museums

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Museum to Kid Who Broke Ancient Artifact: Come Back

Israel's Hecht Museum let the 4-year-old who accidentally smashed jar piece it back together

(Newser) - A 4-year-old boy who accidentally broke a rare 3,500-year-old jar in an Israeli museum has been forgiven and was even invited back on Friday to help piece the jar back together, as curators hoped to turn the disaster into a teachable moment. Alex Geller, the boy's father, said...

Ordered to Return Native American Artifacts, Museums Are Dawdling

New federal rules mandate institutions return significant items to tribes, but it's been slow going

(Newser) - Tucked within the expansive Native American halls of the American Museum of Natural History is a diminutive wooden doll that holds a sacred place among the tribes whose territories once included Manhattan. For more than six months, the ceremonial Ohtas, or "Doll Being," has been hidden after the...

Art Student Pulls Off an Unusual Museum Theft

Ile Sartuzi steals coin at British Museum, redeposits in donation box as part of thesis

(Newser) - It's one of the more unusual museum heists you'll read about—the thief kept his bounty for only a few minutes before returning it, publicly documenting the entire thing. As the Art Newspaper reports, the strangeness unfolded at the British Museum on June 18. That's the day...

Museum Admits Picassos Are Fake, Part of a Stunt

Kirsha Kaechele comes forward in Australia

(Newser) - The Picassos were fake, as it turns out. The curator of a controversial exhibit at a museum in Australia has admitted that she painted three purported works by the artist that were hung in a women's restroom, reports the AP . Kirsha Kaechele moved her exhibit to the restroom to...

Curator of 'Macabre' Museum Gets Macabre Package in Mail

Anonymous mailing of 2 preserved fetuses prompts Philly's Mutter Museum to call the cops

(Newser) - On Tuesday, Anna Dhody, the curator of Philadelphia's Mutter Museum—known for its "macabre curiosities" —received a package at work addressed to her, with no return address. What she found inside has now started a police investigation: two preserved fetuses floating in fluid in glass jars, with...

Tate Modern Sees Another Fall, This One Fatal

Man dies after plummeting from London art gallery

(Newser) - A visit to London's Tate Modern art gallery ended in tragedy for one guest on Friday morning. The Metropolitan Police in the UK's capital city say a man fell to his death from the museum around 10:45am local time, reports the AP . First responders attempted to resuscitate...

Mad Scramble in US Museums on Native American Displays

New rules handed down by Biden administration prohibit such exhibits without consent from tribes

(Newser) - Museums across America have started closing exhibits highlighting Native American artifacts in an attempt to comply with new Biden administration rules that mandate venues get the OK from Indigenous tribes before displaying those samples. The requirements under the updated Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act , originally passed in 1990,...

DNA Links Africa's Stolen Skulls With Living Descendants

Germany to return skulls tied to Chagga people of Tanzania, stolen under colonial rule

(Newser) - Scientists have for the first time identified living descendants of people whose skulls were pillaged from Africa under German colonial rule. Since 2017, Berlin's Museum of Prehistory and Early History has been working to trace at least 1,100 of 7,700 skulls it acquired from a local hospital...

Museum Sues Ex-Director Over Fake Basquiats

Orlando Museum of Art says damage from fraud scheme may be irreparable

(Newser) - The Orlando Museum of Art has admitted its "99-year legacy was shattered" when it was found to be exhibiting fake paintings attributed to Jean-Michel Basquiat. Now it wants justice. In a lawsuit filed Monday, OMA "seeks to hold responsible the people the Museum believes knowingly misrepresented the works'...

Dish on Museum's Juneteenth Menu Sparks Backlash

Locals say menu item at Children's Museum of Indianapolis perpetuates racist trope

(Newser) - A kids museum in Indiana is at the center of controversy after a menu item for Juneteenth didn't go over so well. The Indianapolis Star reports that included among the food options at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis was a prepackaged watermelon salad ( TMZ has a pic),...

'Unacceptable Behavior' Shuts Kids Museum for 10 Days

Anti-mask patrons were 'inappropriately directing their anger' toward museum staff

(Newser) - If you're a Denverite who'd planned on taking the kids to the local children's museum over the weekend, you'll have to wait. NPR reports the Children's Museum of Denver has closed its doors for 10 days after angry patrons harassed staff over its mask policy....

'Height Is Power,' and So Statue of Roosevelt Will Go
Removal
of Roosevelt
Statue
Begins
updated
Jan 19, 2022 4:02 PM CST

Removal of Roosevelt Statue Begins

It has stood outside NYC's American Museum of Natural History since 1940

(Newser) - Update: The upper half of the bronze Theodore Roosevelt outside a New York museum was removed by crane early Wednesday, after years of public debate. The rest of the monument, which is now surrounded by a tarp, will be taken away a bit at a time throughout the week before...

He Admits to a Dozen Museum Heists, Gets Day in Jail

Pennsylvania's Thomas Gavin helped trace stolen firearms after confession

(Newser) - A Pennsylvania man will spend exactly one day in jail after admitting to stealing historic artifacts from more than a dozen museums in at least four states. Montgomery County's Thomas Gavin busted into museums along the US East Coast in the 1960s and '70s, taking mostly antique firearms,...

Tribes Want Changes on Museums Transferring Remains

Institutions have been slow to give up ownership to Native Americans

(Newser) - New rules being drafted by the Biden administration could speed up the process—which essentially is stuck—for museums and other institutions to return the remains of Native American to their tribes. The government set up a system in 1990, but institutions still have possession of the remains of more...

Museum Dumps a Most Controversial Exhibit

Shanghai's OCAT gallery apologizes for Song Ta's display that ranked women from 'prettiest to ugliest'

(Newser) - One of China's most respected modern museums is taking heat for a multimedia exhibit that used university students as its unwitting subjects. The South China Morning Post and BBC note the artwork by male artist Song Ta at Shanghai's OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, or OCAT, was displayed under...

A Big First for Paris' Louvre
A Big First for
Paris' Louvre
May 27, 2021 11:20 AM CDT

A Big First for Paris' Louvre

Laurence des Cars appointed by President Macron as museum's first female president

(Newser) - It was a phone call Laurence des Cars had long waited for—and when it finally came this week, it was a "joyful and emotional moment." "I will never forget that call," the 54-year-old art historian tells France Inter , via the Guardian , of the correspondence that...

The Louvre Has Fabulous News for Art Lovers

482K works now accessible for free online

(Newser) - You can now explore almost half a million items in the collection of Paris’ Louvre museum without leaving the comfort of your own home. "For the first time, anyone can access the entire collection of works from a computer or smartphone for free, whether they are on display in...

How Smithsonian Is Honoring 'This Extraordinary Period'

Vaccine vial, shipping containers among new artifacts

(Newser) - The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History has acquired the vial that contained the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine administered in the US as part of its plans to document the pandemic and "this extraordinary period we were going through." The acquisition, along with other materials related...

Utah Senator Blocks National Latino Museum

And one for women, with Mike Lee saying we don't need 'separate but equal' Smithsonian museums

(Newser) - For more than 25 years, there's been an effort to establish a national Latino museum within the Smithsonian Institution's museum family. And that dream seemed closer to coming to fruition this week, with bipartisan legislation toward that end on the Senate table. Enter Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who...

In 4 Museum Heists, Thieves Went After the Same Thing

A fortune's worth of Nazi uniforms stolen in Europe since March

(Newser) - Thieves set up a roadblock of tires, parked a fake police car beside it, then smashed down the door of the Eyewitness War Museum in the Netherlands, from which they took $1.5 million in World War II memorabilia in just five minutes, per the New York Times . "It...

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