The week in art

Nominees for the second Jarman Awards – named after avant garde filmmaker Derek Jarman – were announced this week. Anja Kirschner and David Panos, Simon Martin, Stephen Sutcliffe and Lindsay Seers (whose work Sack is pictured here) were all shortlisted. The winner, to be announced in the autumn, will recieve a £10,000 cash prize and a series of art commissions to be broadcast on Channel 4 Photograph: PR

Daubigny's Garden, Auvers-sur-Oise, 1890 by Vincent Van Gogh, on display as part of an exhibition of the artist's landscape paintings at Basel's Kunstmuseum. The museum announced record figures this week, reporting over 250,000 visitors in the first three months of the show opening Photograph: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam /Guardian

The first major retrospective of photographer Richard Avedon opened this week at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition includes more than 200 iconic portraits, from an acclaimed career spanning six decades Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/Guardian

Some 1000 counterfeit sculptures of Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti were seized in Stuttgart, Germany this week, following a large-scale investigation by police. An art dealer and two others were arrested on suspicion of selling the fakes across the world, for tens of millions of dollars Photograph: Norbert Foersterling/EPA

While art historians estimate up to one in five paintings have other artworks hidden underneath – including many Old Masters, such as this work by John Constable – scientists revealed a new technique this week to show what's hidden underneath. The 'synchotron', a powerful x-ray machine developed at the University of Delaware, is able to delve under layers of paint and reveal detailed, colour readings of hidden paintings without damaging the work Photograph: PA

A new exhibition commemorating 70 years since the outbreak of the second world war has been mounted at the Imperial War Museum, in London. Artefacts on display include former prime minister Neville Chamberlain's pocket diary, charting the events leading up to the declaration of war Photograph: Sarah Lee

And finally, proving the ghoulish circus still surrounding Michael Jackson's death isn't yet over, Andy Warhol's portrait of the world's last superstarhas sold for more than $1m at an auction in New York. The anonymous buyer requested that the exact figure remain a secret Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images