A Mexican court has barred sales of a controversial Frida Kahlo Barbie doll in the painter’s home country, ruling her family owned the sole rights to her image, lawyers said Thursday. The Frida Kahlo doll, launched in March by US toy giant Mattel, has drawn criticism for putting a painter known for defying gender norms into the plastic body of Barbie. It also drew a lawsuit from Kahlo’s relatives, who claimed Mattel used the painter’s image without their authorization and criticized the company for lightening her skin, feminizing her features and omitting her famous unibrow. The court ruling bans sales of the Frida Barbie immediately in Mexico, or any use of the “brand, image and works of Frida Kahlo” by Mattel. It can still be appealed. The family said it would wait for the final outcome of the Mexican case, then launch a similar lawsuit in the United States.

For the first time, extensive research will be conducted into the painting technique of the 17th-century Delft master Pieter de Hooch (1629- after 1684). The research work will be carried out in the Rijksmuseum’s Atelier Building in collaboration with Museum Prinsenhof Delft, and will culminate in the monographic exhibition at Museum Prinsenhof Delft entitled ‘Pieter de Hooch in Delft: From the Shadow of Vermeer’, which will run from 11 October 2019 to 16 February 2020. The technical research conducted by the Rijksmuseum’s conservators and researchers is focusing on the six Pieter de Hooch paintings in the museum’s collection, which date from around 1650 to 1670. To create a broader research context, additional paintings by De Hooch have been added to this multidisciplinary programme. These include works from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and a private collection. This research is expected to yield new ins

A Pakistani-American sculptor brings dark times, science fiction and a desire to provoke to New York’s famed Metropolitan Museum of Art for this year’s rooftop installation overlooking the Manhattan skyline. Huma Bhabha’s “We Come in Peace” depicts a towering 12-foot (3.6-meter), five-headed figure weighing 1.5 tons and an 18-foot long prostrate figure covered in a trash bag and called Benaam, or “without name” in Urdu. The installation, which opened Tuesday, is the sixth annual commission at the illustrious US museum’s roof garden, a popular summer spot that draws nearly half a million visitors every year. Karachi-born Bhabha, who lives in New York state’s Hudson Valley, is the first Pakistani American selected for the honor. Imran Qureshi, based in Pakistan, was the first Pakistani artist to present work for the commission, in 2013.

This spring, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will present an exhibition exploring the creative responses of American artists to the rapid pace of change that occurred in this country during the early decades of the twentieth century. Modern Times: American Art 1910–1950 examines the new and dynamic visual language that emerged during this period and had a dramatic impact on painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, architecture, and the decorative arts. These developments were shaped by the dizzying transformations then occurring in every aspect of life, from the advent of the automobile and moving pictures to the rapid growth of American cities and the wrenching economic change brought on by the advent of the Great Depression after a decade of unprecedented prosperity. The exhibition will feature important works by those artists—Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove, and John Marin, among them—c