Artist Leslie Wayne molds and manipulates oil paint to create surfaces that blur the confines of painting and sculpture. Wayne found “an approach to [paint] that was very dimensional,” as she told Brooke Jaffe in a recent interview for “ARTnews Live,” our ongoing IGTV series featuring interviews with a range of creatives.

Wayne, the daughter of a concert pianist and a writer, began painting lessons at the age of 7 and lived in what she describes as a very open and “encouraging” household. Dissatisfied with the body of abstract geometric paintings featured in her first show—she says they felt formally rigorous but “hollow”—Wayne soon began integrating sculptural techniques into her paintings, which she says “helped me kind of build a vocabulary that was fresh and new to me.”

It was then that Wayne realized “paint could be used like you would use any other material to build a work … Read the rest

A three-year-long, multimillion-dollar legal battle between the estate of Robert Indiana and the Morgan Art Foundation, which represented Indiana during his lifetime and owns the copyright to much of his work, including his famed “LOVE” symbol, has culminated in a settlement. Various suits and countersuits that were pending in court were also dismissed. The news was first reported by the New York Times.

According to a filing in New York District Court last week, the remaining suits between the Morgan Art Foundation and the executor of his estate, James W. Brannan, have all been dismissed, along with ones against the artist’s longtime caretaker, Jamie Thomas. The settlement will allow for the estate and the Morgan Art Foundation to jointly represent the artist’s work and grow his market. The terms of the settlement were not revealed, though all the parties agreed to bear their own legal costs.

In the days … Read the rest

Leonardo da Vinci’s recently rediscovered painting Salvator Mundi (ca. 1500) may very well eclipse the Mona Lisa in fame, though the reasons why have to do less with its art-historical significance than its market value—the painting sold for $450 million at a Christie’s auction in 2017. This paradox guides Andreas Koefoed’s masterfully told documentary The Lost Leonardo, which debuted this weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. In just 95 minutes, Koefoed charts how the painting became the most expensive artwork of all time and how it mysteriously disappeared, in the process managing to offer new insights into a story that has been explored ad nauseam in the press.

The film opens dramatically, with reenacted footage of a man rifling through an art storage unit at night. With a flashlight in hand, he explains what a “sleeper” painting is: “a painting that’s being offered … which is … Read the rest