Wikinews, August 31, 2006

Norwegian Police said that the stolen Edvard Munch's The Scream and Madonna masterpiece paintings which were stolen by art thieves have been found. According to officers, the two paintings were recovered in "police action". "We are 100% certain they are the originals. The damage was much less than feared," police said. In a press conference in Oslo, Norway, police chief Iver Stensrud said: "For two years and nine days we have been hunting systematically for these pictures, and now we've found them." He also added that police suspect the paintings had remained in Norway since they were taken. "We feel we have been hot on the trail of the paintings the whole time, but it has taken time," he said.

They were stolen by art thieves in August 2004 from the Munch Museum in Oslo. Bjoern Hoen, 37, Petter Tharaldsen, 37, and Petter Rosenvinge, 34, were found guilty of stealing the paintings after a trial this May.

The Scream was completed in 1893. It is regarded by many as being one of Munch's most important pieces of work, and is his most recognizable piece amongst the general public.

David Toska, the alleged mastermind of the "NOKAS robbery" was rumored to have known the whereabouts of the paintings, and they may now have been recovered as a result of some sort of collaboration between him and Norwegian prosecutors. This might result in an improvement of Toska's public image. He's currently sentenced to 20+ years of prison time, after planning and executing a huge bank heist that led to the unfortunate death of a highly respected police officer.
 

Wikinews, May 4, 2006

Pablo Picasso's famous portrait of his lover has been auctioned for $95.2 million at Sotheby's in New York on Wednesday. 1941 masterpiece "Dora Maar with Cat (Dora Maar au Chat) was sold to an anonymous buyer. This is the second highest amount ever paid in an auction. The highest amount paid so far for a painting is $104 million for Picasso's Boy with a Pipe. It was auctioned in 2004. Van Gogh's "Portrait with Dr. Gachet" was sold at $82.5 million.

Dora Maar, herself an artist, was believed to have helped Picasso in the execution of the famous masterpiece "Guernica," which depicted the horror of Spanish civil war. They had a relationship that lasted for a decade.

Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain on 25 October 1881. He died at the age of 92 in 1973.

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Wikinews, September 12, 2006

Internationally acclaimed graffiti kingpin and art-saboteur, Banksy, successfully infiltrated the Disneyland themepark in Anaheim, California.

It is alleged that the graffiti bandit extraordinaire clandestinely entered the park over-night, then proceeded to install a piece depicting a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay at the themepark. Banksy installed a sculpture, a life-size doll dressed in an prison inmate's orange jumpsuit and bound and shackled, behind the bars of the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride.

Disneyland closed down the ride and removed the sculpture amid fears over public safety.
 

Wikinews, December 30, 2005

Posters produced and printed by the art project 25peaces, in Austria have caused huge public outcry and debate. The posters depict Britain's Queen Elizabeth, having sexual intercourse with US president George W. Bush, and French President Jacques Chirac. A number of public figures including Wolfgang Schuessel, the Austrian Chancellor, have publicly denounced the posters.

Its creator, artist Carlos Aires, says he had no desire to offend anyone, "I suddenly had this image of three decision makers who are having an orgy while everything around them collapses".
 

Wikinews, June 2, 2005

Britain's National Gallery revealed on Friday that by X-raying one of Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings, "Virgin of the Rocks", they have found a drawing beneath the surface of the painting. The drawing is of a woman who is raising her arm and looking downcast. The drawing had been previously dismissed as a mere copy of a similar drawing that is hanging in Paris' Louvre museum.

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Wikinews, April 17, 2005

Researchers at Oxford University are using state-of-the-art technology to uncover works from some of the most important writers of the ancient world, works which have not been read for many centuries. They come from a cache of papyrii that were salvaged about a hundred years ago in the Greco-Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus.

The ink on many of these papyrii had faded to the point that no text at all was visible to the naked eye, yet using state of the art techniques borrowed from satellite imaging, researchers were able to use infra-red light to see the faded ink.

There are thousands of manuscripts which are set to be read in this manner, and works of Sophocles, Euripides and Hesiod which have been unavailable for well over a thousand years have already been recovered. The process by which these papyrii are reconstructed is very time consuming - it will take a decade to finish the entire corpus.

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Controversial Berlin Opera Features Interactive Drug Usage