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      Cleveland Museum of Art to Return a Rare Ancient Icon to Libya

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      A 2,200-year-old sculpture of a bearded man carved from basalt, unearthed in the 1930s, is believed to have been stolen in the early 1940s.While excavating an ancient Greek palace in eastern Libya in the 1930s, an archaeologist dug up a large earthen storage jar, looked inside and spotted something unexpected — a 2,200-year-old sculpture of a bearded man carved from basalt, a dark volcanic stone.The two-foot-tall antiquity, most likely chiseled during ancient Egypt’s Ptolemaic Dynasty, was a rare find. Known as a striding male figure, it is one of only 33 statues like it known to exist, Egyptologists say.But it wasn’t long before thieves got ahold of the bearded figure and took it on an illicit odyssey that brought it, in 1991, to the Cleveland Museum of Art.On Wednesday, after curators had reviewed abundant proof that the item was stolen from Libya, including photos of it on display in the 1940s at a small museum near its discovery site, the museum agreed to transfer ownership to Libyan officials.“When confronting a situation like this we look at all the material and try to come to an agreement that is beneficial to all parties,” said Seth Pevnick, curator of Greek and Roman art at the Cleveland museum.“It’s less about ownership and more about access” to the object, he said, adding that the museum is hoping to display it on loan for five more years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sanford L. Smith, Creator of Prestigious Art Fairs, Dies at 84

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      Over four decades, he produced more than 150 events. Some dealers reported selling more in a weekend at a Smith fair than in a year in their galleries.Sanford L. Smith, an art lover and entrepreneur who created some of New York’s most prestigious art and design fairs, generating millions of dollars in sales and drawing attention to previously overlooked areas of art, died on Saturday at a senior living facility in Manhattan. He was 84.The cause was congestive heart failure, his wife, Jill Bokor, said.Mr. Smith didn’t invent the art fair, but he made his events essential stops for both buyers and sellers. Owners of some Lower Manhattan galleries would spend tens of thousands of dollars to move their wares a few miles north to the Park Avenue Armory, where many of Mr. Smith’s shows were held.Evan Snyderman, an owner of R & Company, a TriBeCa design gallery, said that at Salon Art + Design, one of Mr. Smith’s fairs, “we always reconnect with clients that we don’t see in other places — including New Yorkers who never come downtown.”Some dealers reported selling more art in a long weekend at a Sanford Smith fair than in a whole year at their own galleries.During his years in what he called “show business,” Mr. Smith ran more than 150 fairs, including the Fall Antiques Show, Modernism and the Outsider Art Fair. They were popular (in several cases attracting some 10,000 visitors over a three- or four-day weekend) as well as critical successes. The Times called his 2012 Salon “a museum in the making.” Asked to describe his career in a 2022 interview for this obituary, Mr. Smith said, “I filled holes.” What he meant was that he found gaps in between what other art fairs offered, and created new events to meet those needs. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kehinde Wiley Denies Accusation of Sexual Assault by Artist

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      After Joseph Awuah-Darko accused Mr. Wiley of sexually assaulting him in Ghana, Mr. Wiley denied the claims, calling them “not true and an affront to all victims of sexual abuse.”After an artist accused the painter Kehinde Wiley of sexual assault in an Instagram post on Sunday, Mr. Wiley denied the allegations, saying on his own Instagram account that “someone I had a brief, consensual relationship with almost three years ago is now making a false accusation about our time together.”“These claims are not true and are an affront to all victims of sexual abuse,” Mr. Wiley added.Mr. Wiley, who was born in Los Angeles, is one of the best known painters in the United States, and is famous for his 2018 portrait of President Barack Obama.On Sunday, Joseph Awuah-Darko, a British-born Ghanaian artist and the founder of the Noldor Artist Residency in Ghana, said in a lengthy Instagram post that on June 9, 2021, Mr. Wiley assaulted him twice during and after a dinner in Ghana that was held in the famed artist’s honor. In the first incident, Mr. Awuah-Darko said that he had been directing Mr. Wiley to a washroom when the star suddenly grabbed his buttocks.Later that evening, Mr. Awuah-Darko said, a second assault occurred that was “much more severe and violent.” Mr. Awuah-Darko did not give further details of that incident on Instagram, but in a telephone interview, he said that a sexual encounter began consensually, but that it then moved to a bedroom, where he says that Mr. Wiley forced himself on him after Mr. Awuah-Darko had said he did not want to go further.Mr. Awuah-Darko showed The New York Times text exchanges he said he had with Mr. Wiley from after their encounter, in which he repeatedly told Mr. Wiley that he was missing him and said he wanted to meet again. Mr. Awuah-Darko said that he had initially convinced himself that his encounters with Mr. Wiley had been loving. It was only in the fall of 2023, after therapy, that he admitted to himself that the incidents had been assaults and told a friend what had happened.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Dancing Past the Venus de Milo

