The reclusive heiress Huguette Clark sold her first painting Wednesday, three years after her death at 104. She did okay, too, with two paintings of Fifth Avenue (as seen from a window of her Manhattan mansion) each going for $19,000 at a Christie’s auction in New York.

A self-portrait of the artist holding a palette went for $13,000, and Clark’s work titled “Cereus, night blooming cactus” fetched $6,000, our colleague Melinda Henneberger reports.

At least four descendants of Huguette’s father, billionaire copper baron and Montana senator William A. Clark, were among those bidding.

Alexander Calder's abstract works revolutionized modern sculpture and made him one of the most celebrated artists of the 20^th century. In collaboration with the Calder Foundation, this exhibition brings together 40 of the artist's mobiles (kinetic metal works) and stabiles (dynamic monumental sculptures) to explore how Alexander Calder introduced the visual vocabulary of the French Surrealists into the American vernacular.

While there’s an ongoing mini-exodus of smaller galleries from Chelsea due to rocketing rents, not everyone is leaving the neighborhood. In early 2015, Lisson Gallery — which currently has two locations in London, one in Milan, and a private showroom on the Lower East Side of Manhattan — will open an 8,500-square-foot space at 504 West 24th Street. That address situates them on a block with peers like Gagosian, Luhring Augustine, Andrea Rosen, and Gladstone Gallery.

“Designed by Markus Dochantschi of Studio MDA in collaboration with Studio Christian Wassmann, the gallery will be constructed around the foundational elements of the High Line,” according to press materials

Andrew Carnegie used the third floor of his Fifth Avenue mansion as a gymnasium where he practiced his putting. The current owner, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, plans to put a small mini-golf green there on Tuesday when the news media gets a preview of the mansion’s nearly completed $91 million renovation.

The gesture is partly a playful way to honor a piece of the building’s history. But it also represents a larger message that the museum is trying to send as it reopens later this year after three years of being closed: This institution, which highlights the importance of design in everything from architecture to umbrellas, can be fun for all kinds of visitors — not just specialists.

The Reading Public Museum announced that now through the end of August 2014, it will display N. C. Wyeth’s Pyle’s Barn, an exceptional oil on canvas from 1917 by the renowned Brandywine Valley artist and illustrator. The painting is on loan from the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania as part of an exchange with the institution. The Reading Public Museum’s own N. C. Wyeth, Buttonwood Farm, 1920, will be on view at the Brandywine River Museum of Art through August 10, featured in a temporary exhibition titled Lure of the Brandywine: A Story of Land Conservation and Artistic Inspiration.

The inspiration for this painting came about when N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945) and his wife, Carolyn, rented property in Chadds Ford that included Pyle’s Barn. The structure, located on the south side of the main road through Chadds Ford (now U.S. Route 1) just east of the village, became one of Wyeth's favorite motifs, even after the family moved to another property in 1911. He painted the barn at least six times, in daylight and moonlight, using a variety of impressionistic styles. In the painting, he laid down small strokes of unmixed color, taking advantage of the eye's tendency to blend colors. The technique was derived from Wyeth’s study of the work of the Swiss-Italian artist Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899), whose paintings he admired greatly.

The Whitney Museum of American Art and The High Line, New York City’s elevated, linear park, have announced a public art collaboration that will launch in July. The long-term project will kick off with the installation of an enlarged digital print of Alex Katz’s painting “Katherine and Elizabeth” (2012) on the North-facing wall of a residential building at the southern end of The High Line. The work has never been shown publicly.

Katz, a celebrated figurative artist, has worked closely with the Whitney for 40 years. The museum hosted a solo show of the artist’s prints in 1974 as well as the first major retrospective of his work in 1986. Katz has also been involved in a number of public art projects, including an installation at New York’s RKO General building in 1977, a commission for Chicago’s transit authority in 1984, and a collaboration with the Art Production Fund in 2010 that involved replacing advertisements atop New York City taxicabs with images of his artwork.

