The Art Law Blog

Friday, April 25, 2014

"Protecting collectors, it's not our job. I don't think putting the burden of that due diligence on an artist estate, especially in the absence of sufficient legal protections, is appropriate."

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That's Michael Straus, chairman of the Warhol foundation, making good sense in this Wall Street Journal...

Thursday, April 24, 2014

"Looks like another Visual Artists Rights Act lawsuit in the city that loves its murals."

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Via Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento .

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

"The question now is whether the old cases upholding the poison pill will still apply in the case of activism."

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" This is the fundamental question in the Sotheby’s case ." Good piece from Steven Davidoff in the Times a few days ago on the b...

"The show marks a victory lap for the artist and the gallery."

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Dan Duray on the upcoming Richard Prince Canal Zone show at Gagosian.

"Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the charges 'paint a picture of perpetual lies and greed.'"

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Indictment unsealed in the Knoedler-Rosales case .

Monday, April 21, 2014

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

"The artist is outside the state, the buyer's outside state, the property's outside the state."

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It's always risky to read too much into oral arguments, but things did not seem to go well for the plaintiffs in the Ninth Circuit in th...

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

The AAMD might be forced -- with regret -- to sanction the hell out of the Delaware Art Museum

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What choice do they have, really ? It's not as if it was "a difficult -- indeed, agonizing -- decision" on the part of the m...

"The latest deal — which comes after separate accords with two global banks and unsecured bondholders — could hasten the city’s emergence from bankruptcy and speed the city’s plans to reinvest in services."

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Getting close in Detroit .

Monday, April 14, 2014

"The tax strategy is 100 percent legal, experts say, as long as all stages of the museum transfer are handled correctly."

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There was a terrific piece by Graham Bowley and Patricia Cohen in the Times over the weekend on a "lucrative, little-known" maneu...

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

"According to court documents filed Wednesday, investors are willing to pay or make loans of close to $2 billion for the masterpieces inside the Detroit Institute of Arts" (UPDATED)

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Emergency manager Kevyn Orr says it isn't going to happen -- he says "we have no intention of selling art" and also correctly...

Monday, April 07, 2014

Shades of grey (UPDATED)

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Let me recommend this really good piece on the situation in Delaware, by Timothy Rub of the AAMD. Instead of the usual approach of this-i...

Saturday, April 05, 2014

"A recent decision in New York’s Supreme Court could cause chaos in art forgery cases."

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I'm quoted in this Art Newspaper story on the (weird) authentication decision mentioned earlier here .

Friday, April 04, 2014

"On Wednesday, the police said that the paintings were, in fact, a still life by Gauguin from 1889 and 'Woman With Two Chairs' by Pierre Bonnard, both of which had been reported stolen from a London home in 1970."

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They've been hanging on the kitchen wall of an Italian factory worker since 1975 .

Thursday, April 03, 2014

"If a museum’s collection is deemed fungible, why should private donors or government agencies fund its operations?"

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LA Times art critic Christopher Knight reacts to the shocking news that the Met sold off more than 3,000 objects last year. Three thousa...

Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Detroit Cuts Pensions Further

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New York Times story here . I checked with the spokesperson for the Deaccession Police, who issued the following statement: Not. Our. Prob...

Still Restrained

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Dan Duray has the latest on the Four Seasons Picasso lawsuit .

Art law in the galleries

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ARCA's Catherine Sezgin on an art-law related show at the D'Amour Museum in Massachusetts.

Art law in the movies

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Derek Fincham on The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Tell me again about the public trust (it's a fire sale at the Metropolitan Museum of Art edition)

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Speaking of the repulsive practice of deaccessioning artworks, the NY Post notices that the Met sold more than 3,000 objects last year al...

"Yes, communities benefit from famous paintings, but they also benefit from safer roads and better schools."

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Cornell economist Robert H. Frank had a piece in Sunday's New York Times on Detroit and its art collection. He urges us to look at bo...

"Proponents of the bill believe that it is necessary to incentivize experts to continue to authenticate works in light of the chilling effect of recent litigation."

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Frankfurt Kurnit summarizes the proposed NY legislation protecting "authenticators," mentioned earlier here . Via Sergio Munoz ...

"But Mr. Parsons said Mr. Loeb ... faces 'an uphill battle' to show the pill actually puts him at a disadvantage."

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The Wall Street Journal has the latest on Daniel Loeb's poison pill lawsuit against Sotheby's.

