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Five long-tenured employees have been laid off from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., as a result of what the museum’s director says are serious budget concerns. The firings came out of the blue, and the decision to go ahead with a staff reorganization was apparently that of the director alone, who says that belts have been tightening all over the Smithsonian. The museum has 32 remaining employees.

The Cleveland Museum of Art has laid off six employees, including a paintings curator with 18 years service time, as it prepares to close for several years during a $258 million expansion and renovation. “The number of employees at the museum now stands at 370, down from more than 500 before an earlier and more extensive round of layoffs in 2003 meant to bring the museum’s budget in line… The museum complex will be largely closed during construction, but will start reopening in phases beginning in the fall of 2007. Special exhibitions and other programs will continue, with the exception of a complete shutdown in the first six months of 2006.”

“Over the past decade, the contemporary art market in Australia has exploded, and it’s not only corporations who are buying. An art market analyst, Michael Reid, says 1.3 per cent of the population were buying art 10 years ago – now roughly 5 per cent are purchasing. While a burgeoning market can be an enormously positive thing, in that it encourages diversity in the art market and introduces Australians to art, the dollars do not necessarily trickle down to the majority of artists, especially riskier, less-marketable artists.”

While restoring the old Hudson Theatre in Times Square, workers find some hidden Tiffany. “The restoration of the landmark theater, now part of the Millennium Broadway Hotel conference center, began in November. Although the triple-domed stained-glass ceiling in the green marble lobby was known to be the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, the discovery of turquoise, orange and mauve mosaic tiles by the glass designer around the stage arch, box seats, balconies, and columns was unexpected.”

Just 24 hours after a Canaletto painting sells at auction for a record price, another of the Italian painter’s works breaks open that record. “View of the Grand Canal from Palazzo Balbi” was expected to fetch up to £8 million, but instead sold for £18.6m – breaking a world record set just 24 hours earlier.