The following are summaries of news reports pertaining to art law and art markets, organized by geographic regions for your browsing convenience. Wilson Elser's Art Law practice team will transition this service to our new Art Law Blog, due to launch in the near future.
UNITED STATES
Claude Monet's Haystacks Painting Sets a New World
Record for the First Impressionist Work to Sell for More than $100
Million at Auction
The Meules (Haystacks) painting (1890), part of the
Haystacks series by the celebrated French Impressionist Claude
Monet, is one of the most recognized images in art history. Last
week, the work sold at an auction in New York, breaking records for
the most expensive work by the artist ever sold and for the most
expensive Impressionist painting.
- The Art Newspaper: Monet's glowing haystacks set alight Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern art sale with a new £97m record
- BBC: Monet Haystacks painting sells for record $110.7m
California Judge Rules That Spanish Museum Has Good
Title to Disputed Pissarro Work
A Los Angeles court has ruled, after a 15-year legal battle, that
Spain's Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection can keep a Camille
Pissarro work, Rue Saint-Honoré,
Après-midi, Effet de Pluie (1897), claimed
to have been stolen by the Nazis. The painting's original
owners had traded the painting for their visa to escape Nazi
Germany in 1939. The court, applying Spanish law, determined that
the museum had obtained good title to the work because there was no
way that the museum could have known that it was stolen.
Virginia Court Rules that Two of Charlottesville's
Confederate Statues Are War Memorials
In 2017, Charlottesville's City Council voted to remove a
statue depicting Confederate General Robert E. Lee, a decision that
sparked a protest rally in Charlottesville that turned deadly and a
national debate as to the fate of Confederate monuments. Since the
protest, the City Council voted to remove the statue of Confederate
General Stonewall Jackson. A lawsuit challenging the City
Council's decisions followed; one of the arguments raised was
based on a 1904 law giving the power to remove war memorials to the
state as opposed to local governments that may have authorized the
building of the war memorial. In ruling on a motion for a partial
summary judgment, the court held that the statues are protected by
the state's law as war memorials. Other legal issues raised by
this litigation remain unresolved, including the constitutionality
of the state law in question. The matter is set for trial in
September 2019.
- The Art Newspaper: Virginia judge rules that two Confederate statues in Charlottesville are war memorials
- Smithsonian.com: Judge Rules Charlottesville's Confederate Statues Are War Monuments
Art Collective Meow Wolf Endeavors to Become the Disney
of Experiences
Meow Wolf, an art collective started six years ago with a handful
of artists, has broken ground on a $60 million flagship project in
Denver, Colorado, with more art exhibit space than the Guggenheim;
a 75,000-square-foot permanent installation in Washington; and a
50,000-square-foot section of AREA15 in Las Vegas − an
"immersive bazaar," "experiential retail and
entertainment complex," and a place where "artists are
front and center." Boosters claim that Meow Wolf will be the
Disney of the 21st century, offering fresh, surprising, immersive
experiences bound to lure consumers from behind their computer
screens.
Judge Allows Claim against Knoedler Gallery's Former
Owner to Proceed
The art world was rocked a few years ago when it was revealed that
fake art purported to be the works of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko,
and Willem de Kooning were allegedly sold for millions of dollars
through the Knoedler Gallery, a venerable and respected gallery in
existence since 1846. In a lawsuit filed by two collectors against
the gallery and its former owner, the court dismissed the claims
sounding in fraud and racketeering as against the individual
defendant but allowed the claims based on the "piercing of the
corporate veil" theory to proceed.
- ArtNet: A Judge Rules That Knoedler Gallery's Former Owner Could Be Held Personally Responsible for the Many Fakes It Sold
- The Art Newspaper: Knoedler owner Michael Hammer may be liable for fraud over fakes, New York judge finds
The Dia Art Foundation to Break Ground on Upgrades to
Dia:Chelsea
The Dia Art Foundation is merging three buildings it owns in
Chelsea into a single art venue totaling 32,500 square feet. The
new space will dedicate 20,000 square feet to exhibitions,
programming, and a new bookstore. The renovated Dia:Chelsea is
scheduled to reopen in fall 2020.
