The Washington Business Journal‘s Rebecca Cooper tweeted today from the courtroom today that District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Robert Okun has allowed in part the motion to intervene in the Corcoran Gallery cy prés petition. Reports are that current students of the College of Art + Design, as well as current Corcoran employees were allowed to intervene, while intervention was denied to the organization “Save the Corcoran” and past employees and students.
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Topics: Donn Zaretsky, Deaccession, Washington Business Journal, National Gallery of Art, Save the Corcoran, George Washington University, Lee Rosenbaum, Rebecca Cooper, Cy Pres, Judge Robert Okun, District of Columbia Superior Court, Corcoran College of Art + Design, District Attorney General Irvin Nathan, Trusts, Corcoran Gallery, District of Columbia, Museums
The Washington, DC District Attorney Irvin Nathan has filed his brief concerning the Corcoran Gallery’s cy prés petition to reform the museum and College of Art + Design with the National Gallery of Art and George Washington University. To put it succinctly, “The District supports entry of the Proposed Order because the proposed cy pres relief will allow the Corcoran’s assets to continue to be used in D.C. consistently with the charitable purposes to which they have been dedicated.” The brief also addresses and bears on the question of the “Save the Corcoran” motion to intervene and standing, which will be argued tomorrow (which the underlying petition will not). The DA brief leans heavily on the downside of the alternative: deaccession leading to industry sanction, which may be a little circular.
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Topics: Deaccession, National Gallery of Art, Save the Corcoran, George Washington University, Cy Pres, Corcoran College of Art + Design, District Attorney General Irvin Nathan, Trusts, Corcoran Gallery, District of Columbia, Museums
The trustees of the Corcoran Gallery and the Corcoran College of Art +Design have responded to the recent motion by a group of students, faculty, staff, and interested supporters have filed a motion to intervene in the Corcoran’s cy prés petition to merge with the National Gallery of Art and George Washington University. The proposed interveners, led by a group called “Save the Corcoran,” argues that the modification is unjustified and fails to take alternatives into account. More seriously, the motion to intervene accuses the trustees of “peculiar and egregious mismanagement.” We reviewed the motion when it was filed. While it goes over the case against merger, the challenge they face is demonstrating a specific and particular interest not already represented by a party to the case. One never knows, but that seemed unlikely to us. Even if unsuccessful, however, the motion lays out a passionate case against the merger that will be in the record one way or another.
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Topics: Deaccession, National Gallery of Art, Save the Corcoran, George Washington University, Cy Pres, Corcoran College of Art + Design, District Attorney General Irvin Nathan, Trusts, Washington Post, Corcoran Gallery, District of Columbia, Museums
After months of uncertainty about the future of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Corcoran’s Trustee’s filed a petition on June 17, 2014 for cy pres—to revise the terms of the trust that administers the museum and the Corcoran College of Art + Design. The Corcoran’s financial condition, they argue, make the current situation untenable and in the long run impossible, to sustain. The petition proposes an arrangement with the National Gallery of Art (NGA) for the bulk of the artwork, and with George Washington University (GW) for the college functions, all to sustain the mission of the trust “as nearly as possible.”
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Topics: Frank Gehry, Deaccession, National Gallery of Art, William Corcoran, George Washington University, Philadelphia, Rule 24, Renwick Building, Cy Pres, Washington DC, Flagg Building, Corcoran College of Art + Design, William Flagg, Trusts, Museums, Friends of the Barnes, Corcoran Gallery of Art, intervention, Senator William Clark, Barnes Foundation
As we reported last week, the U.S. District Court dismissed claims against the Fred Jones, Jr. Museum of Art, the University of Oklahoma, and associated Oklahoma defendants, over title to the Camille Pissarro painting La bergère rentrent des moutons (a case in which I represented the David Findlay Jr. Gallery).