Should "assisting the truly needy be the central focus of the charitable contribution deduction"?

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The Nonprofit Law Prof Blog thinks so .

How is the Artist Pension Trust doing?

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Daniel Grant takes a look on its tenth birthday.

How is Amazon Art Doing?

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Not so well, according to this Bloomberg News story.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

How to be ethical in the art world

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In two easy steps. Step one: when the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts sells a $40 million Hopper in order to buy a bunch of contemporar...

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Release the hounds!

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Randy Kennedy in the NYT: Delaware Art Museum Will Sell Works to Pay Off Debt . How dare they!? Repulsive Stalinesque scoundrels . Ha...

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Prince-Cariou Settlement

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As anyone who is interested enough in art law to be reading this blog must know by now, the long-running Prince-Cariou fair use lawsuit has ...

Friday, March 14, 2014

"Settlement Reached in Cy Twombly Foundation Lawsuit"

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Two directors have resigned .

Thursday, March 13, 2014

The AAMD has responded to the Randolph College deaccessioning with their usual persuasive reasoning

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" Because we said so ."

Monday, March 10, 2014

Hand-wringers gonna wring

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The Art Market Monitor takes on the latest art world "ethical" controversy: works being loaned to museums ... and then later sol...

"Formally severing Detroit’s ownership of the DIA would be at once revolutionary and conservative."

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Mark Stryker looks at the implications of the potential "grand bargain" in Detroit.

"In fact, the doctrine of mutual mistake is one of the most complex and confusing areas we encounter in our practice."

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The Brothers In Law explain .

"Art world power brokers don’t know what to make of Maximo Caminero."

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Jed Perl on the recent Ai Weiwei vandalism .

Does eccentricity raise the value of art?

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Via the Freakonomics blog .

Thursday, March 06, 2014

Another foundation sued over authentication

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Last month it was Haring . Now it's Calder .

This seems like a big deal

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Getty Images is opening up the bulk of its photo collection for free .

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Wait, what?

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The NYT's Patricia Cohen reports on a new lawsuit by the Basquiat estate against Christie's. Apparently they complain that Christi...

Saturday, March 01, 2014

"While Mr. Ai has defaced works to make new art, one difference is that, unlike Mr. Caminero, he owned the art before he ruined it."

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The New York Times has the latest on the artist "who stunned the art world by smashing a vase by the Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei at the P...

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

New Resale Royalty Legislation Introduced

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Patricia Cohen has the story in the Times. Lee Rosenbaum has a close analysis here , including the following: "The amount of the ro...

New Orleans residents foil plot to steal Banksy mural

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Story here .

Monday, February 24, 2014

"The courts have taken an approach to fair use that we do not believe was originally intended."

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The NYT's Patricia Cohen had an interesting piece over the weekend on efforts by photographers' groups to push back against expansi...

60 Minutes on art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi

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You can watch it here . Deborah Solomon and Jillian Steinhauer were unimpressed. Derek Fincham says "it was a reminder of how li...

Saturday, February 22, 2014

"Bateman said Randolph College’s Maier Museum of Art is not a 'museum' but part of a 'non-profit institution that owns art.'"

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" As a result it operates not according to the rules and regulations that govern museums but the fiduciary responsibilities of an insti...

Friday, February 21, 2014

"The lawsuit on Friday seeks $40 million in damages and says the plaintiffs lost sales because potential buyers were deterred by the foundation’s statements and actions."

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An authenticity lawsuit against the Haring Foundation .

The latest from Detroit

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Mark Stryker: Orr's plan would protect artwork, but it's not a done deal yet .

Their sword's grown old and rusty

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The big news this week is that the Corcoran Gallery is giving up the ghost. Carol Vogel has the details . For now, I'll just say that...

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

"A guard asked the man to put it down, but instead he threw it to the ground, smashing it" (UPDATED)

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NYT: Ai Weiwei Vase Is Destroyed by Protester at Miami Museum . Six thoughts from Ann Althouse. UPDATE: There's video of the in...

Who's Faking Whom?

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Just learned of a First Department decision from November that could wreak some serious havoc on the world of authentication litigation. Th...

Monday, February 17, 2014

“In essence, plaintiffs’ breach of contract cause of action alleges that, with the benefit of hindsight, it appears to have entered into a bad bargain”

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I finally got around to reading the decision on the motion to dismiss Ron Perelman’s lawsuit against Gagosian Gallery. I had gotten the imp...

