<div><p>Sotheby's on Tuesday bowed to economic realities and slashed prices for much-hyped contemporary art works at an auction where almost a third of lots failed to sell.</p><p>The auction in New York of works by headline artists including Jeff Koons, Lucian Freud, Damien Hirst, and Andy Warhol ...

<div><p>Georges de la Tour - The Magdalene (1640-1645)</p><p>The play of dark and light assumes an almost metaphysical resonance here. An apparently pregnant woman gazes intently at a sputtering candle while, with moving delicacy, touching the ground zero of a human skull. Yet the theme of meditation on mortality ...

<div id="subtitle">Picasso paintings, Lichtenstein sculpture headed for Harvard Art Museum, plus $45 million gift</div><div><p>The Harvard Art Museum has received a gift of $45 million and 31 major works of art, including three paintings by Picasso.</p><p>Harvard University on Friday announced ...

<div><p>On the face of it, Alain Jacquet, who has died aged 69 of cancer, was a tail-ender in a tail-end offshoot of pop art. This was the French version, nouveau réalisme, created by the critic Pierre Restany. The Independent Group had held its first exhibition at the ICA in London ...