Their Degas is de-gone.

Two Manhattan art dealers are suing an art seller they say is responsible for losing their $3 million Degas sculpture.

In papers filed in Manhattan Federal Court, the Degas Sculpture Project and Modernism Fine Art say they struck a deal with Rose Ramey Long to sell an Edgar Degas sculpture called “The Little 14-Year-Old Dancer” earlier this year.

Long had told the businesses she was buying the works on behalf of a reputable collector who wanted to purchase it and other works they had, including paintings by Willem de Kooning and etchings by Picasso, for a total of $11 million, the suit says.

The Vatican Museums will be installing a new landmark heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system for the Sistine  Chapel, specially designed to address the challenges of protecting Michelangelo’s masterpieces against deterioration. 

The Governate of the Vatican City State and Carrier on Wednesday said the new system is expected to be installed and  commissioned by the third quarter of 2014.

The new system, which replaces a Carrier system installed in the early 1990s, is designed to have twice the efficiency and three times the capacity of the previous system. 

Two Trees Management Company — the New York-based real estate firm behind the plan to develop the Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg  — has announced details of a cultural space subsidy program in DUMBO. Through the program, artists and arts groups will be able to apply for below market rate rents ($12/foot compared to $40/foot) in Two Trees-owned buildings in the neighborhood. “Artists and groups will be chosen based on their commitment to community engagement and social impact, and their quality of work,” according to the press release.

This new program formalizes existing agreements Two Trees has with 50 arts and cultural groups in DUMBO including St. Ann’s Warehouse, Smack Mellon, and the DUMBO BID. 50,000 square feet will be reserved for those groups while another 50,000 square feet will be opened up to new artists, art galleries, and community groups. Applications are due by July 31.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents Marsden Hartley: The German Paintings 1913–1915 (August 3–November 30, 2014), the first focused look and the first solo exhibition on the West Coast in almost ten years of the American-born artist’s German paintings in the United States. From 1912 to 1915, Hartley lived in Europe—first in Paris and then in Berlin. There he developed a singular style that reflected his modern surroundings and the tumultuous time before and during World War I. Berlin’s exciting urban environment, prominent gay community, and military spectacle had a profound impact upon him. Marsden Hartley features approximately 25 paintings from this critical moment in Hartley’s career that reveal dynamic shifts in style and subject matter comprised of musical and spiritual abstractions, city portraits, and military symbols to Native American motifs.

The New York Botanical Garden announces its major 2015 exhibition, Frida Kahlo's Garden, focusing on the iconic artist's engagement with nature in her native country of Mexico. Opening on May 16, 2015, and remaining on view through November 1, 2015, the exhibition will be the first solo presentation of Kahlo's work in New York City in more than 25 years, and the first exhibition to focus exclusively on her intense interest in the botanical world.

Visitors to the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory will walk through a stunning flowershow re-imagining Kahlo's studio and garden at Casa Azul ("Blue House") in Coyoacán, Mexico City. Curated by distinguished art historian and specialist in Mexican art Adriana Zavala, Ph.D., the multifaceted exhibition will include a rare display of more than a dozen original Kahlo paintings and drawings on view in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library's Rondina and LoFaro Gallery at the Garden. Accompanying events invite visitors to learn about Kahlo's Mexico in a new way through poetry, lectures, themed events, tours, a Mexican food market, and an iPhone app.

Locked behind glass, illuminated like a jewel, lies an Hermès Birkin — totem of wealth, bestower of status, and one seriously expensive handbag.

This particular specimen is a coveted Hermès White Himalayan Birkin, dyed in brown and beige crocodile. Gently, if ever, used, it is offered at $115,000.

Wait — used?

That word is never spoken, not here inside the hushed Midtown Manhattan showroom of Heritage Auctions. The preferred term is “rare” or “vintage” — in this case, applied to a handbag made all the way back in 2013.

