

Of the 64 lots, three were withdrawn before the auction began. Just over 37 percent of the lots came with a guarantee, a sign that there was at least some collectors were interested in the works on offer at Christie’s. Despite being filled with pieces by tried-and-true, blue-chip artists like Pablo Picasso, Gerhard Richter, Claude Monet, and Andy Warhol, a number of art advisers told ARTnews that the sale felt cobbled together. 

As auctioneer Adrien Meyer rattled off the protracted list of guaranteed lots before the sale commenced, the sales floor burst into a restrained laughter. “Don’t worry, it’s a good sign,” he said, with a raised eyebrow and wry smile. Interestingly, only one of those 24 lots, Frank Stella’s Untitled (Concentric Squares), was guaranteed by the house. Despite the artist’s death earlier this month, the work hammered after very little fanfare for $5 million ($6.1 million, with fees) against an estimate of $6 million to $8 million, going to a bidder in the sales room. (All prices are reported with buyer’s premium unless otherwise noted.)

The sale, which lasted about two hours, was filled with highs and lows. A record was set for André Kertész after a print of his photograph Satiric Dancer (1926) hammered for $450,000, or $567,000 with fees; that was just above its pre-sale estimate of $500,000–$700,000. The success of that picture, of an exquisite 1920s beauty contorting herself on a small sofa next to a similarly twisted sculpture, provides further evidence that early 20th-century photography has assumed its place in the marquee evening sales. That trend arguably began two years ago when Christie’s sold Man Ray’s picture of Kiki de Montparnasse for a record-breaking $12.4 million in 2022. 

Another record was set for a work by Alexander Archipenko after his sculpture Woman Comber Her Hair (conceived in 1915, cast in 1965) hammered for a stunning $4.2 million ($5.1 million with fees), more than double its $2 million high estimate.

As for the lows, only three lots were passed on: Isamu Noguchi’s jasper stone sculpture Untitled (1980), Richard Diebenkorn’s 1968 picture Ocean Park #12, and Joan Mitchell’s Crow Hill (1966). The evening’s 13th lot, Joseph Cornell’s Untitled (Medici Prince Variant), painted around 1952, was also passed on despite a bid of $480,000 on an estimate of $700,000 to $1 million. By the end of the sale, however, the consignor must have had a change of heart. The lot was brought back to the screen and swiftly went to a bidder on the phone with Emily Kaplan, the house’s co-head of the 20th-century evening sale, for $320,000 ($403,200 with fees). Interesting what a little time and post-sale perspective can do.

One of the first lots to receive bidding in depth (and a round of applause after it sold) was Georgia O’Keeffe’s Red Poppy (1928), which carried an estimate of $10 million–$15 million. Meyer noted that the work was the largest of O’Keeffe’s poppy paintings still in private hands. He started the bidding at $8 million. The low estimate was reached in less than 15 seconds and, after a back and forth bids between specialists Paige Kestenman and Katharine Arnold, went to Kestenman’s phone bidder for $14 million ($16.5 million with fees).

Hockney’s A Lawn Being Sprinkled (1967) was the first of the evening’s high-value lots to be offered up. With an estimate of $25 million–$35 million it was among the most expensive works in the sale, matched only by van Gogh’s Coin de Jardin avec papillons (1887). Considering that it had never before come to auction and had been given the primo cover of the sale’s auction catalogue, one would have thought that the picture would have drawn more attention, especially given its provenance in the Lear collection. 

But bidding lasted just over a minute with only two or three parties interested. The work sold to a bidder on the phone with Arnold for a hammer price of $24.5 million ($28.6 million with fees), just scraping by its low estimate.

The van Gogh work had a similar fate: a decent showing but one drained of the excitement that has become expected at an evening sale. (Both the van Gogh and the Hockney were among the evening’s guaranteed lots.) Meyer opened the bidding at $20 million then jumped to $22 million, after which he stalled for a moment, repeating the figure three times to an unresponsive room. The first phone bid came in at $24 million and again, for a few seconds the room was silent enough to be empty. After two more bids, to $28 million, a bidder on the phone with Alex Rotter, chairman of the house’s 20th- and 21st-century art department, offered not another $2 million but rather only $500,000. Surprisingly that was enough to scare off the other interested parties, and Rotter’s buyer took the picture for a hammer price of $28.8 million ($33.2 million with fees), just sliding past the low estimate of $28 million.

