I will be speaking at the 5th annual Art Crime Conference held by ARCA (Association for Research into Crimes Against Art) in Amelia, Italy between June 21-23, 2013. My talk will address Holocaust restitution litigation in the United States, similar to the paper I gave in Maastricht in March but covering important more recent developments as well (notably the Hungary case).
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Topics: cultural property, Vernon Rapley, Charlie Hill, Art Crime Conference, Howard Spiegler, Maastricht, Carabinieri TPC collectively, Association for Research into Crimes Against Art, John Merryman, Neil Brodie, Jason Felch, Larry Rothfield, Dick Drent, Karl von Habsburg, Restitution, World War II, Lord Colin Renfrew, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Paolo Giorgio Ferri, Stuttgart Detective Ernst Schöller, Francesco Rutelli, Amelia, Ralph Frammolino, ARCA, Italy, Norman Palmer, Dr. Joris Kila, Dr. George H. O. Abungu
Two years after a U.S. District Court decision that sent shock waves through the contemporary art world, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed that earlier finding that Richard Prince infringed the copyright of Patrick Cariou. Instead, the appeals court ruled that all but five Prince works at issue were fair use under the Copyright Act, remanding the case to re-analyze those five works. It is as dramatic a win for appropriation art as the lower court decision was a chill on that art.
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Topics: Andy Warhol Foundation, Richard Prince, Copyright Act, Graduation, Second Circuit, Canal Zone, Patrick Cariou, Charlie Company, appropriation art, Meditation, Yes Rasta, Clifford Wallace, Warhol, Cézanne, Copyright, Canal Zone (2008), de Kooning, Picasso, Fair Use, Google, Canal Zone (2007)
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has reinstated the entire set of claims brought by the Herzog heirs against the Hungarian National Gallery, the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Applied Arts, and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. The appellate decision focuses on the claim that an agreement was reached after WWII to hold the paintings for their owners, not the claims relating to their wartime fate. In so doing, the court pushed to the side a whole range of defenses for sovereign defendants that have been increasingly successful. The court also reinstated claims to ownership of 11 works whose title was previously litigated, in an opinion that sets a low bar for collateral attacks on foreign judgments.
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Topics: David de Csepel, Nazi Germany, Angela Maria Herzog, Hungary, WWII, Viktor Orban, res judicata, Julia Alice Herzog, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Baron Mor Lipot Herzog, Hungarian National Gallery, Jori Finkel, Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, Adolf Eichmann, FSIA, expropriation exception”, Restitution, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2), 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(3), World War II, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Alison Frankel, András Herzog, Janos Lazar, Museum of Applied Arts
After a report from the United States that settlement talks in the civil forfeiture case against the Mask of Ka Nefer Nefer at the St. Louis Art Museum were sufficiently promise to suspend the briefing schedule in the Court of Appeals, the government has advised the court that those talks have failed. The government’s appellate brief is now due June 3, 2013.
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Topics: Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, St. Louis Art Museum, Collections, Customs
The Boston Globe addressed this week Sullivan & Worcester LLP client Mark Rappaport’s dispute with Boston University professor Ray Carney concerning the custody of Rappaport’s original film archive. My partner Kevin Colmey has represented Rappaport in this regard for over a year, and I appeared on Rappaport’s behalf at a hearing last year as well.
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Topics: Local Color, The Silver Screen/Color Me Lavender, Chain Letters, Mark Rappaport, Boston University, The Boston Globe, Casual Relations, Impostors, Collections, Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, The Scenic Route, From The Journals of Jean Seberg
The 1879 Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting entitled “Paysage Bords de Seine” that was discovered at a Virgina flea market, but which may also have been stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art more than sixty years ago, is now the subject of a federal court case in Alexandria, Virginia. The United States has seized the painting and filed an action, known as "interpleader," to sort out the proper ownership of the work.
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Topics: Sadie A. May, Fireman’s Fund Insurance, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, interpleader, Seine, Amalie Adler Ascher, Rule 22 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Virginia, Herbert L. May, Manassas, Baltimore Museum of Art, 28 U.S.C. § 1335, Doreen Bulger, Adams Davidson Galle, The Potomack Company, Washington Post, Museums, Marcia “Martha” Fuqua, Paysage Bords de Seine, Civil Forfeiture, Ted Cooper
The Sullivan & Worcester LLP Art and Museum Law Group has issued a new client advisory about the Supreme Court’s decision in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. As analyzed in the advisory, the Court has extended the “first sale” doctrine of the U.S. Copyright Act to copies of protected works that were lawfully manufactured and first sold abroad and later re-sold in the United States, in a result strongly advocated by United States museums. The decision abrogates the earlier view that the “first sale” doctrine applied to copies manufactured outside the United States only if an authorized first sale occurred within the United States. The implications are significant for museums and anyone engaged in visual arts commerce who otherwise might have had to search for permission to import or display works made overseas.
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Topics: Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons Inc., first sale doctrine, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Copyright, Art and Museum Law Group
For the second time in less than four months, a complaint has been filed against the Metropolitan Museum of Art over its admissions fee policy. Whereas the November, 2012 action seeks injunctive relief to compel the Met to change its practices, the newest case has been filed as a class action and seeks money damages as well. The Museum has responded forcefully in a statement by Director Thomas P. Campbell challenging the new case.
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Topics: Theodore Grunewald, New York City, General Obligations Law § 349, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Filip Saska, Patricia Nicholson, Stephen Michelman, Tomáš Nadrchal, Thomas P. Campbell, Museums
I'm still working on my writeup of last week's terrific Art and Heritage Disputes conference in Maastricht, but with no rest for the weary I'm looking ahead to ALI-CLE's annual Legal Issues in Museum Administration conference next week in Chicago. As usual, the program and faculty are world-class. Hope to see you there.
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Topics: Events, Legal Issues in Museum Adm, ALI-CLE
The FBI issued a press release today in which it states that with a “high degree” of confidence, it has identified the thieves responsible for the 1990 theft from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. This development is remarkable for what it says, and what it does not, and deserving of a skeptical view given its timing. The FBI release adds sufficient details to rise above the rumor mill, but it raises as many questions as it answers.
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Topics: Edgar Degas, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Gardner Heist, The Concert, Govaert Flinck, Chez Tortoni, 1990, Edouard Manet, La Sortie de Pesage, Anthony Amore, Rembrandt, Tom Mashberg, Vermeer, Three Mounted Jockeys, Program for an artistic soiree 1 & 2, March 18, Museums, Richard DesLauriers, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Theft, James “Whitey” Bulger, Cortege aux Environs de Florence, A Lady and Gentleman in Black, Landscape with Obelisk
