Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840)

Known as “La Belle Juliette”, Jeanne-Françoise Julie Adelaïde Récamier (1777-1849) boasted not just beauty, but great literary and artistic talent, and political spirit. Her salon was a cornerstone of intellectual circles from the start of the French Consulate right through until the last days of the July Monarchy.

After 14 years leading the Ludwig Museum, Friedrich has taken a position as collection director at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Friedrich is known particularly known for her commitment to restitution: in 2017 she restituted Egon Schiele’s Crouching Female Nude to the heirs of its Jewish owners.

After hiring Kyla McMillan as the director of the New York gallery owner David Zwirner recruited Ebony L. Haynes, a gallerist who is a black woman, to head a new commercial gallery in Manhattan, scheduled to open next spring. The gallery will have an all-black staff. (NYTimes)

The gallery has just signed a lease on a space in Los Angeles not far from the mini-gallery network anchored by Jeffrey Deitch and Regen Projects. It will be run by Robert Goff. Only a week ago, Zwirner revealed another new location in Tribeca. (ARTnews)

An exhibition at the David Zwirner Gallery in Manhattan features 18 works by American artist and Abstract Expressionist, Joan Mitchell. In a career that spanned almost four decades, the exhibition, which features a range of canvases dating from 1979 to 1985, traces a short period in her later development. (NYT)

A flagship piece of the Galleria dell'Accademia, Michelangelo's masterpiece, exhibited under a shaft of light in the Tribune del David Gallery of the museum, is enhanced by new LED lighting. This operation is part of a major renovation, including the redevelopment of the 19th-century plasterwork gallery

Film maker, David Lynch, will join the roster of Pace Gallery – one of the world’s biggest galleries, with nine locations worldwide. The arrangement will give Lynch his first New York gallery representation. His first exhibition with Pace, entitled “Big Bongo Night,” is scheduled for November. (ArtNews)

The handwritten text of the song Starman, a hit from the 1972 album Ziggy Stardust, was sold for £203,500 (€227,000) last Tuesday at Omega Auctions. The auction house, which specializes in music-related auctions, had estimated the work at £40,000. It was acquired by the Museum of Old and New Art, based in Tasmania.

The success of this printed landscape created on a tablet computer by the British artist, now living in Normandy, attests to changing artistic mentalities.

This weekend, David Bowie would have turned 75. To mark the occasion, Deutsche Post is dedicating a special stamp to the British pop icon, who died in 2016. The stamp is now available at German post offices and online.