The health of the market has been called into question for the majority of the past year, and rightly so. Economically speaking the art market, and the country, exists in a different world that it did in 2021 or 2022. “People are spending money, perhaps not in the amounts they used to a few years ago, but money is being spent,” adviser Elizabeth Fiore told ARTnews. 

“There’s just no sense of urgency,” adviser Maria Brito said in a phone interview before the sale. “There are cute things, and beautiful things, but not many works that really give a collector that sense of urgency that makes you throw your hand up at an auction. Bidders will be looking for a bargain because, let’s face it, there’s not Carrington–level work at this sale,” she added, referring to the recording-breaking Leonora Carrington picture that sold for $28.5 million at Sotheby’s the previous evening.

And deals there were on Thursday. Picasso’s 1971 Femme au chapeau assise by Pablo Picasso was scooped up for a hammer price of $17 million ($19.9 million with fees) against an estimate of $20 million to $30 million. The picture is not one of his greatest portraits, but it’s dynamic and punchy, especially considering Picasso was 90 years old when he painted it.

“This season, the posture of all the auction houses has been more defensive than offensive,” Alex Glauber, president of the Association of Professional Art Advisors, told ARTnews before Christie’s Thursday evening sale. “If they can’t show strength, they can at least show that the market is healthy and functional.”

The exhibition, which was previously accessible only to those who identify as a woman, was closed on Monday after a man sued the museum after being denied entry.

The show, which opened in 2020, is a lushly decorated area of the museum with chic black and white floors and green velvet drapes in which champagne is served by male butlers to visitors who can leisurely peruse some of the most notable works in the Mona’s collection including a Sidney Nolan, a Pablo Picasso and antiquities from Mesopotamia, Central America and Africa. 

Jason Lau, a man from New South Wales, tried to visit the exhibition in April 2023, but was denied entry. Lau lodged a complaint with Tasmania’s civil and administrative tribunal, in which he said the museum is violating Tasmania’s anti-discrimination act by failing to provide “a fair provision of goods and services in line with the law” to him and other visitors who paid for museum tickets but do not identify as women.

In March, the tribunal ruled that within a month the museum had to allow “persons who do not identify as ladies” into the exhibition. That time period expired on Monday. The Mona appealed the decision on Tuesday claiming that the decision took “too narrow a view on women’s historical and ongoing societal disadvantage” and how the Ladies Lounge can “promote equal opportunity.”

In court, Kaechele argued that the discriminatory nature of the show was exactly the point. “Ladies Lounge” was inspired by old Australian pubs, which until 1965 were barred women from entry.  “The men are experiencing Ladies Lounge, their experience of rejection is the artwork,” she said, according to a report from the Guardian. “OK, they experience the artwork differently than women, but men are certainly experiencing the artwork as it’s intended.” 

Kaechele used the court room as a kind of extension of the exhibition, or at least the idea behind it, when she showed up with 25 female supporters, all dressed in matching navy blue suits and nylon stockings. Soundless, the women performed “synchronized choreographed movements, including leg crossing, leaning forward together and peering over the top of their spectacles” in unison during the proceedings. Once the proceedings closed, the troupe left to the sound of Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible.”

Kaechele said she plans to “work around” the court’s order that the exhibition be closed until it is made available to all by making the space “compliant” with state regulations and installing a women’s toilet and a church. 

“There is a fabulous toilet coming to the Ladies Lounge, and so in that sense the Ladies Lounge will operate as a ladies’ room. It’s a toilet that is celebrated the world round. It is the greatest toilet, and men won’t be allowed to see it,” she said in Australian media reports, according to the BBC.

