Celebrating Women’s History Month with Holly Hotchner, President and CEO of the National Women’s History Museum: On Record PR
I was proud to advise the Allentown Art Museum, which announced today that it has reached an agreement with the heirs of Henry and Hertha Bromberg concerning Portrait of George, Duke of Saxony by Lucas Cranach the Elder and...more
I was honored to be among the speakers this week at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on March 5, 2024. Convened by the World Jewish Restitution Organization and the U.S. State Department, the event announced the...more
A trial court in Indiana recently dismissed a lawsuit challenging the proposed sale of three works of art by Valparaiso University: Rust Red Hills by Georgia O’Keefe, Mountain Landscape by Frederic Edwin Church, and The...more
In August 2023, the New York District Attorney’s (NYDA) Antiquities Trafficking Unit, which specializes in investigating looted artifacts, seized a headless statue valued at $20 million from the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA)...more
No, this isn’t a Halloween-themed piece about the infamous Cleveland Torso Murderer from the 1930s, but an issue that is less sensational but far more contemporary — the quest to return looted art to its rightful owners....more
In 1966, an ancient bronze bust found its way to the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. Believed to depict the daughter of the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, it was titled “Portrait of a Lady (A Daughter of Marcus...more
(Germany’s highest court issued a much-anticipated ruling on a challenge by a collector to the listing of his painting in the so-called Lost Art database in Magdeburg, Germany. The Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) ruled that the...more
As we walk through art museums, admiring the paintings, sculptures, and artifacts, we (sometimes) read the little cards that explain each piece and identify who donated or loaned it to the museum. We might not pay much...more
The artworks stolen by the Nazis are the last prisoners of World War II. – Ronald Lauder, Woman in Gold Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer was a wealthy sugar magnate in Vienna, Austria where his six Gustav Klimt paintings were housed....more
Join us for a discussion of estate and philanthropic planning for art and other valuable collections. Topics to be covered include: - Collection ownership and management to protect the value of the collection (document,...more
Robin Pogrebin at the New York Times has written an excellent piece on the news that the Brooklyn Museum intends to sell several works from its collection to raise money. The museum explicitly relies on the pandemic-inspired...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit yesterday affirmed the 2019 judgment that allowed the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Museum in Madrid to retain Camille Pissarro’s Rue St. Honoré, après-midi, effet de pluie (Rue...more
The Supreme Court of North Carolina recently held in Meinck vs. City of Gastonia that a city’s lease to a non-profit arts group in connection with a downtown revitalization project was a “governmental function”, which...more
Debate has peaked in the last year or so about the treatment and possible restitution of so-called colonial artifacts in Western (i.e., European and North American) museums. The conversation is important for many reasons, but...more
In recent art world news, a mystery is unraveling at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens (“The Huntington”) right here in the Los Angeles area (in San Marino to be exact). It involves a sharply...more
After four months of silence, the Berkshire Museum suddenly demanded last week that my clients dismiss their still-pending lawsuit over the governance of the museum by claiming that the April decision by the Single Justice of...more
In recent art world news, the technology augmented reality (the cousin of virtual reality) has been making headlines in the media these days. Simply defined, augmented reality (AR) technology superimposes a computer-generated...more
In recent art world news, a Norman Rockwell painting titled “Blacksmith’s Boy—Heel and Toe” (1940) from the Berkshire Museum’s collection sold for $7 million (with buyer’s premium added, the figure is about 8.13 million) to a...more
In recent art world news, and as a follow up to last week’s post on the Art Law blog, with legal hurdles now overcome, over a dozen artworks from the Berkshire Museum’s art collection are set to be offered for sale at auction...more
In recent art world news, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (“Met”) announced last Thursday that visitors will have to pay a $25 mandatory admission fee if they reside outside New York State under a new policy that goes into...more
An intriguing story recently ran in the Los Angeles Times regarding an 18th century masterpiece painting that has gone missing for more than a century. The mysterious painting seems to have been hiding in plain sight in a...more
The New York Times reports today that Germany will pay for “at least” one more year of the Gurlitt Task Force, which recently concluded its initial term of appointment amidst criticism of the German government’s handling of...more
After World War II, works of art suspected of having been stolen by the Nazis were listed on a special registry called the Musées Nationaux Récupération (MNR registry), and stored in French museums until they could be...more
Cornelius Gurlitt’s notarized will, which did not surface until after his unexpected death this past May, lists the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland as the heir to his vast art collection, which included works by Matisse, Dix,...more