Bronx Photographer Known for Documenting 1970s-1980s
Alternative Culture Gets First Retrospective on 50th Anniversary of
Stonewall Riots
For eleven years, Bronx-born photographer Alvin Baltrop documented
the alternative culture that emerged in New York City in the 1970s
and 1980s. This summer, the Bronx Museum of the Arts will exhibit
Baltrop's photographs, including many that have never been made
public, at the late artist's first-ever retrospective. The
exhibition is one of several for the Stonewall 50 Consortium, which
is organizing programming in celebration of the 50th anniversary of
the events known as the Stonewall Riots, one of the precursors to
the international rise of the Gay Liberation and LGBTQ+
movements.
EUROPE
The Hermitage Is Sending Two Leonardos to
Italy
Amidst the intense competition among museums to borrow works by
Leonardo da Vinci during the 500th anniversary of his death,
Hermitage's Benois Madonna (1478-80) and Litta
Madonna (1490-92) will return for brief shows to the
artist's country of birth. Only around 15 of da Vinci's
autograph works survive and they rarely travel. It remains to be
seen whether either work will travel to the Louvre later this year
for the museum's own blockbuster show previewed for this
fall.
- The Art Newspaper: Italy secures loan of Leonardo da Vinci's Benois Madonna from Russia's Hermitage museum
Photo London Works to Rescind Partnership with Brunei
Following Protests
The annual photography fair Photo London is working to distance
itself from a partnership entered into earlier this year with the
Dorchester Hotel and 45 Park Lane, two London hotels owned by the
Sultan of Brunei, following a backlash and the potential threat of
boycotts of the fair after Brunei recently enacted laws that make
extramarital or homosexual sex punishable by death by stoning.
- The Art Newspaper: Photo London rescinds partnership with Brunei's Dorchester Collection after protests
German Court Holds That Dismissal of Scientologist from
Munich Art House Was Unjustified
Munich's Labor Court held that the dismissal of the personnel
director of the Munich Haus Der Kunst (House of Art), who
had his relationship with the well-known institution terminated
after more than 20 years due to his Scientology membership, was
unjustified under the religious freedom law. Following the
court's decision, parties resolved the matter by
settlement.
Experts Discover Image of Cupid Under the Surface of One
of Vermeer's Greatest Paintings
Laboratory tests have determined that Johannes Vermeer's
Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, currently hanging
in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, contains an
image of Cupid that had been covered up. For many years, the
painting originally pictured a woman reading a letter at a window
in front of a blank wall. It had been thought that Vermeer had
covered up Cupid himself. However, x-ray, infrared reflectology,
and microscopic analysis has revealed that the painting had been
over-painted at least several decades after the artist's death.
The museum plans to restore the work according to Vermeer's
original intention.
ASIA
Looters Are Selling Stolen Syrian and Iraqi Art on
Facebook
Facebook reported that it has removed 49 groups after a BBC
investigation discovered a statue from the ancient city of Palmyra
and a complete Roman mosaic from Aleppo among the artifacts listed
for sale. Archeologists believe that Facebook has barely scratched
the surface of banning these networks, some of which claim more
than 120,000 members.
British Artist Will Become First Foreign Artist to Show
at Beijing's Forbidden Palace
Box-office-record-breaking British artist Anish Kapoor has been
given permission to install monumental works in Beijing's
Imperial Ancestral Temple, on the doorstep of the Forbidden Palace.
While other Western artists have exhibited their works in China,
none have installed their works so close to the Forbidden City.
Kapoor recently opened a show in Santiago, Chile, and in the fall
he will return to New York with his first show in Lisson
Gallery.
AFRICA
Ghana Exhibits at Venice Biennale
This year's Venice Art Biennale featured the first-ever Ghana
pavilion, which contained works by such artists as the
Turner-prize-nominated painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and
Nigeria-based Ghana-born El Anatsui. The pavilion was designed by
architect Sir David Adjaye, who also designed the Smithsonian
National Museum of African American History and Culture in
Washington, D.C. The exhibition is titled Ghana Freedom,
after ET Mensah's song composed when Ghana was established in
1957.
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