Legends Fall, AI Finds, Markets Surge

David Hockney has died at age 88, and The Art Newspaper remembers him as an artist of brio and versatility whose recognition reached far beyond the art world. The paper says he died at home on Thursday, and describes a career built on both restless picture-making—pulling everything from 15th-century Delft optics to the Apple iPad Pro into his practice—and a “cheerful chutzpah” that made Modern art feel less forbidding. It traces his path from growing up at 61 Steadman Terrace in Bradford, born in 1937 to Laura and Kenneth Hockney, through four years at the Bradford School of Art, and then to the Royal College of Art in 1959. His early breakthrough came with Young Contemporaries in 1961.

Another giant has also left us: photographer Duane Michals has died at 94. Artnet News reports he died on Wednesday in Manhattan, after decades expanding photography’s narrative potential by borrowing cinema’s frame-by-frame logic and incorporating text. He began writing around his images in 1974, later saying, “I write in order to express what the photo itself cannot say,” in a 1999 interview with the Independent. Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, in 1932, he won a drawing contest at 14 that led to Carnegie Institute weekend watercolor classes, earned a graphic design degree from the University of Denver in 1953, served two years in the army, and moved to New York. His staged sequences—often five to 15 photos—appeared in a breakout 1970 MoMA show.

Katya Kazakina reports on Artnet that Goodman Gallery is changing course as the market stays tough. Liza Essers, who has owned the gallery since 2008, looked at the accounts and saw revenue rising but costs rising faster, eroding profits. Founded in 1966 in Johannesburg by Linda Givon, Goodman now operates in Cape Town, London, and New York, with a roster including El Anatsui, Shirin Neshat, William Kentridge, and Carrie Mae Weems. Essers says “Art Basel last year was a disaster,” followed by a difficult fair circuit, prompting cuts to fairs like Frieze London, Singapore, Miami Basel, and FOG. Goodman is also rolling out a new digital platform with e-commerce, advisory services, and a secondary-market business.

ARTnews’s Morning Links includes a court decision in The Hague involving the Mauritshuis. According to the NL Times, the court ruled the museum does not have to return 25 artworks—including eight Rembrandts—to the legal heirs connected to former museum director Abraham Bredius. Descendants of Joseph Kronig, described as Bredius’s sole heir who died without children, sued after fifteen of the twenty-five paintings remained in storage, arguing the museum had promised to keep them on permanent display. The District Court of The Hague found Bredius’s will left “some room for uncertainty,” concluding the intent was that the works be displayed only within the Mauritshuis and not loaned out—so storage there is permitted. The museum said displaying all 25 at once is physically impossible.

ARTnews’s Morning Links also notes fallout from a viral artist residency “scandal.” The item says artists felt misled and disrespected after receiving bulk emails from Abstract Magazine that falsely announced they were both shortlisted and invited to participate in an arts residency—sometimes even when they had never applied. The result, as described there, is continued backlash as artists compare notes and question the residency’s communications. It’s a sharp reminder that opportunities in the arts often hinge on trust and clarity, and mass outreach that looks official can create confusion fast—especially when it suggests selection, status, or access that isn’t real. In a field where time, application fees, and emotional energy are already stretched thin, a misleading invite can feel like more than a mistake—it can feel like disrespect.

Christie’s in London just posted big numbers for South Asian modern and contemporary art. Richard Whiddington reports on Artnet that the sale—Christie’s first in London for the category in seven years—achieved £18.9 million (twenty three dollars million), with all 93 lots from a single private collection selling above presale estimates. The top results came from three works by Ganesh Pyne: The Fisherman (1979) sold for £3.8 million (four dollars million), Under the Red Cloud (1970) made £2.4 million (three dollars million), and Woman the Serpent (1975) also sold for £2.4 million. Auction records were set for Abanindranath Tagore—whose 1922 portrait of Mahatma Gandhi sold for just over £1 million—and for Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar, including £six hundred ninety eight thousand five hundred for Untitled (Gulmohar Tree) (1962).

ARTnews’s Industry Moves reports a major conservation appointment: Francesca Casadio has been named director of the Getty Conservation Institute. The conservation scientist currently serves as vice president and Grainger Executive Director of Conservation and Science at the Art Institute of Chicago, and she will start at the GCI in early fall 2026. The same roundup also notes that Steven Nelson has been named the inaugural executive director of the Sam Gilliam Foundation. The Washington, D.C.–based foundation says the art historian and curator joins from the National Gallery of Art, where he served as dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, and he will oversee partnerships, research, publications, and programs supporting artists and social advocacy. It’s a week that underscores how leadership roles shape priorities in both care for objects and care for legacies.

ARTnews also spotlights GRIMM Gallery’s expansion plans. In its 20th anniversary year, the gallery will open a new Amsterdam space in a 17th-century canal building on the Leidsegracht in September. It’s paired with a longer-term investment: GRIMM is launching an artist residency at the newly acquired Château Val Croissant in Provence. The moves land at a moment when many in the gallery sector are watching costs carefully, so choosing a new headquarters and adding a residency reads like a bet on presence and production—one rooted in place. A central Amsterdam footprint can change how artists are shown and who drops in, while the Provence residency suggests a parallel focus on time and space for making. Together, it’s an expansion that mixes market visibility with artist infrastructure.

A New York Times story traces how A.I. helped identify a painting bought decades ago for under one hundred dollars. Helene Plotkin purchased a canvas of a seated woman at a White Plains thrift store about sixty years ago, simply because she liked it. Last December, her son Barry Plotkin, 60, researched it after noticing the back read “Portrait of Miss Don Wauchope,” though the signature was illegible. He uploaded an image to Google’s chatbot Gemini, which suggested it might be by Scottish Colorist F.C.B. Cadell and pointed them toward specialists Nick Curnow and Alice Strang at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh. Specialists verified it as Cadell, retitling it after noting the sitter is May Easter, not Bethia Hamilton Don Wauchope. The painting sold June 4 for £one hundred eighty nine thousand two hundred with fees.

And lastly, a preservation story with real stakes underfoot: a report says construction of President Donald Trump’s proposed triumphal arch in Washington, DC could disturb archaeological deposits. The article explains the National Park Service released the report as part of the project’s Section 106 review under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The proposed arch would be 250 feet tall at Memorial Circle on Columbia Island, created between 1915 and 1927 with fill about 10 to 14 feet deep; moorings would need to reach bedrock about 75 feet down. The NPS report says the area has “moderate to high archeological sensitivity” for intact precolonial and historic resources. A Section 106 meeting is due June 15, and the report recommends further studies, including subsurface investigation.

That’s today’s download—links to every story are in the show notes. Come back tomorrow for more art-world news you can actually use. Chinga la migra

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