No one, it is said, knows more about the buying and selling of pre-owned Hermès bags than Matthew Rubinger, Heritage’s Birkin whisperer. But now Mr. Rubinger, 26, has left for another more famous auction house — Christie’s International — and the battle of the Birkins has begun.

The Currier Museum of Art announced the acquisition of an important late oil painting by American John Marin (1870-1953). Movement in Red (1946) reveals Marin’s bold technique, which conveys a dynamic vision of boats sailing off the coast of Cape Split, Maine. It is on view in the Currier’s Modern Gallery.

“The Currier has a long tradition of thoughtfully acquiring important works of art that support our collection,” said Susan Strickler, Currier CEO and director. “Marin’s stunning painting joins major paintings in the Museum’s collection by his contemporaries Georgia O’Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and Charles Sheeler. They offer our community an exceptional view of one of America’s most important and innovative artists of the first half of the 20th century.”

Culture is once again bearing the brunt of the French government’s attempts to reduce the national deficit. The “mission culture” which oversees cultural spending for the entire country will lose €55 million, €48.3 million of which would otherwise have been spent on maintaining heritage sites.

The Assn. of Art Museum Directors sanctioned the Delaware Art Museum on Wednesday for selling its 1868 William Holman Hunt painting “Isabella and the Pot of Basil” this week to help make debt payments and build its endowment.

The painting, part of the museum’s permanent collection, sold for $4.25 million at Christie's, an incident that left the museum directors association “deeply troubled and saddened.”

“Art museums collect works of art for the benefit of present and future generations,” read the statement from the AAMD, which has long said artworks should be deaccessioned only to generate funds to acquire other works of art and to enhance a collection. “Responsible stewardship of a museum’s collection and the conservation, exhibition, and study of these works are the heart of a museum’s commitment to its community and to the public.”

Art Basel, one of the world’s top modern and contemporary art fairs, opened on Tuesday, June 17, with a private preview that saw a number of impressive sales. Described as the “Olympics of the art world,” this year’s show features approximately 300 galleries from across the globe exhibiting the work of more than 4,000 artists, ranging from Modern masters to emerging contemporary artists.  

Welcoming an elite group of collectors, the opening night preview proved that the market for modern and contemporary art shows no signs of slowing down. Andy Warhol’s “Self-Portrait (Fright Wig)” (1986), which was being offered by London’s Skarstedt Gallery and carried an asking price of $32 million, was the most expensive work sold during the fair’s opening day. The silkscreen was snapped up by an American collector during the first 15 minutes of the event.

The only surviving example of a legendary stamp that sold for one cent in 1856 has gone under the hammer for $9.5m (£5.6m), setting a new record for the most expensive stamp sold at auction and the most valuable object by weight and size.

Sotheby's sale of the British Guiana one-cent magenta postage stamp reinforces its reputation as the world's most famous and valuable.

Recently owned by an American millionaire who died four years ago in a prison cell, the stamp was one of an emergency printing of several denominations by the local Official Gazette newspaper in British Guiana in 1856, when storms delayed a shipment from the UK and the postmaster was in danger of entirely running out of stamps.

A hidden painting has been found by scientists beneath the brush strokes of The Blue Room, a 1901 Picasso artwork.

Art experts and conservators at The Phillips Collection in Washington used infrared technology on the masterpiece, revealing a bow-tied man with his face resting on his hand.

Picasso created both works in Paris during his famous blue period.

"It's really one of those moments that really makes what you do special," said conservator Patricia Favero.

Israel and Germany have agreed to conduct joint research in museums in both countries aimed at determining the original ownership of Jewish-owned art looted by Nazis, officials said.

Under an agreement signed Sunday by Israeli culture ministry director general Orly Froman and German Culture Minister Monika Gruetters, art experts from the two countries will undergo training and coordinate the formation of joint data bases.