The Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts at Columbia Law School, the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, and the New York chapter of the Responsible Art Market Initiative (of which I am co-chair with Birgit Kurtz) have organized an event on March 1, 2024 to be held at Columbia Law School entitled “Protecting Cultural Property: The 1954 Hague Convention at 70.”

Topics: Jane Levine, Philippa Loengard, Kernochan Center for Law Media and the Arts, DePaul University College of Law, Columbia Law School, Sotheby's, Patty Gerstenblith, Responsible Art Market, Lucian Simmons

I am pleased to be a presenter and panelist at an event later this month on a topic of evergreen currency: museums and deaccessioning. As we’ve covered here, the pandemic has put pressure on museums in ways that were hard to foresee only 12 months ago. The response by museums, museum associations, and attorneys general has taken a variety of approaches. Just in the last year alone from Brooklyn, to Baltimore, to Syracuse, and most recently the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whether, when, and how museums should handle sales of their collections remains a volatile subject. 

Topics: Donn Zaretsky, Dallas Museum of Art, New York University, Deaccessioning, Williams College, Christie's, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Sotheby's, 17 U.S.C. § 106A(a)(3)(A)-(B), Nicholas M. O'Donnell, ARTnews, Jakob Dupont, Sarah Douglas, Brooklyn Museum, Syracuse University, Anne Pasternak, Stephanie Johnson-Cunningham, Museum Hue, Dean Craig M. Boise, Andrew Saluti, Agustín Arteaga, Joseph Thompson, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Courtney Aladro, Mark Gold, James Sheehan, Steven Lubar, Brown University, Everson Museum of Art, Emily Stokes-Rees, Cara Starke, Sally Yerkovich, Brian Frye, University of Kentucky College of Law, Silberman Zaretsky, PC, Peter Dean, Randolph College, Andria Derstine, Oberlin College, William Eiland, Carl Van Vechten Art Gallery, Christy Coleman, Ken Turino, Nina del Rio, Hindman Auctions, Michael Shapiro, Allison Whiting, Julia Courtney, Christopher Bedford, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Julia Pelta, Fisher Museum, Thomas Campbell, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Linda Harrison, Glenn D. Lowry, The Museum of Modern Art, Tracey Riese, Melody Kanschat, Museum Leadership Institute, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Betsy Bradley, Mississippi Museum of Art, