The family of a multi-millionaire philanthropist who donated his art collection to a French museum has begun a legal bid to get it back.

Severin Wunderman, who made his fortune producing luxury Gucci watches, gave around 1,800 works to the French city of Menton in exchange for the city building a museum for the collection which includes hundreds of works by French artist Jean Cocteau.

But the seaside museum flooded in 2018 and has never reopened. The city government says it is waiting for an insurance payout to fund repairs but Wunderman's granddaughter Chloe Cassens sued the city to regain control of the artworks.

She told The New York Times she did not know what she would do with the collection if she won control, but was worried if the city ever reopened the museum it would take so long that "nobody will remember to visit.”

The city's mayor Yves Juhel told Le Monde he had "no intention of fighting" with Wunderman's family and wanted "nothing more than to start the work", adding: "But we have no control over the legal system or the French administration.”

The number of visitors to the inaugural Art Basel Qatar in Doha which opened to VIPs on Tuesday and closed on Saturday.

David Hockney says he still believes "painting can change the world" as he prepares to open a new show of portraits and still lifes in London next month.

The five portraits of his family and carers will be shown alongside five still lifes and a huge digital print, A Year in Normandie (2020-2021), at the free exhibition at Serpentine North from March 12.

All five portraits are united by the recurring motif of a gingham tablecloth providing the setting for each painting.

Hockney said: "I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure...There is always, everywhere, an enormous amount of suffering, but I believe that my duty as an artist is to overcome and alleviate the sterility of despair... New ways of seeing mean new ways of feeling... I do believe that painting can change the world.”

The exhibition at the gallery, led by CEO Bettina Korek and Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist, will be accompanied by a catalogue designed by Hockney.

We have a winner - Seattle Seahawks' Super Bowl triumph over the New England Patriots yesterday also guarantees a win for the city's Art Museum.

It was on the winning side in the Museum Bowl where leading galleries in the cities represented by the finalists have a small wager over a work of art.

Seattle's victory means the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston will lend its ceramic sculpture Boston Scrambler, by Ron Nagle, to the west coast.

If New England had won, Seattle had promised to lend a doormat made of tiny figurines by Do Ho Suh.

Previous years have seen the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City both offer a work by Manet to the winner.

Could the price of peace between the Smithsonian and the White House be a few more portraits of President Trump?

Relations between the two have been bad ever since President Trump began his second term - in a statement released last March the White House accused the institution of being "under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology."

President Trump also attempted to fire Kim Sajet, the director of the US National Portrait Gallery which is part of the Smithsonian, claiming she was “highly partisan and a strong supporter of DEI”. Smithsonian bosses said hiring and firing was up to them but Sajet later resigned.

And now the New York Times reports a government official, the State Department's acting chief of protocol Abby Jones, recently toured the Washington D.C. gallery and "floated the idea" of a "dedicated gallery featuring multiple images" of President Trump.

A White House statement said: "President Trump receives an unprecedented amount of beautiful artwork from patriotic Americans all across our great country and it is important to the People’s President that their creations are showcased throughout the halls of our Nation’s Capital.”

The Smithsonian, led by Lonnie Bunch, has so far not commented.

1 - Six artists have just been commissioned to create work for the Obama Presidential Center which is due to open in June on Chicago’s South Side. Mark Bradford, Jay Heikes and Carrie Mae Weems are among those creating site-specific works for the building.

2 - Analysis of two paintings by Jan van Eyck suggests the works may not actually be by the 15th-century master, according to a report in the Guardian. Artificial intelligence used to assess Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, versions of which currently hang in museums in Turin and Philadelphia, claims it was unable to detect any of his brushstrokes suggesting the works were actually created in his studio by other artists.

3 - Japanese artist Yuko Mohri has won the $50,000 Calder Prize which comes with a three-month residency at Alexander Calder's former studio in Sache, France. Mohri, who lives and works in Tokyo, is the latest recipient of the biennial prize which goes to a contemporary artist "whose innovative work reflects the continued legacy" of the American sculptor.