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      I fell in love with the Louvre one morning while doing disco moves to Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” in the Salle des Cariatides.The museum, a former medieval fortress and then royal palace, had not yet opened, and I was following instructions to catwalk and hip bump and point in the grand room where Louis XIV once held plays and balls.The sun cast warm light through long windows, striping the pink-and-white checkered floor and bathing the marble arms, heads and wings of the ancient Grecian statues around me.“Point, and point, and point,” shouted Salim Bagayoko, a dance instructor. So I struck my best John Travolta poses and pointed around the room, my eyes landing on the delicate sandaled foot of Artemus, the wings of a Niobid and the stone penis of Apollo.The woman beside me caught my eye. We giggled.Over the years, I have felt many things in the world’s most-visited, and arguably most-famous, museum — irritation, exhaustion and some wonder, too.This time, I felt joy.The classes are part of an effort by museums and galleries across France to put on Olympics-themed shows as Paris prepares to host the Olympic Games.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mystery of Mona Lisa’s Location May Be Solved

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      A mash-up of geology and art history has identified a likely setting for one of the world’s most famous paintings.She’s been smeared with cake and doused with acid. Vigilantes have stolen her, and protesters have defaced her. She’s been lasered and prodded, displayed for the masses, and relegated to her own basement gallery. More recently, thousands urged billionaire Jeff Bezos to buy her, and then eat her.There is no bottom, it seems, to the mysteries of the Mona Lisa, the Leonardo da Vinci painting that has captivated art lovers, culture vultures and the rest of us for centuries. Who is she? (Most likely Lisa Gherardini, the wife of an Italian nobleman.) Is she smiling? (The short answer — kind of.) Did da Vinci originally intend to paint her differently, with her hair clipped or in a nursing gown?While much about the art world’s most enigmatic subject has been relegated to the realm of the unknowable, now, in a strange crossover of art and geology, there may be one less mystery: where she was sitting when da Vinci painted her.According to Ann Pizzorusso, a geologist and Renaissance-art scholar, da Vinci’s subject is sitting in Lecco, Italy, an idyllic town near the banks of Lake Como. The conclusion, Pizzorusso said, is obvious — she figured it out years ago, but never realized its significance.“I saw the topography near Lecco and realized this was the location,” she said.The nondescript background has some important features; among them, a medieval bridge that most scholars have held as the key to da Vinci’s setting. But Pizzorusso said it is rather the shape of the lake and the gray-white limestone that betrays Lecco as the painting’s spiritual home.“A bridge is fungible,” said Pizzorusso. “You have to combine a bridge with a place that Leonardo was at, and the geology.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hobbled by Cyberattack, Christie’s Says Marquee Sales Will Proceed

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      The auction house failed to regain control of its official website on Sunday but said that its spring auctions would go on, in person and by phone.People gathered at Christie’s New York on Saturday to view art and luxury items that are scheduled to be auctioned. They relied on printouts of catalogs after Christie’s lost control of its official website, which was brought down by a cyberattack.Li Qiang for The New York TimesOfficials at Christie’s auction house said on Saturday that the marquee sales that account for nearly half of its annual revenue would continue, despite the company having lost control of its official website last Thursday in a hack that is testing the loyalty of its ultrawealthy clients amid its spring auctions.Natasha Le Bel, a spokeswoman for the auction house, said that Christie’s New York sales of modern and contemporary art “will take place as planned,” but did not respond to questions of how the online portion of the auction would continue. “We remain committed to providing the highest level of service to our clients and look forward to a successful week,” she said.On Thursday, Christie’s experienced what it called a “technology security issue” that took its company website offline, leaving in place an apology and the promise to provide “further updates to our clients as appropriate.” By Sunday, the site was still down.It was the second time in less than a year that Christie’s had suffered a breach. In August, a German cybersecurity company revealed a data breach at the auction house that leaked the locations of artworks held by some of the world’s wealthiest collectors.Over the weekend, dozens of those potential buyers gathered at the company’s galleries at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan to view the expensive artworks that have a total high estimate of nearly $840 million, and to discuss bidding. Employees led private tours past the giant Andy Warhol “Flowers” silk-screen painting from 1964 that carries a high estimate of $30 million, and down toward the more modestly priced day sales, where a Barbara Kruger artwork proclaiming “You can’t drag your money into the grave with you” had a high estimate of $600,000.Christie’s employees assured some clients in the galleries that its website would be fixed “imminently,” but on Saturday afternoon, when the company still had not regained control, it replaced a temporary landing page on the site since Thursday with another temporary website produced through a free web design company called Shorthand. The temporary site lets viewers browse online catalogs of upcoming sales but does not allow online bidding or registration.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Scarlett Johansson Shares Her Beauty Regimen

