The week in art

Jonathan Glancey isn't the only one besotted by the beauty of pylons: this week the Jerwood Sculpture panel awarded artist Michael Visocchi a £25,000 commission to produce a permanent sculpture of an 18-metre-high pylon in the grounds of Ragley Hall, Warwickshire. Constructed in galvanised steel, the piece – due to be finished in 2010 – will stand as a monument to modern technology; Visocchi hopes it will provoke thought about climate change. Maquettes of the eight shortlisted proposals will be on display until 9 April at the Jerwood Space Photograph: Artist handout/PA

Works by the late Mario Giacomelli, one of the greatest Italian photographers of the last century, have gone on show at the Atlas Gallery in London this week. Born in Senigallia, Italy, in 1925, Giacomelli trained as a typographer before teaching himself photography. The exhibition shows a series of images taken in Puglia in 1957, considered to be Giacomelli's best work. The show runs until 16 May 2009 Photograph: PR

Christie's New York have announced a spring date for the auction of philanthropist Betty Freeman's private art collection. Freeman, who was a friend of David Hockney and a keen patron of contemporary art, began collecting abstract expressionist pieces in the 1950s, gathering works by Roy Lichtenstein, Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol and others. The centrepiece of the collection is Hockney's Beverley Hills Housewife – a portrait of Freeman herself, which is expected to sell for around £7m Photograph: Julian Makey/Rex Features

A collection of rare paintings by Adolf Hitler are to go under the hammer after being discovered in the garage of an anonymous collector. The 13 watercolours were painted during Hitler's 20s, when he was trying to gain entry to Vienna's Academy of Arts. (He failed twice.) The works were "liberated" in 1945 by a soldier stationed in Essen, Germany, and sold on to the collector, who stored them away and claimed to have forgotten about them until now. The auction house Mullock's expect each work to fetch several thousand pounds Photograph: PR

British photographer Paul Graham won the Deutsche Börse prize this week for A Shimmer of Possibility, 12 photo-studies depicting life in contemporary America. Jefferson Hack, co-founder of Dazed & Confused magazine, presented Graham with the prestigious £30,000 award. Judges said they were impressed by Graham's ability to "draw out something truly profound from the almost nothingness of everyday life" and praised the "sensitivity, subtlety and complexity" of his work. All the shortlisted works are on show at the Photographer's Gallery, London, until 12 April 2009, before touring to Berlin Photograph: Paul Graham/PR

Japanese artist Kenji Yanobe's Giant Torayan has drawn crowds to Roppongi Hills in Tokyo this week. The bubble-headed aluminium robot – which breathes fire "only on the order of children" – towers over visitors at 7.2 metres high, and will sing and dance for a performance piece in a one-off event in the city this weekend Photograph: YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images

A nude sketch of Cherie Blair, posed for at the age of 22, has gone on display at the Browse & Darby gallery in London. Artist Euan Uglow, who died in 2000, employed the young Cherie for an initial sketch, though she apparently didn't have time to pose for the painting itself (Uglow drafted in another model). The sketch has already sold for £4,000, while the painting, shown here, carries a hefty £600,000 price tag. The artist had stipulated that neither go on display while Cherie's husband was still prime minister Photograph: Euan Uglow/PA