Jimmy Kimmel tweets that he was buyer of nude Bea Arthur painting

In 2005, comedian Jimmy Kimmel shared a stage with actress Bea Arthur for the Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson. Many jokes that...

The creative process behind Edward Hopper's paintings

NEW YORK — As 1938 came to a close, painter Edward Hopper was a man on a mission.

Review: Vibrant and creepy 'Bloom' flowers in Pasadena

"Bloom," a compact show of eight recent painted sculptures by Christopher Miles, takes its name seriously. The flowering at hand is...

Review: Florian Morlat sculpts an engagingly strange show

Collages with the material heft of sculptures and sculptures with the two-dimensional articulation of flat drawings characterize Florian...

Review: On the front lines with 'War/Photography' at the Annenberg

Including the American Revolution, the United States has participated in 12 major wars since the republic was founded. All but two were...

Paul Schimmel joins gallery world, creating Hauser Wirth & Schimmel

Former MOCA chief curator Paul Schimmel has signed on as a partner with the international gallery Hauser & Wirth. And yes, they are...

Abraham Lincoln exhibition opening in June at Reagan Library

Did Daniel Day-Lewis leave you with the urge for more Abraham Lincoln?

LACMA's big rock, 'Levitated Mass,' subject of new film

Artist Michael Heizer's "Levitated Mass" is the subject of a new documentary to be screened as part of Los Angeles Film Festival.

MOCA architecture show opening pushed back to June 16

The Museum of Contemporary Art released a statement Friday saying it has moved back the opening date of its show about contemporary Los...

Review: Ilene Segalove, past and present at Jancar

"Dialogues in Time" at Jancar skips between past and present in Ilene Segalove's life and work, looking at each through the lens of the...

Review: Camera-free photography with beauty and bite by Marco Breuer

Marco Breuer practices photography in a sculptural, performative sense, redefining the medium as physical and primal through embossing,...

Review: Elegant photographic fictions at Thomas Solomon

The strangeness and mystery of the Voynich Manuscript has inspired musicians and novelists.  Not surprisingly, the work has also proved...

Connie Butler of MoMA goes to Hammer Museum as new chief curator

After more than a year-long search, the Hammer Museum has hired Connie Butler, currently the chief curator of drawings at...

For William Wegman, 1970s works seem so new

"William Wegman: He Took Two Pictures. One Came Out," an exhibition of the artist's text-based black-and-white photographs from the 1970s,...

Topless Beatrice Arthur painting part of record $495-million auction

Did it come with a card attached that says, "Thank you for being a friend"?

James Turrell shapes perceptions

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Flying a couple of thousand feet above a volcanic field in Arizona near the Painted Desert, it's...

Colgate University to return aboriginal artwork to Australia

A collection of artwork by aboriginal Australian children that was given to Colgate University in 1966 is being voluntarily returned to...

Princess Diana museum to close, contents go to sons William, Harry

The museum dedicated to Princess Diana will close next year and her sons Prince William and Prince Harry will be taking possession of her...

'Dancing Queen' on display: ABBA museum opens in Sweden

With no ABBA reunion in sight, patrons can take a chance on a new museum devoted to the 1970s Swedish pop super-group.

Metropolitan Museum says it will return Cambodian statues

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has agreed to return two ancient statues to Cambodia after receiving convincing evidence they had been looted...

Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum returns to form, with light and life

AMSTERDAM — A scrum of international TV reporters, photographers and other media packed the Gallery of Honor at the Rijksmuseum on a...

New York's 9/11 museum to charge fee for admission

Visitors to National 9/11 Memorial and Museum could pay as much as $25 for admission.

Two Southern California institutions head to White House for honors

Two Southern California cultural institutions will be honored at the White House on Wednesday.

MOCA's 'A New Sculpturalism' faces uncertain future without Gehry

Frank Gehry has pulled out of a major architecture exhibition set to open June 2 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, a...

Museum of Modern Art launches free-admission promotions

At $25, general admission to the Museum of Modern Art in New York is among the highest in the nation. This month, the museum is promoting...

