Observer

Dish with Jugs, about 1919-21, Charcoal on wove paper, 19 3/4 × 25 5/16 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Van Day Truex Fund, 1983, © 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art Seeing the de Kooning retrospective at MoMA in 2011 was a revelation. Two hundred paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints exploded off the walls, and the sheer range and virtuosity of his output was astounding.

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From the biblical tale of Cain and Abel to HBO's Succession, family sagas centering on power and inheritance have always exercised a hold on the public imagination. There is something raunchy, dramatic and almost thrilling in witnessing the freewheeling fortune of a legendary family, idolizing the patriarchs, romanticizing the women and observing the scions, who stumble and more often than not self-destruct in the eye of the masses.

The Butcher’s Counter opens at Joint Seafood in Los Angeles on August 14th. Evan Robinson Dry-aged fish guru Liwei Liao has influenced how elite chefs all over the country serve seafood. Now Liao, who’s sold fish to restaurants run by Dominique Crenn, Wolfgang Puck, Aitor Zabala, José Andrés and Enrique Olvera, is launching his own high-end restaurant inside his new Joint Seafood fish market in Los Angeles.

Early editions of the lightship bag can be viewed at the Nantucket Whaling Museum. William DeSousa-Mauk Summer has always been a verb for Nantucket’s seasonal residents, but this year, it’s turned into a contact sport—one splashed across national news outlets and hotly contested in Instagram comments. The source of all this debate feels both unlikely and inevitable: the Nantucket basket, a storied on-island status symbol.

From gifting to trusts to building a private own museum, art collectors can keep the collection—and the peace—intact with strategic estate planning. Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images (Editor’s note: This article was originally published on April 10, 2025.) Picture this: A dedicated collector, after decades of building a distinguished art collection, passes away, leaving behind an extraordinary group of artworks with no clear instructions.

Ideally, only after a collection has been thoroughly evaluated should decisions be made about what to keep and what to bring to auction. Courtesy Phillips Once upon a time, a retired New York City civil servant inherited a Rolex from an uncle he cared for during the final years of his life. Uncertain what it was worth, he guessed around $10,000 and hid it in a flowerpot in his Queens apartment for safekeeping.

Iconic fashion from “The Devil Wears Prada 2” will be offered online during New York Fashion Week. 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS Next month, Christie’s is going all in on the fandom economy around celebrity memorabilia once again with a dedicated online sale of apparel and accessories from The Devil Wears Prada 2. The auction, which runs September 1 to 15, will be accompanied by a public exhibition at Christie’s New York from September 8 to 13.

Nigerian Chef Adejoké Bakare in her London restaurant. Matt Paice In February 2024, Adejoké Bakare became the first Black female chef in the U.K.—and only the second in the world—to receive a Michelin star. She remembers the moment clearly, mostly because she wasn’t expecting the accolade. Bakare, known as Joké, had debuted her first restaurant, Chishuru, in Brixton in 2020.

In June, NYC Culture Club inaugurated its new gallery space at the Port Authority Midtown Bus Terminal. Photo: Parker Calvert Over the years, Clayton Calvert and Parker Calvert have made their presence a constant at art events in New York and beyond. As New Yorkers born and raised, they understood that showing up and networking was their recipe for carving out their space and voice in the city’s art ecosystem.