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
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled on January 9, 2024 that the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation in Madrid is the owner of Rue Saint–Honoré, après-midi, effect de pluie (1892) by Camille Pissarro, a...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
We have been writing a lot recently about trends in the global market for fine art. One specific area that deserves attention is steps taken to stamp out laundering illicit funds via the art market, such as through auctions...more
The strength of the US dollar against the British pound – at present, the pound has dropped nearly 18% since the beginning of 2022 – would appear to make the purchase of art and other cultural property in the UK and Europe...more
When Christie’s Auction House first entered the secondary art market of mainland China in 2005, it licensed its brand to a local auction house and received a total of RMB 97,000,000 (roughly $12,100,000) for its inaugural...more
After a two-year hiatus, the Responsible Art Market Initiative is planning a return to its in-person annual conference at the end of this month in Geneva. For anyone who has attended RAM events or used its catalogue of...more
On July 28, 2020, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released its findings on the role of the unregulated art market in undermining U.S. sanctions policies and facilitating criminal activity....more
In connection with the late-2020 amendment to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) to include “dealers in antiquities” as a result of its inclusion in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Treasury Department’s Financial...more
The Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (the “AMLA”), which became law January 2, 2021 with Congress’ override of then President Trump’s veto of the Defense Appropriations Act of 2021 included provisions bringing dealers in...more
In many ways, the market for valuable art remains one that depends on long-standing relationships and a high degree of familiarity between market participants. The importance of relationships in the art business makes sense....more
It would be a truism to note that COVID-19 has had a profound impact on many sectors globally. The art industry, which relies considerably on the human interaction between art dealers, artists, and members of the public, is...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
A recent report by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (headlined by Chairman Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, and Ranking Member Tom Carper, Democrat of Delaware) has drawn widespread attention...more
Since online auctioneer Paddle 8 filed for bankruptcy protection in March, creditors of the company have begun filing their notices of claim in the bankruptcy case. One thing on which the creditors all seem to agree is that...more
Individuals, trusts and companies buying or selling art via UK galleries and auction houses will now be subject to the same customer due diligence checks as those opening bank accounts in the UK. What has changed? The...more
In recent art world news, British artist David Hockney’s iconic painting “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)” (1972) set an auction sale record for a living artist when it sold for an astonishing $90.3 million in...more
In recent art world news, as an update to our recent post on the fall sale of American works from the $300 million Barney Ebsworth collection, the highly anticipated sale of American modern art occurred earlier this week and...more
In recent art world news, over the summer art dealer David Killen purchased a storage locker in New Jersey containing 200 works of art for $15,000 after hearing about it and taking a cursory look before completing the sale. ...more
In recent art world news, more than 85 works from Barney Ebsworth’s art collection will be on the auction block in November at Christie’s in New York. The late travel entrepreneur’s collection is estimated at over $300...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, Sotheby’s reported a $57.3 million net income in the second quarter of this year in a recent earnings call earlier this week. This figure represents a decrease of $19.6 million or about 26% in...more
I am pleased to report on the outcome of a matter we announced in February. After a disagreement with the City of Palo Alto (California) about her sculpture Digital DNA, Sullivan & Worcester LLP client Adriana Varella has...more
In recent art world news, a buyer of a painting recently identified as having been confiscated by the Nazis in 1940 from a Jewish collector in Paris is asking Christie’s to refund the purchase price paid a decade ago for the...more
The decision by a New York court last month in favor of the Agnes Martin Catalogue Raisonné (AMCR) in a lawsuit by the Mayor Gallery Ltd in the United Kingdom is the latest in a series of disputes over the practice of...more