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Flagrant egregiousity

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A couple of follow-up points on Randolph College's recent sale of a $25 million Bellows. (Not to be confused with the Pennsylvania Aca...

Artist Pension Trust After 10 Years

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Daniel Grant gives a status report . Some background, from when it was just starting out, here .

"The only way Starbucks will be hurt by this is if it decides to sue rather than laugh"

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Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman on the legality of "Dumb Starbucks ."

Monday, February 10, 2014

"I don’t want to be the judge who has a Picasso destroyed.

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Preliminary injunction granted blocking the removal of "a large curtain painted by Pablo Picasso that has decorated the Four Seasons R...

Friday, February 07, 2014

Why do the Deaccession Police hate the British?

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Carol Vogel reports today that Randolph College has sold a George Bellows painting to the National Gallery for $25.5 million. I haven'...

Thursday, February 06, 2014

I think we may need a ruling from the Deaccession Police on this

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Here's a fascinating one . A Portuguese bank owned a bunch of Mirós. "Crippled by debt and management irregularities," the ...

"How does someone so capable of protecting his own art interests get taken in by a scam of this magnitude?"

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ARTINFO's Rozalia Jovanovic reports on a lawsuit brought by "art dealer and former Wall Street shark Asher Edelman."

The biggest art forgery case in Canadian history?

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The keyboardist for the Barenaked Ladies claims to be one of the victims .

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

It's held in the public trust ...

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... but we don't want the public to actually get to, you know, see it. Controversy over a MoMA plan for its sculpture garden.

Sunday, February 02, 2014

"Artist Files Suit Over Missing Empire State Building Paintings"

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Randy Kennedy has the story in the NYT.

Friday, January 31, 2014

The Art Marker Monitor Says Peter Schjeldahl Is Owed An Apology

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Here .

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

"The rescue fund for Detroit pensioners and the Detroit Institute of Arts has gotten a $40-million boost from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation"

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More money-putting where mouth is . I'm liking this new model of dealing with deaccessioning. The next time an institution is in desp...

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Jasper Johns Takes The Stand (UPDATED)

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In the trial of a former foundry owner "who stands accused of creating at least 13 fake sculptures and selling or trying to sell them....

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

"Bottom line: the conversation re: the DIA has turned the corner, but the museum is not home free." (UPDATED)

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Judith Dobrzynski summarizes the day's developments in Detroit. UPDATE: Some thoughts from Nicholas O'Donnell: " [I]t see...

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

More on Richard Serra and the Fight for Public Art

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As a follow up to my post last week, the following is a letter to the editor from Serra that the Times declined to publish: To The E...

Monday, January 20, 2014

Enhancement

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The NYT's Graham Bowley had a good piece last week on the practice known as "enhanced hammer" -- where, in addition to waivin...

Thursday, January 16, 2014

"Even a good-faith purchaser for value cannot acquire title to stolen goods" (UPDATED)

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I'm a little late getting to this one, but the Baltimore Museum of Art has prevailed on summary judgment in a custody battle over a Ren...

"ACA could have accepted the higher price that accompanies certainty of authenticity, but chose instead to accept the risk that the painting was a forgery."

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The Second Circuit has affirmed Judge Cederbaum's summary judgment decision in a case involving a fake Milton Avery painting, discussed ...

Monday, January 13, 2014

A Way to Save the DIA?

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Apparently a group of local and national foundations have formed a human circle around the Detroit Institute to block the sale of any art. ...

On Richard Serra and the Fight for Public Art (UPDATED)

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The NYT's Martha Schwendener had a review of (our client) Richard Serra’s current show at Gagosian Gallery in New York. She’s of cour...

Thursday, January 09, 2014

"His plan would reduce estate tax rates from the current 16 percent to 10 percent, and raise the state estate tax exemption from $1 million to the current federal level of $5.25 million by 2019."

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Part of Governor Cuomo's tax reform proposal .

"An experimental printmaking studio can move ahead with part of its lawsuit against a prominent Manhattan abstract painter based on a dispute arising from a collaboration of new artwork, a Manhattan State Supreme Court judge has ruled." (UPDATED)

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The artist is Christopher Wool. The story is here . The decision is here [$]. Straightforward application of the statute of frauds. UP...

Monday, January 06, 2014

The Year in Fair Use

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From Mike Madison .

Thursday, January 02, 2014

Who can keep track at this point?

