The Art Law Blog

Jori Finkel interviews Richard Polsky about his new authentication service , which is now expanded to include Haring and Basquiat. UPDATE...

The Art Newspaper's Julia Halperin got her hands on a summary of the report the Senate Finance Committee recently submitted to the IRS ...

The New York Times is on it . Something must be done! UPDATE:  The Art Market Monitor:  " Taken together, the stories betray a leve...

Glafira Rosales's boyfriend.   Health reasons . UPDATE:  More here from Eileen Kinsella at artnet.

Lit pigeons edition . UPDATE:  Once again, a dissenting view from Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento:  "This isn’t so much about copyright as it...

Barbara Pollack profiles Meridith Savona and the FBI's Art Crime Team.

You can see it here .  Features appearances by friends of the blog (and Advanced Topics in Art Law guest speakers)  Jack Flam , Greg Claric...

"In one simple statement, the creator took these 'assets'––ostensibly worth thousands of dollars each––and rendered them worthl...

" The outlook for Douglas Chrismas, the founder of one of Los Angeles’s oldest and largest galleries, seems to be growing bleaker by th...

Sales tax crackdown continues .

Breaking news .  Background here .

" The museum traded deaccessioned works from its collection for the painting ."

By Greg Allen .

Diana Wierbicki and Seth Cohen:   How Art Collectors Can Stay Out Of Tax Trouble In New York .

Story here .  Background here .

The Met is selling them at Christie's.  They have 3,600 other Chinese ceramics, so it's not like selling off 15% of them is that bi...

An interesting piece in the Boston Globe a few days ago by Sonia Katyal and Simone Ross, on (among other things) 3D printing, art, and copy...

NYT:   Developer Aby Rosen to Pay $7 Million in Suit Over Unpaid Taxes on Art . UPDATE:   Tim Schneider thinks Rosen got a raw deal:  ...

Teaching police officers to see better through art .

Lego admits it was a mistake to refuse Ai Weiwei's request for a bulk order last year.  This one was easy to see .

Self-recommending .

ARTnews has a long post-mortem on the Knoedler trial.

The NYT's Robin Pogrebin reports on financial trouble at the Met.  They're facing a $10 million deficit this year.  Staff reduction...

The Daily News on a New York state court lawsuit that presents interesting statute of limitations/laches issues.

Jori Finkel on the Ace Gallery bankruptcy .

New York Times story here .

Story here .  Background here .

Paddy Johnson points to one explanation from artnet:  "So tax authorities can’t track their client purchases."  She offers anothe...

Ann Freedman speaks .

Seven Warhol Soup Can prints have been stolen from a Missouri museum .  Michiko Kakutani tweets that, by breaking up the series of 10, the ...

I'll post a link when I have one, but the District Court in California has granted the defendants' motion to dismiss (what's lef...

Also while I was away, a "poet, actor, photographer, and makeup artist" named James R. Miller filed a lawsuit against the Mappleth...

But the Tennessean reports that the Stieglitz Collection has returned to Fisk University after a two-year stint at the Crystal Bridges Muse...

Art F City notes a Swedish court ruling against Wikimedia, holding that "images of public art are not public domain, but belong to the...

Via Rebecca Tushnet .  Earlier example (among many)  here .

I was away last week (I had a tip on the location of Mr. X , but sadly it turned out to be a false lead), but the big news was that the Pana...

Counterclaims in the Simchowitz suit mentioned here . UPDATE:   AFC :  "Everyone in this case sounds insane."

If not, why not? The church is a 501(c)(3) organization, just like museums are.  Does that mean that "we" own all its assets ?  ...

Says Felix Salmon .  The column ("Real Investment Adviser Sold Some Fake Investments") is here .

The New York Times had a piece a couple days ago about the battle over the museum George Lucas wants to build in Chicago, where, amusingly ...

Felix Salmon tells the tale. UPDATE:   Guelda Voien has some thoughts.

The NYT's Randy Kennedy reported last week that the National Academy -- "the nation’s oldest continuously operating artists’ socie...

The New York Law Journal [ $ ]:  "The panel cited Kimberly-Clark Corp. v. Lake Erie Warehouse, Div. of Lake Erie Rolling Mill , 49 AD2d...

Two views of the question, from Kanye West and Richard Prince. Prince's position is currently being tested in the courts.

" The five works were stolen last June although it is unclear why details have not emerged until now ."

Tim Schneider on the Artist Pension Trust, which I mentioned last week : "Personally, I'm torn about this concept. On the one ha...

A couple years ago, I mentioned a New York state court decision that "could wreak some serious havoc on the world of authentication li...

Bloomberg :  "Federal prosecutors, following the lead of European authorities, have opened an inquiry into one of the art world’s consu...

"This month it will make its first distributions, rather than wait to make a large payout at the end of a 25-year period as originally ...

Because it's " an appalling act of cultural vandalism " to move a collection of photos to the Victoria & Albert Museum in ...

