It's hard to imagine that any artist would take on the daunting task of re-inventing some of Vincent Van Gogh's most iconic self-portraits and paintings. But in a new exhibition opening Friday in Amsterdam, one of China's best known contemporary artists, Zeng Fanzhi, has done just that, and in a unique fusion presents a series of striking paintings that lend fresh energy and vibrancy to the Dutch artist's works. "Many of the works by Vincent Van Gogh have become so iconic that you always feel that you know them, and we tend not really to look at them anymore," said Axel Rueger, the director of the Van Gogh museum. "That an artist really dares to enter into that confrontation again, and look at Vincent’s work afresh, and ... do his own thing with it. That is for us of course, really interesting and really inspiring," he told AFP at a press preview on Thursday. For the exhibition "Zeng Fanzhi/Van Gogh" which runs until February 25, the Chinese artist has recreated six masterpieces b

The Lebanese police has seized what it said was "probably an original" painting by surrealist master Salvador Dali and arrested four people suspected of attempting to sell it. The 1954 painting, named "Portrait de Mrs Reeves", dates from his classical period and is not considered one of his most important works. The police said in a statement late Wednesday that it could fetch millions of dollars if confirmed to be an original, but records from the global auction house Christie's show it was sold for a more modest 89,500 British pounds 20 years ago. The painting is a full-length portrait of a high-society woman from the time during which the extravagant Spanish artist lived in the United States and painted many commissioned works of limited value. The police said the painting had been stolen "from a country neighbouring Lebanon" and added it had detained three Syrians and

Gagosian is presenting “Picasso and Maya: Father and Daughter,� the first exhibition dedicated to the artist’s diverse portrayals of his eldest daughter, Maya. Maria de la Concepción, known as Maya, was born on September 5, 1935. During the first ten years of her life she was a constant subject in her father’s drawings and paintings, who observed with fascination and tenderness her physical and mental development. Her mother, Marie-Thérèse Walter, was the artists’ most iconic model. After meeting in 1927 at the Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Picasso and Marie-Thérèse began a long lasting love affair, resulting in Picasso’s first daughter Maya. Following Maya’s birth, Picasso chronicled intimate details of their private life together en famille, exploring the archetypal theme of maternity. Maya’s portraits reflect the great joy that she brought into the artist's life, even

This major international loan exhibition of works by Chaïm Soutine (1893-1943) is the first show on the artist in the United Kingdom in 35 years. Soutine was one of the leading painters in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, part of the influential ‘School of Paris’ and seen by many as the heir to Van Gogh. The exhibition focuses on a group of remarkable modern portraits that helped establish Soutine’s name and reputation. Soutine’s progress is the ultimate rags-to-riches story. Born in Russia (modern-day Belarus), Soutine arrived penniless in Paris in 1913 and lived in poverty in Montparnasse alongside other immigrant artists, including his closest friend Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920). In the early 1920s, Soutine became fascinated by the cooks and waiting staff of French hotels and restaurants, attired in boldly coloured uniforms. Over the next decade, these humble figures sat for the artist in Paris

This fall, Henry James and American Painting, an exhibition that is the first to explore the relationship between James’ literary works and the visual arts, opened at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. On view from Oct. 19 to Jan. 21, 2018, it offers a fresh perspective on the master novelist and the significance of his friendships with American artists John La Farge, John Singer Sargent, and James McNeill Whistler, and close friend and esteemed arts patron, Isabella Stewart Gardner. Originating this summer at the Morgan Library and Museum, the exhibition includes a rich selection of more than 50 oil paintings, drawings, watercolors, photographs, manuscripts, letters, and printed books from 24 museums and private collections in the US, Great Britain, and Ireland. The Gardner Museum also pays special attention to James’s enduring relationship with Gardner