Richard Whiddington

1 week ago | news.artnet.com | Richard Whiddington

For the past three centuries, billions of dollars’ worth of gold, silver, and precious stones have lain lost on the floor of the Caribbean Sea. The cargo was being transported from Peru to the Iberian Peninsula by the Spanish galleon San José in 1708, when it was ambushed and sunk off the coast of Colombia by British warships. Ever since, discovering San José’s location has been a holy grail for treasure hunters, prompting millions in investment and sparking legal disputes between rival claimants.

2 weeks ago | news.artnet.com | Richard Whiddington

Tamara de Lempicka was not a woman fond of equivocations or half measures. On describing her first sight of Rafaëla, a sex worker she encountered in the Bois de Bologne in the mid-1920s, Lempicka called her “the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”Naturally, in short time Rafaëla became Lempicka’s lover and muse, soon another character rendered on canvas striking a bold pose and worked over in Lempicka’s sleek geometrics.

2 weeks ago | news.artnet.com | Richard Whiddington

By the late 1960s, Donald Judd had grown weary with the constraints of the New York art scene. He looked out across America, searching for some place open and remote where he could fulfill his commitment to creating artist-centered spaces. He found Marfa, a sparsely populated town in the high desert of west Texas. Judd steadily transformed Marfa, acquiring 22 buildings in and around the town and later buying Fort D.A. Russell, a 340-acre decommissioned army base.

2 weeks ago | news.artnet.com | Richard Whiddington

It’s long been known that a Roman villa was hidden alongside the banks of the River Yonne, in Auxerre, central France, but its scale and grandeur are only now coming into view. The site even had a name, Sainte-Nitasse, which is where in recent months archeologists from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) have been excavating ahead of the planned construction of a road in late 2025.

2 weeks ago | news.artnet.com | Richard Whiddington

Ask fans of Lionel Messi to choose a favorite goal and you’ll elicit a dizzying range. This is to be expected. The Argentine, after all, has scored more than 860 times over his two-decade football career. The man himself, however, is unequivocal about which goal ranks top: it’s his header in the 2009 Champions League final against Manchester United.