For non-payment ($32M) on a Basquiat.  Story here .  Court papers here . UPDATE:  A response from Jose Mugrabi. UPDATE 2:  That was qui...

Story here .  Background on the charged dealer here .  Background on the Matter Pollocks here .

"It is telling that the legal scholars who have considered this argument have been ... unsympathetic. And that proponent of the 'pu...

Brian Boucher has a report here .  Background here . This is an interesting strategic decision.  It's very  hard to win a motion to di...

I suggest you read Helen Stoilas's report in The Art Newspaper.  Background here . UPDATE:   More from Randy Kennedy in the Times.  ...

NYT:   Setback for Picasso’s Daughter in Battle Over Sculpture .  Background here .

The Art Market Monitor :  Guarantees do not "distort" the market.

"And in that sense, the circumstances surrounding the de Soles' 'Rothko' aren't quite the extreme outliers they're ...

Domenico De Sole speaks .

... but the Knoedler news keeps coming:  "Jose Carlos Bergantinos Diaz, the alleged partner of Glafira Rosales in her sale of a cache o...

The Observer:   More Than Money: Inside the Knoedler Art Fakes Scandal .

In a review of works from the collection of Paul Allen at the Phillips, Pulitzer Prize winning critic Philip Kennicott tells us: "Bu...

The narrative of the week seems to be that we're seeing a "correction" in the art market.  See here , for example, and here . ...

By Eileen Kinsella and Sarah Cascone at artnet .  I'm (briefly) quoted.

Knoedler trial settles . UPDATE:   Here is the New York Times story.   Here is Eileen Kinsella at artnet ("It was an anticlimatic e...

" Due to 'unexpected developments', proceedings end abruptly today in Knoedler case just before Ann Freedman and Michael Hammer...

Ann Freedman has settled with the De Soles.  The case against the gallery continues.  "The settlement follows damaging testimony abou...

Noah Charney on the Knoedler trial.

From artnet's Cait Munro .

New York Times story here .

" I think she may have brought it over in her car ." ("It" being an $8.3 million "Rothko.") UPDATE:  Purch...

Brian Boucher has the story here . UPDATE:  More details about the charges here .

Run like hell . UPDATE:  Laura Gilbert:  " So far, seven of the 11 people listed have testified that they did not authenticate the wo...

" You do understand that all of the works were fake? "

" It's a bit rich ." UPDATE:  New York Times story here . UPDATE 2:  M.H. Miller here . UPDATE 3:  Laura Gilbert here . ...

M.H. Miller here . Jay Grimm here .

Brian Boucher has you covered . UPDATE:  Here's NPR on the case. UPDATE 2:  Jerry Saltz tweets:  " [Freedman] will get off. In...

The monkey selfie opinion has been released.  Background here .

Eugene Volokh thinks she will lose under New York law.  Sergio Muñoz Sarmiento agrees . Copyright Librarian Nancy Sims says it's a ...

Sarah Cascone reports here . UPDATE:  Some more general thoughts from Blake Gopnik.

Sparks flew . UPDATE:  Georgina Adam:  "' Secret Santa' seems a killer line ." UPDATE 2:  Art Advisor Jay Grimm is blo...

Recap here . UPDATE:  More from ARTnews here . UPDATE 2:  " Lawyer for Ann Freedman uses fiction film to defend his client. How app...

Day 1 of the Knoedler trial.

Bloomberg:   Manhattan's Next Super-Tall Condo Plan Faces Neighborhood Battle .  One of the issues is blocked light for a collector'...

Excellent preview from Graham Bowley and Colin Moynihan in the Times here . UPDATE:   Another from Laura Gilbert in The Art Newspaper. ...

The New York Post has a story today on the possible destruction of (my client) Dorothea Rockburne’s murals in the Sony building. The demo...

Quartz:   Museums are keeping a ton of the world's most famous art locked away in storage .

The copyright infringement suits by graffiti artists continue to pile up .  " Outlaws asserting their property rights ."

The Wall Street Journal has a preview here .

Felix Salmon on the latest art-world dust-up .

NYT :  "The Lego Group has said that it would no longer ask customers what they intend to do with bulk orders, following an outcry last...

Story here .  Background here .

The Rosales collection, quietly auctioned off .

Story here .  It involves a mural, painted by artist Katherine Craig on the side of a building in 2009. One interesting twist is that appare...

" U.S. District Judge William Orrick said in federal court in San Francisco that 'while Congress and the president can extend the p...

Artnet's Brian Boucher talks to some experts about the latest Richard Prince lawsuit , and the above quote, from Stanford's Paul Go...

Barron's :  "Our call: Expect the aggressive enforcement to continue indefinitely. It’s an inexpensive way for New York State to ra...

Purchase College's Jeff Taylor:   The secret to all great art forgeries .

Art Theft Baffles Illinois Museum .

Another photographer has sued Richard Prince for use of a Rastafarian image.  Should be an easy case to decide:  all the court has to do is...