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In The Art Newspaper, Laura Gilbert says the number of Knoedler lawsuits now totals eight .

"In fact, all these allegations are so patently inadequate that the court can only conclude that they were brought solely for the purposes of harassment or embarrassment, without any consideration of their legal sufficiency."

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Catching up on some pre-holiday news, I see that Justice Kornreich was really unimpressed with the Calder estate's lawsuit against Klau...

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

"The lawsuit claims the gallery’s conduct is 'self-dealing that can only be described as Byzantine.'"

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Daniel Schnapp has news of a lawsuit by Michael Ovitz against Perry Rubinstein Gallery.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

"Ms. Sonnabend’s name is now dutifully listed among the founders in the museum’s lobby."

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Holland Cotter explains how MoMA's new Sonnabend show is in part "a byproduct of legal hassles": "[Rauschenberg...

"The elephant labored and produced a mouse."

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That's how one defense lawyer summed up the result in the strange , " self-defeating " breach of confidentiality suit brought...

"The ownership of the artwork has been fiercely contested during a three-week trial in which Fawcett's final wishes and her relationship with O'Neal were dissected."

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Ryan O'Neal has won possession of a Warhol portrait of Farrah Fawcett.

Oh the horror

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I picked a good week to be busy with the day job because I was able to avoid the spectacle of the usual suspects reacting to the issuance of...

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

The Jenack Decision

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Was running around today, but the big news was that the Court of Appeals issued its decision in the Jenack case . The decision is here . T...

Monday, December 16, 2013

Resale Royalty Report

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The Copyright Office has issued its long-awaited report on resale royalties. You can read it here . The NYT's Patricia Cohen has a bri...

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Ann Freedman Defamation Settlement

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Laura Gilbert has the story in The Art Newspaper: "The suit was based on a New York magazine article published in August in which G...

Holland Cotter has the answer for Detroit

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Here it is: "If it proves that the worst seems about to happen, the art world should get itself out to Detroit en masse and put its ...

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

"The deal would raise roughly $500 million from a consortium of national and local charitable foundations and funnel the money into retiree pensions on behalf of the value of the art at the DIA." (UPDATED)

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A grand bargain in Detroit? UPDATE: The Art Market Monitor says the discussions are "a reminder to the shrieking and fretting arts ...

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Morel v. AFP: How The Case Was Won (UPDATED)

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Find out next Monday . UPDATE: You'll have to wait a little longer to find out. I'm told the panel has been postponed. Date TBD...

Monday, December 09, 2013

"It’s pretty hard to see how a market which has doubled in a decade can be considered to be 'tepid' and 'in a doldrums'" (UPDATED)

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Felix Salmon goes to town on the James Stewart state-of-the-art-market piece I mentioned over the weekend. The Art Market Monitor identif...

"The dark you're in doesn't compare to the dark the citizens of Detroit suffer day in, day out and the crime that results from that."

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Nearly half of Detroit's 88,000 streetlights are broken .

Saturday, December 07, 2013

"Philadelphia Wants To Use Eminent Domain To Turn An Artist's Studio Into A Parking Lot And Supermarket"

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Story here . George Mason's Ilya Somin comments here .

Is the art market really going through the roof?

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James B. Stewart says no . Jim Cramer says it's a "brilliant piece." Marion Maneker says not so much: "Stewart is sa...

"If the defendants are found liable, some legal experts say, it could have broad implications for the art world by threatening to turn such confidentiality agreements into restrictions or even prohibitions of resales."

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The Wall Street Journal has an update on Marguerite Hoffman's strange , " self-defeating " lawsuit for breach of a confidenti...

Thursday, December 05, 2013

Speaking of removing art from the market

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We know that museums themselves would never do anything as " grim and venal " as " putting a pricetag on ," or " m...

Philip Kennicott has an idea for "removing as much art as possible from the market"

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" Would an art easement work, in which museums sold the right to sell their art, but held on to the art itself ?" Who exactly wo...

Wednesday, December 04, 2013

The Day's DIA

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Today's big Detroit news was that Christie's finished the appraisal that people have been waiting for . Two points for now. A l...

Four Simple Rules For Writing About Art Auctions

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From Felix Salmon .

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

"Many legal specialists and government officials say they expect Detroit will be found eligible for bankruptcy protection." (UPDATED 5X)

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Big day in the Detroit bankruptcy proceeding . UPDATE: It's on . More later. UPDATE 2: The Detroit Free Press's Mark Stryker ...