Latest Art News

When Italian university student Piergiorgio Castellani booked his winter-break holiday in New York in 1988, he expected to see major artworks in museums–not major living artists walking nonchalantly down the street.

Let’s talk about BIG ART. In this super-sized episode, Nat, Jen and Gin discuss art on a large-scale. From the tallest file cabinet in the world, to the eerie work of Ron Mueck, this episode deals with big stuff and why they like it (or don’t).

Nat and Corrie cover the Forbidden City in Beijing, China in this Art History BB. As the imperial palace and political epicenter of China during the Ming & Qing dynasties, the Forbidden City housed the Emperor, his family, and his concubines. On this episode the babes discuss elements of the Forbidden City, as well as the lives of its inhabitants.

  Bob Ross painted more than 1,000 landscapes for his television show — so why are they so hard to find? Solving one of the internet’s favorite little mysteries.

As bubonic plague ravaged seventeenth-century England, the afflicted would find a red cross painted on their door, a warning for visitors to stay out. If, on the other hand, a house had been shown mercy while the rest of the neighborhood succumbed–a matter of happenstance more than anything since no one knew the first thing about disease transmission or treatment–it was cause for decorative commemoration. 

Doug Aitken is blowing things up again, just another day in the career of an artist bent on transcending the confines of galleries and museums.

Frida Kahlo is one of the most important female artists of the 20th century. Her life was often marred by tragedy, but that did not stop her from making a powerful impact on her time and leaving a legacy of incredible art.

While at the RCA, David Hockney studied alongside R. B. Kitaj, Allen Jones, Patrick Caulfield, Ridley Scott amongst many others. Here he discusses the impact of his time as a student at the Royal College of Art.

Featuring aspects of 18th-century visual culture in a self-aware and witty way, the Hulu period drama Harlots plays off of modern understandings of this period’s style in an unconventional way. Taking the known facts into account and riffing off of them, this strategy gives the show a punk feel with sharp commentary.

Thomas Gainsborough’s Going to Market, Early Morning, considered a masterpiece of 18th-century British landscapes, set a new record for the artist at auction this week. Selling for  $10 million to an anonymous buyer at Sotheby’s London’s July 3 Old Master Paintings Evening Sale, the painting is one of several depictions of this subject matter.