Smithsonian closing some spaces due to sequester

The Smithsonian Institution museums in Washington have had to close some spaces due to the effects of the federal budget cuts known as...

'Star Wars' creator George Lucas seeks to back S.F. museum

George Lucas seems to be using the force: The billionaire filmmaker is one of three finalists vying to create a new cultural facility in San...

New Autry chief executive saddles up for challenging task

Recruiting a new leader for a big museum can take months — sometimes more than a year — involving search committees, consultants...

Art Review: Latifa Echakhch at the Hammer Museum

Latifa Echakhch’s installation “À chaque stencil une révolution (For each stencil a revolution)” wraps the...

MOCA acquires massive Ryan Trecartin video installation

An artist who mines the visual excesses and verbal tics of teenagers in the ADHD age of instant messaging, Ryan Trecartin has had...

Art review: Urs Fischer's grand gestures come up short at MOCA

Urs Fischer is an artist of the big gesture. It's a mixed blessing.

The jarring reality and artful beauty of photography

I wonder if the curators of the excellent "War/Photography" show at the Annenberg Space for Photography were tempted to include Jeff Wall'...

Appellate court says case against Hungary over looted artwork can proceed

The heirs of the Budapest-based Jewish banker Baron Mor Lipot Herzog have cleared a major legal hurdle in their decades-long quest to...

New museum of Jewish history opens in Warsaw

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews opens Friday in Warsaw, partly funded by the Polish government. It’s located in the area that...

Boston museums offer free admission in marathon bombings aftermath

Obama's arts budget plan goes beyond restoring 'sequester' cuts

President Obama’s budget proposal for the coming fiscal year would boost federal arts spending 10%  above where it stands at...

National 9/11 memorial in N.Y. now charges $2 for some reservations

Organizers of the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York have begun charging visitors a $2 reservation fee to obtain admission...

Urs Fischer and 1,000 volunteers go big — and messy — at MOCA

As Urs Fischer stood inside the Geffen Contemporary last month preparing for his big MOCA survey, the museum's much-discussed financial...

Curatorial change for Hammer's 2014 'Made in L.A.' biennial

The Hammer Museum has confirmed a change in its curatorial team for the  2014 edition of “Made in L.A.,” the museum’s...

Motion Picture Academy unveils ambitious plans for film museum

Will the Academy's big bubble pop before it has a chance to be built?

Hand over the book, Britain, it's the Getty's

When British authorities the other day denied an export license for a 15th-century Flemish manuscript acquired last December by the J....

Michael McKean, Jefferson Mays in 'Yes, Prime Minister' at Geffen

The death of Margaret Thatcher this week has created renewed public interest -- and, for some, nostalgia -- for British politics during...

Art Review: Refik Anadol at Young Projects

For someone not yet thirty, the Turkish-born artist Refik Anadol has been remarkably prolific in the wrapping of large-scale cultural...

Three new names on MOCA board

Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art has appointed three new trustees, including Bruce Karatz, the former chief executive of KB Homes who...

MOCA adds three to board of trustees

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles announced Wednesday that it has added three people to its board of trustees. Their election...

Gift valued at $1 billion transforms Met's modern art collection

Museum leaders are generally reluctant to see themselves engaged in competition, but the Museum of Modern Art in New York just lost a big...

Margaret Thatcher spotlighted in new exhibition at Reagan Library

The alliance between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan was one of the most enduring political friendships of the past 50 years. The former...

David Geffen donates $25 million to academy film museum at LACMA

David Geffen has donated $25 million to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences' new museum dedicated to the history of film. In...

Santa Monica wins Eliasson sculpture; awaits a much bigger one

Santa Monica will soon be sporting a new piece of civic art by Olafur Eliasson, and while it’s on a considerably less massive scale...

Manuscript acquired by Getty prevented from leaving Britain

A valuable 15th century Flemish manuscript acquired by the J.Paul Getty Museum late last year has been placed under an export embargo...