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Topics: David Findlay Jr. Inc., due process, third party beneficiary, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Raoul Meyer, Nazi Occupation, American Alliance of Museums, University of Oklahoma, Aaron and Clara Weitzenhofer, Judge Colleen McMahon, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, AAM, Vichy, La bergère rentrent des moutons, Association of Art Museum Directors, Restitution, David Findlay Galleries, World War II, CPLR 301, Switzerland, Leone Meyer, long art statute, Camille Pissarro, Museums, personal jurisdiction, AAMD, Christoph Bernoulli, Swiss judgment
The FBI said today that the bureau has received “confirmed” sightings of the works of art stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. Thieves dressed as police robbed the museum of thirteen major works of art on March 18, 1990, including works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet. Read carefully, however, the story is nothing new at all, just a retelling of last year’s “news” released around the anniversary of the theft and a raft of conjecture.
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Topics: Gardner Heist, Philadelphia, Robert Guarente, Degas, and Robert Gentile, Carmello Merlino, The Storm on the Sea of Gallilee, Manet Richard DesLauriers, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston Globe, FBI, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Museums, Special Agent Geoff Kelly, La Cosa Nostra
Following confirmation by his attorney that Cornelius Gurlitt had left a will, it was further revealed yesterday that Gurlitt had not merely left his collection of paintings with substantial Nazi-looting questions to a museum outside Germany, but that he had named the Kunstmuseum Bern itself as his sole heir. The Kunstmuseum is the oldest museum in Switzerland, with more than 50,000 objects that include works by Vincent van Gogh, Franz Marc and Henri Matisse. The museum responded by releasing a statement that:
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Topics: Schwabinger Kunstfund, Bad Aussee, Cornelius Gurlitt, Gurlitt Task Force, Germany, Nazi-looted art, Gurlitt Collection, Vincent Van Gogh, Entartete Kunst, Salzburg, Restitution, World War II, Switzerland, Austria, Franz Marc, Kunstmuseum Bern, Museums, Nazi Raubkunst, Henri Matisse
The Baltimore Sun reports that U.S. District Judge Judge Leonie Brinkema allowed the Baltimore Museum of Art’s motion for summary judgment at today’s hearing in Alexandria, Virginia. That means that the BMA is the owner of the painting, not claimant Martha Fuqua, who argued that she bought the painting at a 2009 flea market in good faith. Barring an appeal (or perhaps even with one), the painting will soon return to Baltimore from where it was stolen in 1951.
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Topics: hearsay, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Potomack Company, flea market Renoir, ancient documents, Der Spiegel, Martha Fuqua, Baltimore Museum of Art, Litigation, business records exception, summary judgment, Museums, Leonie Brinkema, Paysage Bords de Seine, FRCP 56
Judge Leonie Brinkema will hold a hearing tomorrow morning in Alexandria, Virginia on the Baltimore Museum of Art's motion for summary judgment to claim ownership to an 1879 Renoir painting Paysage Bords de Seine that the museum maintains was stolen in 1951. Claimant Martha Fuqua filed a motion to strike the BMA's reply to her opposition, arguing that the museum was introducing new evidence. The court swiftly denied the motion, and noted that the museum was responding to arguments she made for the first time in her opposition to the summary judgment motion (but gave her permission to file a sur-reply).
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Topics: hearsay, authentication, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Potomack Company, flea market Renoir, ancient documents, Der Spiegel, Martha Fuqua, Baltimore Museum of Art, Litigation, business records exception, summary judgment, Museums, Paysage Bords de Seine, FRCP 56
The last remaining claimants for the 1879 painting by Pierre Auguste Renoir, Paysage bords de Seine that surfaced in the possession of a woman who claimed to have found it at a flea market, have filed summary judgment papers seeking final disposition of the case without need of a trial. The Baltimore Museum of Art has made its case that the painting was stolen from the museum in 1951, while Martha Fuqua alleges that she purchased it in good faith at a Virginia flea market in 2009 before attempting to sell it at the Potomack Company. The U.S. government seized the painting from the auction house and filed an interpleader action to determine the true owner; the other principle claimant (Fireman’s Fund Insurance) dropped out of the case last fall without explanation, apparently pursuant to an assignment. Heirs of the original donor to the BMA never responded or made claim to the painting. The case will now turn at summary judgment on the hearsay rule, a topic that have bedeviled generations of law students and lawyers.
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Topics: hearsay, authentication, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Potomack Company, flea market Renoir, ancient documents, Gurlitt, Martha Fuqua, Baltimore Museum of Art, Litigation, business records exception, summary judgment, Museums, Paysage Bords de Seine, FRCP 56