In an interview published by the Mona, Kaechele said men would be allowed in on Sundays, but only to learn ironing and laundry folding. “Women can bring in all their clean laundry and the men can go through a series of graceful movements (designed by a Rinpoche and refined by tai chi masters) to fold them.”

The sunny landscape painting features a haystack in a tree-filled field. It was brought to the United States in 1895 by its first owner, the American landscape painter Dwight Blaney. According to Sotheby’s, the painting was immediately lent to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and has remained in the same private collection for decades.

Sotheby’s announcement also noted that the sale will take place five years after Monet’s Meules sold for $110.7 million at Sotheby’s, doubling its estimate and setting a record for the artist. That sum was the highest amount for any Impressionist piece sold at auction.

Meules à Giverny is one of several works being sold from the same private collection at the May 15 Sotheby’s sale. The others are Monet’s Bennecourt (1887), Pablo Picasso’s Courses de taureaux (1901), Camille Pissarro’s Paysage aux Pâtis, Pontoise, la moisson (1873), and Childe Hassam’s View of Broadway and Fifth Avenue (1890). Sotheby’s did not supply a name for the seller.

Bennecourt was acquired from Monet by American painter John Singer Sargent. Its price estimate is $6 million–$8 million.

Courses de taureaux is an early Picasso work depicting a classic Spanish bullfight. Per Sotheby’s, Picasso’s paintings of bullfights, a recurring subject across his vast oeuvre, do not appear often at auction.

When Sotheby’s last auctioned Courses de taureaux in London in 2003, the painting sold for £2.1 million ($3.6 million USD) on an estimate of £1.5 million–£2 million ($2.5 million–$3.3 million), according to Artnet’s sales database. Now, it is estimated to sell for between $5 million and $7 million.

Pissarro’s Paysage aux Pâtis, Pontoise, la moisson refers to a small town approximately 25 miles northwest of Paris. Its estimate is $2.5 million to $3.5 million.

Hassam’s View of Broadway and Fifth Avenue depicts the area around Madison Square Park “from the vantage point of the balcony at Hotel Bartholdi, on the corner of Broadway and 23rd Street.” When Sotheby’s last auctioned the work in New York in 1988, it sold for $1.15 million on an estimate of $500,000–$750,000, according to Artnet’s sales database. Sotheby’s latest estimate for the oil painting is $800,000–$1.2 million.

All five works have been guaranteed by the auction house.

“Assembled over four decades with meticulous care and attention, this collection stands as an expert guide to understanding the foundations of 20th century art,” Benjamin Doller, Sotheby’s chairman of the Americas, said in a statement.

THE HEADLINES

CHURCH COVER-UP. A public debate is intensifying over whether to remove, cover, or leave untouched, the church mosaics, paintings, and stained-glass windows made by artist priests accused of sexual abuse, reports Le Monde. Jesuit Rev. Mark Rupnik and Fr Louis Ribes, are among a handful of Catholic priests who have made a large swath of artworks for churches and basilicas around the world. For decades they were acclaimed for their creations, but recently they faced accusations of rape by multiple individuals, including children in the case of Ribes. Over 5000 people have also signed a petition to remove newly installed mosaic murals by Rupnik on the façade of Brazil’s Sanctuary of Our Lady of Aparecida, which will be unveiled next month. However, its rector seems poised to go through with a planned opening ceremony.

CHURCH COVER-UP. A public debate is intensifying over whether to remove, cover, or leave untouched, the church mosaics, paintings, and stained-glass windows made by artist priests accused of sexual abuse, reports Le Monde. Jesuit Rev. Mark Rupnik and Fr Louis Ribes , are among a handful of Catholic priests who have made a large swath of artworks for churches and basilicas around the world. For decades they were acclaimed for their creations, but recently they faced accusations of rape by multiple individuals, including children in the case of Ribes. Over 5,000 people have also signed a petition to remove newly installed mosaic murals by Rupnik on the façade of Brazil’s Sanctuary of Our Lady of Aparecida, which will be unveiled next month.

