Art & Design

Why did Vincent van Gogh paint a skeleton smoking a cigarette? His 1886 painting doesn’t quite seem to fit into his larger output, one teeming with swirling landscapes and emotive portraits. Some art historians have said that “Head of a Skeleton With a Burning Cigarette” was merely van Gogh, still …

Americans flocked to the city in droves. A warm fall sun shone through the vast glass roof. The dealers brought their very best pieces. And the Art Basel brand did what it does. Art Basel Paris, which opened to V.I.P. visitors on Wednesday and runs through Sunday, is the first …

The “Main Agreement” was supposed to be the final agreement, a contract to end all other contracts between two investors and Bjarne Melgaard, a provocative Norwegian artist who had drawn notice at the 2011 Venice Biennale with an exhibition about a fictional movement of gay terrorists. Melgaard was struggling financially …

We often scrutinize an artist’s work, searching for autobiographical clues. But in Titus Kaphar’s recent paintings, and in his new film, “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” such close reading is unnecessary. His life experience is laid bare, in all its poignant and — sometimes agonizing — pain. The paintings, now on view at …

Maurice Cox, the former planning director of the city of Detroit, remembers the first time Matthew Naimi wandered into his office in paint-splattered overalls in 2018, with fingernail polish, a kaffiyeh on his head, and his bare arms a constellation of tattoos. When Naimi told him that he wanted to …

Every October, one of the world’s major art fairs takes place in a huge tent on the edge of Regent’s Park. For five days, the park’s year-round population — joggers, parents pushing buggies, teenagers playing soccer — is augmented by thousands of people at Frieze London seeking an encounter with …

The haystacks have been raked up, the water lilies are clustered; the ballerinas at the Opéra and the revelers at the Moulin de la Galette have taken their places. This year is the 150th birthday of Impressionism, a movement so popular and so familiar that it can seem like some …