Sotheby’s announced the massive layoff of 100 back-office staff members in early December. The tough decision of the internationally established art auction giant resulted from several overlapping negative factors. First, it is the rising pressure of the art market slowdown, which was noticeable in 2024. Second, it is the underperformance of recent auction sales, mainly of modern and contemporary art and Impressionist artworks, witnessed at the November sales.

Every December, the global art community flocks to Miami. This is the period of a grand-scale art event known as Miami Art Week, which unifies Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Miami, CONTEXT Art Miami, Aqua Art Miami, and a number of other art events. Miami Art Week is the culmination of the art event calendar, giving every art collector an opportunity to hand-pick a unique item to their collection before the Christmas season. In this blog post, let’s examine the highlights of Art Miami 2024 to see how it has managed to impress visitors this year.

December 7, which is the official day of Saint Ambrose, a patron saint of Milan, is marked by one more important event for the entire art community. Palazzo Citterio – part of the new Grande Brera cultural complex – is inaugurated today. This 18th-century residence, conveniently located only a couple hundred meters away from the Pinacoteca di Brera, will exhibit 200+ modern and contemporary artworks.

A marble head of a man, which became an object of cultural property repatriation, dates from 150 CE. It is believed that the artifact, which was part of a funerary relief from a cemetery, was created in Thasos. This Greek island in the northern Aegean region boasted a thriving artistic culture in ancient times.

Winter is a peak period of summer tourism in South Africa, with many people coming from the Northern Hemisphere to escape the cold and spend the festive season in a hot, sunny location. Nel is a contemporary art gallery in Cape Town that also partakes in the vibe of the summer season and holds the annual art salon during the months of tourist influx. Welcome to the Summer Salon 2024 | 2025, a group exhibition offering a great opportunity to admire all kinds of African art and works by international artists and make a lucrative purchase on a vacation.

“Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael,” a new exhibition hosted by London’s Royal Academy of Arts, touches on the competition between Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael – the most famous artists of the 15th-16th-century Italian Renaissance. Visitors have a chance to admire some of the most extraordinary examples of their work, including da Vinci’s “Burlington House Cartoon.”