Latest from Arts & Literature

Recluse wants his 'friends' - Nazi-era artworks - back

The German pensioner accused of hiding a vast Nazi-era collection of artwork in his Munich flat has publicly insisted that the paintings are his "private property".

Nobel prize winner was ahead of her time

Already in the hours since the death of Doris Lessing was announced, many people will have watched a widely circulated video, filmed on her doorstep in 2007.

Author Doris Lessing dies

Doris Lessing, the Nobel prize-winning, free-thinking, world-traveling and often-polarising author has died at the age of 94.

T.J. McNamara: Down vivid garden path

Janet McAllister: Reminder of eels' slide to extinction

How bizarre: 'A Rebours' at Te Tuhi

The friendship that spawned a masterpiece

When a mutual friend introduced Lucian Freud to Francis Bacon it seeded a competitive friendship between the two titans of 20th century figurative art, who made each other a favoured subject.

Claims on German art trove face legal hurdles

When German tax authorities entered the home of a recluse collector and found a trove of art that could include works stolen by the Nazis, they stepped into a legal quagmire - one that may end up being resolved by politics as much as the law.

German stolen art website crashes due to demand

A website featuring artworks from among a massive trove discovered in a Munich apartment crashed because of heavy traffic, officials said, as a handful of potential heirs came forward to claim art possibly looted by the Nazis.