Anish Kapoor wants to send a sculpture into space.

The artist told The Times of London his plan would strike a blow against the commercialization of cosmic exploration and revive "the early sense of adventure in space".

He declined to give many details about the plan but said he expected it to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to send a vast work into space that would be visible from Earth.

Kapoor said: "You can just about see satellites, which are big but not huge. I am thinking of something three to four times the size of a satellite — the size of a house. I doubt it will have writing on it, but it will be ‘interpretable’.”

The amount of the Art Institute of Chicago's modern and contemporary collection that is on view to visitors, according to director James Rondeau. He told the city's Sun-Times newspaper he had "concrete aspirations" to extend the museum.

The heirs of a persecuted German Jewish art collector have finally won a legal battle to reclaim one of his paintings only to promptly donate it back to the museum where it has been kept for decades.

The portrait of Eleonore von Wilke by Lovis Corinth was given to the family of Ismar and Kathe Littmann from the collection of Berlin's Alte Nationalgalerie but they returned it in a deal organized by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

It had been bought by Ismar Littman in around 1930 but was sold by his family after he died in 1934 - nine months after he attempted suicide after anti-Jewish laws stopped him working as a lawyer and left him facing financial ruin.

The foundation said "crucial gaps in its provenance" prevented it being restituted earlier.

Its president Marion Ackermann said: "This case demonstrates that provenance research can sometimes be a lengthy process, but gaps can still be filled even after years. And every completed case brings relief to the descendants."

She praised the family's "generous gesture" to donate it to the gallery.

The UK Treasury lobbied "very hard" to introduce charges for foreign tourists to enter England's national museums, according to reports.

LBC radio station said the department also "considered ending free entry for everyone during discussions" before the government's most recent financial settlement.

Free entry for visitors to permanent exhibitions at major institutions including the British Museum and the V&A in London was introduced in 2001.

Many other international museums do charge entry. Earlier this month, the Louvre in Paris introduced higher entry fees with non-European Union visitors now paying $38 though admission is free for all under-18's and EU visitors under 26.

1 - Esther Bell is making history after being appointed the first female director of the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Currently deputy to Olivier Meslay who spent a decade in the job, she is a former curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Cincinnati Art Museum.

2 - London's Tate Britain gallery has extended its weekend opening hours to meet demand for tickets to its Lee Miller and Turner & Constable exhibitions. More than 200,000 people have visited the Lee Miller show making it the most popular photography exhibition ever held at any Tate gallery.

3 - Commercial galleries across the US are closed today as part of a national shutdown protesting the actions of immigration officials. Among those taking part is Pace Gallery which said it was closing its "US locations" as part of the shutdown and David Zwirner which said it was closing "in solidarity with the national shutdown".

4 - Performances by Tarek Atoui and Rirkrit Tiravanija and exhibitions of Afghan art and Ghanaian contemporary artists are among the events planned by Qatar Museums to coincide with the first ever Art Basel Qatar. The fair, which runs from February 5 to 7 in Doha, is led by artistic director Wael Shawky.