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Allentown Art Museum to Auction Cranach Painting Once Owned by Collector Persecuted in Nazi Germany

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

Best Practices for Nazi-Era Art Presented at Special Event in Washington

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

Lawsuit Seeking to Stop Deaccessioning of Paintings at Valparaiso is Dismissed

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

German High Court Rules Painting Will Stay Listed in Nazi-Era Lost Art Provenance Database

(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

Van Gogh Dispute and Temporary Exhibition Loan Collide at Detroit Institute of Arts

A new lawsuit seeking to seize a painting by Van Gogh currently at the Detroit Institute of Arts for the show “Van Gogh in America,” a painting which the plaintiff alleges was unlawfully taken has brought back into focus the...more

1/20/2023  /  Art Collections , Fine Art , Museums

New Law Requires Museums in New York to Display Information About Nazi Art Looting, May be More Complicated than it Looks

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed into law a new requirement requiring museums to indicate publicly any object in their collection that was displaced by the Nazis as part of what Congress has rightly called the...more

A Deaccessioning Decision Tree Grows in Brooklyn—Selling Museum Art in Hard Times

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

“Moralistic Preening” and Broken Commitments Under the Washington Principles—Ninth Circuit Chastises Spain for Keeping Nazi-looted...

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

Fate of Museum Collections and Endowments Presents Hard Questions in Hard Times

Since analyzing the likely consequence of gallery and auctioneer insolvencies last month, we have been keeping an eye on how the economic crisis borne of the COVID19 pandemic is affecting the art world. Essentially every...more

Ten Years Later—Lessons Learned from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston Kokoschka Case

There has been some renewed interest in the case a decade or so ago involving a claim by the heir of Oskar Reichel’s family to a painting in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston: Two Nudes (Lovers) by Oskar Kokoschka. In response...more

Paddle 8 Bankruptcy a Harbinger in the Time of COVID19 and the Coming Art World Crisis

Early last week the online auctioneer Paddle 8 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York, on the heels of a recent lawsuit demanding payment for works of art sold at a charitable auction last...more

No Excuses left—SPK Restitutes Han Baldung Grien to Persecuted Artist's Heirs for Reasons that Germany Denies to Jewish Victims

The Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, or SPK) in Berlin announced that it had agreed to restitute a 1537 painting of the biblical figure Lot by Hans Baldung Grien to the heirs of Hans...more

In the Great Green Room, There was…a Shocking Theft—Historic Robbery in Dresden at State Art Collections

While the incomparable Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd does not take place in Dresden, that is where today brought news of a robbery at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the State...more

Thyssen-Bornemisza Prevails Over Cassirer Heirs' Claim to Pissarro Taken by Nazis Despite Acts “Inconsistent with the Washington...

One of the longest-running court cases in the United States about art looted by the Nazis has been decided in favor of the current possessor, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, an instrumentality of the Kingdom of...more

Germany and its Federal States Announce Collective Declaration with Respect to Colonial Artifacts and Human Remains

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

Berkshire Museum Tries to End-Run Pending Appeal but Member Plaintiffs Decline to be Bullied

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

Event—The Future of Nazi-Looted Art Recovery in the US and Abroad

I am pleased to be taking part in a symposium at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles on September 26, 2018, “The Future of Nazi Looted Art Recovery in the US and Abroad.” Presented by Cypress LLP and the Sotheby’s Institute of...more

Members of the Berkshire Museum Pledge to Continue Fight Against Liquidation of the Museum’s Art Collection

(Boston, MA, February 13, 2018) Sullivan & Worcester LLP clients and Berkshire Museum members James Hatt, Kristin Hatt, and Elizabeth Weinberg sharply denounced today the agreement that was announced Friday evening between...more

Injunction Against Berkshire Museum Sale Is Extended

The Single Justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court (Joseph A. Trainor) has extended the injunction against the Berkshire Museum's proposed sale of 40 works of art in its collection until at least January 29, 2018. In its...more

Something’s Rotten in Düsseldorf—Max Stern Exhibition Cancelled in Response to Restitution Claim

As Germany puts on the much-anticipated exhibition in Bonn of Cornelius Gurlitt’s disputed collection, a strange story has developed not too far away in Düsseldorf. The Stadtmuseum, which is administered by the city itself,...more

Appeals Court Stays Sale of Berkshire Museum Paintings

Attorney General’s Motion, Supported by Private Plaintiffs, is Allowed on the Eve of Auction The Massachusetts Appeals Court has stopped the imminent auction of paintings owned by the Berkshire Museum. Late Friday, a single...more

Massachusetts AG Asks Appeals Court to Halt Monday's Berkshire Museum Sale

The Massachusetts Attorney General has moved the Appeals Court of Massachusetts for an emergency injunction pending appeal of the November 7, 2017 decision denying the motions by the AG, my clients, and others, seeking to...more

Members of Berkshire Museum File Suit Seeking Injunction Against Sale of Art Collection

Forty Masterpieces of American and European Art Scheduled for Auction - (Boston, MA, October 26, 2017) Sullivan & Worcester LLP has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Berkshire County residents and members of the Berkshire...more

Rich Man/Poor Man? The Berkshire Museum and Why Deaccessioning is so Frustrating

Two wonderful museums recently announced plans to sell major works of art. In one case, some 40 paintings, American masterpieces among them, will be sold at auction. In another, more than 400 photographs will also be sold....more

Herzog Heirs Win Again in Appeals Court on Jurisdiction Over Hungarian Museums

A federal appeals court has upheld the growing consensus that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) confers jurisdiction over foreign state actors in possession of art allegedly looted by and/or overseen by the Nazis....more

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