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      Plus: a new hotel in Oxford, England, door knobs with personality and more recommendations.Step by StepFrom Sunscreen to Lip Balm, Scarlett Johansson’s Favorite Skin Care and Makeup ProductsLeft: Scarlett Johansson, actress, co-founder of the skincare brand the Outset and Prada ambassador. Right: clockwise from top left: Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade, $21, anastasiabeverlyhills.com; Lancôme Bi-Facil Double Action Makeup Remover, $39, lancome-usa.com; Goop Beauty Himalayan Salt Scalp Scrub Shampoo, $55, goop.com; Prada Beauty Monochrome Hyper Matte Lipstick in B05 Fauve, $50, Sephora.com; The Outset Gentle Micellar Antioxidant Cleanser, $32, theoutset.com; Dior Backstage Flash Perfector Concealer, $32, Dior.com; The Outset Restorative Niacinamide Night Cream, $54, theoutset.com. Left: courtesy of The Outset. Right: courtesy of the brandsIn the morning I wash my face with The Outset’s Gentle Micellar Antioxidant Cleanser and then I use the Firming Vegan Collagen Prep Serum and Nourishing Squalane Daily Moisturizer. My last step is our sunscreen coming out this month. It’s super hydrating so you get the protection and skin care benefits. At night I use the cleanser and Restorative Niacinamide Night Cream. I wish I knew about dermaplaning sooner. I do it with a Tweezerman Facial Razor and my skin feels so soft after.I like Molton Brown body washes — my husband and I share the Coastal Cypress & Sea Fennel one. I like the Goop Microderm Instant Glow Body Polish, too. Sometimes I use their Himalayan Salt Scalp Scrub Shampoo. I just switched over to using Olaplex No. 3 Hair Perfector because my hair has had a lot of breakage from getting it colored.I usually use Dior Backstage Flash Perfector Concealer, Diorshow Maximizer 4D Lash Primer and Diorshow Iconic Overcurl Mascara. I sometimes mix a few drops of the Dior concealer with our serum as a sheer cover. I’ll do my brows with an Anastasia Beverly Hills Dipbrow Pomade. I don’t usually wear lipstick in the daytime but sometimes at night I’ll use Charlotte Tilbury’s lipstick in Very Victoria or Pillow Talk. When I went to the Prada show in Milan they handed out their new makeup and it’s gorgeous. The Monochrome Hyper Matte lipsticks are stunning. I loved the first Prada makeup back in the day, so I was pretty excited that they relaunched. I’ve been using Lancôme Bi-Facil Double Action Makeup Remover forever. I have very sensitive skin and that’s one product that doesn’t burn and removes all of my makeup after filming.My husband just bought me a great Gabriela Hearst perfume she made with the niche fragrance house Fueguia 1833 called Paysandú. The Outset Botanical Barrier Rescue Balm started out as a lip balm but I was using it on my cuticles and flyaways, so we made it enormous. In the summer, I use it as a moisturizer, lip balm, everything.I don’t really know how to do my hair that well. I don’t blow dry it or anything like that. I just started seeing Dana Ionato at Sally Hershberger for my color and I’ve liked working with her because the color grows out well.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Land Artist’s Work Evades Demolition

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      A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order protecting a work by Mary Miss. A Des Moines museum wanted to destroy it, citing safety concerns.A work of environmental art by Mary Miss has evaded demolition — for now. A judge in the U.S. District Court in Des Moines on Friday granted her request for a temporary restraining order that would bar the Des Moines Art Center, the museum that commissioned the land art installation, from dismantling it. The museum maintains it has become a safety hazard and that the resources to repair it are not available.The decision, the Art Center said in a statement, amounts to “a court-ordered stalemate.”While the judge, Stephen H. Locher, found that destroying the work, “Greenwood Pond: Double Site” (1989-1996), would violate the Art Center’s contract with the artist, he also said that Miss could not force the museum to restore it to its original condition. He wrote, “The end result is therefore an unsatisfying status quo: the artwork will remain standing (for now) despite being in a condition that no one likes but that the court cannot order anyone to change.”The lawsuit is the latest twist in a fight over the fate of “Greenwood Pond,” which has highlighted the difficulty of preserving large-scale public artworks, especially for smaller institutions. Located on the grounds of a city-owned park next to the museum, the installation is a collection of sloping walkways, wooden sitting areas, huts and towers that encourage visitors to engage with the landscape. Over the years, the wood has degraded substantially, and the Art Center estimates that it would cost between $2 million and $2.6 million to restore it. (Miss contests that, but has not provided another figure.)In an interview on Tuesday, Miss said, “I don’t know why the museum wouldn’t come to me at this point and try to work this out instead of spending more money on legal fees.”Having visited “Greenwood Pond: Double Site” while in Des Moines to testify, she said she felt a newfound appreciation for the work. “I just can’t imagine this whole thing going south at this point,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More