"Removal of Student Painting in Capital Leads to Federal Lawsuit"

New York Times story here.  Analysis from First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh here.

Eight Years for Spider-Man

NYT story here.

"Rubin Museum of Art co-chair claims couple conned her into paying $18M for knockoffs of ancient Indian jewelry"

Daily News story here.  "'While Rubin was quite knowledgeable about various art forms, she had no particular expertise in jewelry,' the suit says."

"We’re looking at each other, and we’re like, ‘I think he just stole those? We should probably do something.'"

The Boston Globe:  Attempted art heist foiled by BU students.

"I think you've been leading a fraudulent life for a very long time."

"A Michigan art dealer was sentenced Thursday to more than three years in prison for what prosecutors said was an extensive scheme to sell fake works purportedly by renowned artists."

"Sotheby’s called it 'undoubtedly a forgery' based on research conducted by Orion Analytical, a scientific analysis firm that Sotheby’s acquired last year"

NYT:   Sotheby’s Files Second Lawsuit Over Works It Calls Fake.

"[Orion's] Mr. Martin said that he took 21 paint samples from many different areas of the paint layer and found the 20th-century pigment throughout the work, including in areas of the painting that were never restored. 'It’s a bit like taking the pulse of a corpse 21 times,' he said."

"If you are not going to charge for admission you have to find a way to support it."

Charles Saatchi is selling off 100 works from his art collection to help fund free admission to his gallery.

Of course, if a U.S. museum did this in order to provide free admission, there would be rioting in the streets. As Tim Schneider points out:

"Saatchi's sell-off represents one clear advantage their founders hold over public nonprofit institutions. In the US, influential professional associations like the AAMD ... hold that it's cultural sacrilege to deaccession even a single work to cover operational costs, let alone more than one... despite that they also judge it A-OK to divest pieces in order to bankroll new acquisitions. ...  That may not make private museums better places to appreciate art than public ones. But in at least one important respect, it does empower them to run as better businesses."

"All images of public-domain artworks in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection — about 375,000 — are now free for anyone to use however they may please."

"The museum announced on Tuesday that it had changed its open access policy to allow free, unrestricted use of any images of artworks in the public domain, using the license designation Creative Commons Zero."

"In an unusual case that marks the second time in recent years that an artist has been pressured over a failure to authenticate a work ..."

"... actor David Spade has filed a lawsuit against photographer Peter Beard, his wife Nejma, and former Beard dealer Peter Tunney over a work he purchased 15 years ago and is currently trying to sell."

It's hard to tell exactly what's going on, but this seems like a much more complicated case than Peter Doig's. Spade apparently bought the works from Tunney's Time Is Always Now gallery, which, at one Time (but not Now), clearly represented Beard.

"I threw away $100m of Picasso and Matisse art, says dealer in Paris theft trial."

"Neither the investigating judge nor other defendants at the trial believe Birn’s claims."

"Ms. Rosales, I’m not putting you back in jail."

The NYT:  Dealer in Art Fraud Scheme Avoids Prison:

"In her sentencing, the judge, Katherine Polk Failla of Federal District Court in Manhattan, cited defense arguments that Ms. Rosales had been intimidated and abused by her former boyfriend, who is also charged in the case and whom the defense described in court papers as the mastermind of the scheme. She also feared being separated from her daughter, according to the defense."