Picasso’s daughter Paloma is defending her father against depictions of him as a womanizer and abuser, in an exclusive interview. “My father was not the satyr that we’d like to believe,” she told Le Figaro. Speaking on the occasion of the Paris Picasso Museum’s rehanging, including a separate room for her mother’s artwork, Francoise Gilot, whose practice was long overshadowed by her partner, Paloma asks, “Why should he be perfect?” [Le Figaro]

THE DIGEST

Pivotal artist Faith Ringgold, whose seven-decade career encompassed bestselling children’s books, activism, and richly detailed painted quilts, has died. She was 93. [ARTnews]

The Lebanese American artist and poet Etel Adnan has been honored with a Google Doodle. [The National]

The art collection of television producer Norman Lear heads to Christie’s in May, worth an estimated $50 million. It includes works from the 1950’s through the 1980’s, and many made in California. [ARTnews]

Paintings and tapestries saved from the Paris Notre Dame cathedral fire in 2019 go on view in a new exhibition. They include a collection of restored 17th century paintings, which will go on view together, as intended, for the first time in over 160 years. “We were lucky to get them out quite quickly with just a little water damage and dust. It was rather miraculous,” said Emmanuel Pénicaut, the director of the Mobilier National collections, which will host the exhibition April 24 to July 21. [The Guardian]

A German federal court has upheld the conviction and four-year-prison sentence of four young men sentenced for stealing historic jewels, including diamonds worth over $124.4 million from the Green Vault in Dresden’s Treasury Museum in a 2019 heist. The defendants had attempted to appeal the May 2023 verdict, and four of the youth at the time of the crime returned the majority of the loot. [dpa]

Maria Piana, the architect responsible for the maintenance of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, is warning that chronic rising water levels are destroying the inner structure of the city’s historic buildings. He is calling for swift action to help preserve the city’s architecture against an increasingly hostile environment, and in his recently published book Costruire Venezia (Building Venice) implicitly tells readers not to blindly assume Venice will remain standing, simply because it has been around for centuries. [The Art Newspaper]

Inspiration for the Olympic flame-lighting ceremony in southern Greece was taken directly from the imagery adorning ancient temples, vases, and other remnants of Greek Antiquity. In a sneak peek at rehearsals for the performance, The Associated Press describes how volunteer dancers, partly chosen for their resemblance to figures in ancient Greek artifacts, mimic poses from those artworks. “Basically, what we are doing is joining up those images. Everything in between comes from us,” said choreographer Artemis Ignatiou. [The Associated Press for Bloomberg]

THE KICKER

WHOSE MUSEUM IS IT? After hearing news that a technician snuck his own artwork onto the walls of a Munich Museum, a gallery in Edinburgh not only took note, they also drew direct inspiration, and decided to invite the public to do the same. “Castle Mills Then & Now: Whose Gallery is it Anyway” at Edinburgh Printmakers will allow the public to show their art, and also curate hanging artwork by others, moving and rearranging the display as they choose. “The rules are simple: anyone can add work and/or choose to co-curate the exhibition by moving artworks in the space in ways that make sense to them,” said a spokesperson. The all-inclusive show will run April 19 to June 30, reports The Guardian. 

A six-year money laundering investigation by Sussex Police found Behrad Kazemi and Raj Nasta had sold works by Dalí for £2,000 to £3,000 and works by Picasso for £5,000 to £20,000 each to more than 125 victims between October 2016 and June 2018.

The scheme involved cold calls from a company called Asset Consulting Services and Treasury Asset Group and encouragement to buy artwork instead of traditional investments.

A press statement from Sussex Police noted many of the victims were vulnerable and elderly, with some of them not knowing they had been conned until contacted by police. Some had paid over £150,000 to the scheme and lost their life savings as a result.

Suspicions arose after the victims and their families could not longer contact Asset Consulting Services and Treasury Asset Group. Artist signatures on the artworks were discovered to be false and the actual value of the works sold was between £200 and £300.

The investigation prompted a warrant on Kazemi’s property in June 2018, the seizure of the suspects’ phones, and an examination of company and banking records. Looking into the records, authorities discovered that funds had been transferred overseas, as well as the suspects’ membership in an organized crime group.

