Paul Kasmin Gallery is deeply saddened to have learned of Robert Indiana’s death this past Saturday at his home on Vinalhaven. Speaking of the artist, Paul Kasmin says: “Robert Indiana will remain alive through the great legacy he has left behind. He was unlike any other person I have ever met. A genius.” Born in 1928 in New Castle, Indiana, Robert Indiana was a major figure of post-war American art. He drew his subject matter from the visual vernacular of highway road signs, factory die-cut stencils and commercial logos while incorporating the cultural heritage of American Modernists such as Charles Demuth and Marsden Hartley. After finishing high school, Robert Indiana (born Robert Clark) served for three years in the Air Force and then attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1953, scholarships took him to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and then on to Scotland, to

Ancient ceremonial objects, masterfully carved and painted mythical figures, and other fascinating cultural artworks will take center stage on May 24 at Artemis Gallery’s Northwest Pacific Coast, Tribal and Pre-Columbian Art auction. The fully curated offering of 341 lots features prized holdings that were privately amassed over many years by respected collector and dealer Joseph Alphabet. Start time is 10 a.m. Eastern, with Internet live bidding available through LiveAuctioneers. The stunning beauty of pieces created by Native-American peoples of the Pacific Northwest sets the tone for this sale of colorful, extremely high-quality art. Among the most visually appealing entries is an early 20th-century Haida painted, carved-wood helmet. It is topped by a three-dimensional stylized wolf with a collar of silvery fur and bares a tooth-filled mouth. Most recently

Global buyers have dropped nearly $3 billion on art in New York in two weeks, a record haul rooted in a billionaire thirst for trophies, Chinese purchasing power and growing diversification. Christie’s chalked up $1.79 billion in sales, including every single item from the iconic collection of the late David and Peggy Rockefeller which, for the first time, spread their flagship May sales across two weeks. Sotheby’s sold $859 million, including $157.2 million for a Modigliani nude — the most expensive lot of the season, after Christie’s last November smashed records by selling a single Leonardo da Vinci for $450.3 million. “It’s colossal. It really is huge and especially after the dip of 2016,” says Georgina Adam, author of the “Dark Side of the Boom: The Excesses of the Art Market in the 21st Century.” “As long as the auction houses have really managed to do their marketing very well and reach a big audience of collectors, the top end of the market is still doing very well,” says Rach

René Magritte: The Fifth Season—presented exclusively at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from May 19 through October 28, 2018—focuses on the latter half of Magritte’s career, from approximately 1943 to 1967, a period of remarkable transformation and revitalization for the artist. With loans from North and South America, Europe and Asia, it is the most complete presentation of Magritte’s late work mounted since the artist’s death in 1967. Including more than 20 artworks being shown for the first time in a U.S. museum, and the first concentrated examination of Magritte’s sunlit surrealism and gouaches in this country, René Magritte: The Fifth Season marks a major milestone in the artist’s exhibition history.