NEW YORK (AP) - Some 80 years ago, the Nazis forced prominent German Jewish art gallery owner Max Stern to sell his family’s roughly 400-piece collection before he was exiled from his country. FBI agents on Wednesday returned one of those works, a 17th century oil painting by a Dutch master, to representatives of the Dr. and Mrs. Max Stern Foundation during a ceremony at the Museum of Jewish Her...

English-language version of psychological thriller will be performed by US cast

NAPLES, Italy (AFP) -- Two Van Gogh masterpieces stolen in Amsterdam in 2002 and recovered last year in Italy will be on show in Naples from Tuesday until Feb. 26. The brief exhibition at the Capodimonte museum has been organized as a thank you to the southern city for the local police‘s role in tracking down the two small but hugely valuable and historically significant oil paintings. The work...

LONDON (AP) - It’s not often an artist finds himself occupying 12 rooms of London’s leading museum of British art and the front page of populist tabloid The Sun. But David Hockney is unique. For curators of a major retrospective opening this week at Tate Britain, Hockney is an innovator whose 60-year career has taken in sketching, painting, printmaking, photography and digital iPad experiments. ...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) -- Dutch officials unveiled Friday what they called “the largest Mondrian painting in the world” to celebrate the Netherlands’ best-known abstract artist, who helped found an influential art movement a century ago. The replica “painting” made from thin stick-on plastic sheets features Piet Mondrian’s famous design of straight black lines and striking red, yellow and ...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Auguste Rodin’s sensuous piece “The Kiss” will, fittingly, form the core of an installation at Philadelphia’s Rodin Museum centered on the theme of passion to mark the 100th anniversary of the French sculptor’s death. “The Kiss,” in marble, portrays a couple forever locked in an amorous embrace. The new installation’s marble, bronze and plaster casts feature pairings includin...

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor was named on Monday as this year's winner of the million-dollar Genesis Prize, awarded for commitment to Israel and Judaism, organizers said. British-Indian Kapoor “is one of the most influential and innovative artists of his generation,” they said in a statement. He won the prestigious Turner Prize in 1991 and was knighted in 2013. “Kapoor will use ...

LONDON (AP) -- For a play that makes audience members contemplate their own mediocrity, “Amadeus” is quite the crowd-pleaser. Britain’s National Theatre has a sold-out hit with a revival of Peter Shaffer’s play about bad-boy genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his jealous rival Antonio Salieri, composer to the 18th-century Viennese court. The production, which mixes actors, opera singers and a 2...

LONDON (AFP) - Britain’s prestigious Tate institution, which runs four of the country’s best known art galleries, announced Tuesday it would have its first female director with the appointment of Maria Balshaw. The 46-year-old will succeed Nicholas Serota in one of the most influential jobs in the country’s arts industry after transforming Manchester’s cultural landscape. “I am honored to be as...

MILAN (AP) - Restorers at Milan’s famous Brera Art Gallery have taken measures to protect the collection after its humidity control system failed during a “once-in-a-decade” dry, cold spell that moved through Milan last weekend, officials said. Donato Bramante’s “Christ at the Column” and a Bastiani piece were removed from their exhibit spaces for immediate stabilization and 40 other artworks w...

Jun Joon-hyuk will join Britain's Royal Ballet in August, becoming the first Korean ballerino to become a member of the prestigious group of dancers, he said Wednesday. "I officially got the offer from Kevin O'Hare, director of the ballet company on Tuesday afternoon (British local time)," the 19-year-old ballerino told Yonhap News Agency by telephone. "I'm still thrilled because it's something ...