Kazemi was charged with money laundering, while Nasta was charged with money laundering and false accounting.

On March 13, Kazemi was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison; Nasta received a three-year prison sentence. Both men were sentenced at Lewes Crown Court in East Sussex, England.

Detective Constable Annette Woodland, of Sussex Police’s Economic Crime Unit, noted the sophisticated nature of the scheme, which left many victims angry, embarrassed, and suffering major financial losses: “This was a complex and thorough investigation which took lots of hard work across multiple teams. It was extremely distressing for the victims involved who have had to face years of emotional turmoil while it was carried out.”

Woodland added: “Anyone could be affected by a similar type of crime. The fraudsters are manipulative, they will be chatty and friendly, and will encourage conversations about family, hobbies and holidays to gain your trust. It is despicable.”

In a statement, Picasso Museum president Cécile Debray said Gilot, who died in 2023 at age 101, was finally “being given her rightful place as an artist.”

The Picasso Museum’s new installation of the Hôtel Salé will look at several decades of Gilot’s artistic career, including “her close association with the Réalités nouvelles group to the great totemic compositions of the ’emblematic paintings’ of the 1980s,” according to a press release.

Located in room 17, on the museum’s third floor, this section will also include a discussion of her best-selling 1964 memoir Life with Picasso, which presented a less than flattering view of her relationship with Picasso and which the Cubist tried to prevent from being published.

Additionally, the room will be solely focused on Gilot as an artist and not feature paintings or photos of her by Picasso or look at her as his muse. According to a museum spokesperson, this is the first time the Picasso Museum will consider Gilot in this way. The display will be on view for the next year.

Picasso museum curator Joanne Snrech told the Guardian it was important to include a display of Gilot’s paintings to dispel the idea that she was “just Picasso’s partner.”

Snrech continued, “She was an artist in her own right with a very long career during which her work evolved. What we show here is the diversity of her work. We thought it was important to show not just her place in Picasso’s life but also that she was much more than just his companion. After all, she spent just 10 years with him out of more than 100.”

Gilot met Picasso in 1943 when she was 21; he was 40 years her senior. They had two children, Claude and Paloma, together during their 10-year relationship during which time she also continued to paint. Gilot left Picasso in 1953, taking their children with her, and he did not take the break-up well.

According to the Guardian, Picasso destroyed Gilot’s possessions, including letters to her from Henri Matisse, demanded the Louise Leiris Gallery end its representation of her work, and insisted she no longer be invited to exhibit with the prestigious group of French artists Salon de Mai.

In Life with Picasso, which was written with art critic Carlton Lake, Gilot writes, “He burned all the bridges that connected me to the past I had shared with him. But in doing so he forced me to discover myself and thus to survive. I shall never cease being grateful to him for that.”

After the publication of her memoir, and the uproar it caused in France, Gilot was essentially forced to leave the country, settling in the United States by 1970. Around this time, she would meet the virologist Jonas Salk; they were married from 1970 until his death in 1995. Shortly before her death last June, a painting by Gilot, who continued making art into her final months, sold for $1.3 million at Sotheby’s in 2021.

As first reported by British broadcaster Sky News, Andrei Molodkin claims to have 16 modern and contemporary artworks collectively worth $45 million stored in a 29-ton safe alongside an “extremely corrosive” substance. The works are allegedly stored in boxes connected via a pneumatic pump to two barrels—one containing acid powder and the other an accelerator capable of causing a chemical reaction that would decimate the vault’s interior. 

The project, called “Dead Man’s Switch”, has been supported by Assange’s wife, Stella, who is awaiting the verdict on her husband’s final appeal against an extradition to the United States, where he faces charges of espionage. Assange is being held in a high security prison in the UK due to the extradition request, which was spurred by his publishing of disclosed documents, including those related to the US military campaign in Iraq and Afghanistan, through the platform Wikileaks. 

Assange has denied any wrongdoing, and attorneys have argued that he may lose his life if extradited. 

“In our catastrophic time — when we have so many wars — to destroy art is much more taboo than to destroy the life of a person,” Molodkin, who lives in France, told Sky News. “Since Julian Assange has been in prison… freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of information has started to be more and more repressed. I have this feeling very strongly now.”

The vault is located at Molodkin’s studio in France, and it is set be moved to an undetermined museum, Sky News reports. The plan is to hook the safe to a 24-hour timer which must be reset every day at risk of the chemical substance igniting. The timer will only be reset, however, after someone “close to Assange” confirms he is alive.

Giampaolo Abbondio, a Milan art dealer, told Sky News that he initially decried Molodkin’s project, but after later donated a Picasso to the project.

“It’s more relevant for the world to have one Assange than an extra Picasso, so I decided to accept [the offer to donate an artwork]” Abbondio said. “Let’s say I’m an optimist and I’ve lent it. If Assange goes free, I can have it back. Picasso can vary from 10,000 to 100 million, but I don’t think it’s the number of zeros that makes it more relevant when we’re talking about a human life.”

Assange’s wife said in a statement that Molodkin’s project demands the question of “which is the greater taboo: destroying art or destroying human life?”

The works—Picasso’s portrait Tête (1971) and Chagall’s L’homme en prière (1970), depicting a man praying—were taken from the home of an art collector in Tel Aviv in 2010. At the time of the theft the works were collectively valued at nearly $1 million, local authorities said in a statement on Tuesday. Both paintings were found in good condition.

Some $680,000 worth of jewelry was also stolen from the collector in the same heist, however the trove remains missing.  

Per the statement, authorities were tipped off from a source that a Belgian citizen in Namur, the capital city of the Walloon region, was offering the paintings for sale. An investigation was launched against the suspect, a 68-year-old Israeli watch dealer, who was tracked to a residence in Namur. A search of his residence, however, uncovered a large sum of money, but not the long-lost works.

“The checks and police resources implemented during 2023 made it possible to establish that the suspect was indeed in possession of the works sought and that he could have them at his home or at the home of one of his relations,” Belgian authorities said in the statement.

“Although confessing to possessing the paintings, the suspect refused to communicate where he had stored them,” the statement added. The investigation eventually led them to the Antwerp residence, where they found the paintings unharmed and still in their original frames.

The incident took place at American Fine Art Inc. well before sunrise on January 7 and the targeted works were estimated to be worth $250,000.

“This guy was a seasoned professional,” American Fine Art director Phil Koss told ARTnews. “This wasn’t just a smash-and-grab.”

Around 5:45 a.m., senior international art consultant Jeff Dippold went to the gallery after an alarm went off. He called Koss after hearing someone barricaded inside the offices, prompting Koss to contact 911.

The suspect, identified by police as Harpreet Singh, was arrested in a confrontation on the roof of American Fine Art Inc.

“When the police came down with the backpack, and the crowbar and all the other stuff, the gloves, it was like right out of, Thomas Crown or something,” Koss said.

“It appears the suspect forced entry through a part of the roof and gained access to the gallery,” Scottsdale public information officer Aaron Bolin said an emailed statement to ARTnews. “His vehicle was found parked in an alley nearby below and emergency ladder that provided access to the roof.”

Officers surrounded the building, located the suspect, and ensured he did not escape off the roof. A drone and a police dog were also involved in the early morning arrest.

After Singh was taken into police custody, court documents show officers found several pieces of artwork scattered on the roof of American Fine Art as well as on the rooftops of neighboring businesses, according to a report published by local news station CBS 5. “Police also recovered clothing, including a face mask and gloves as well as a small drill, a flashlight and a glass-break tool.”

While the statement from Scottsdale police sent to ARTnews said one of the works from the incident, Lucky Strike by Keith Haring, was still missing, Koss said everything had been returned. “We’ve got them all back. He never got away anything.”

“I was so happy not to have to make a claim,” he added.

According to court records from Maricopa County Jail, Singh has been charged with with two counts of criminal trespass and burglary and one count of theft. His bond has been set at $50,000. He has already been convicted of burglary in the state of California.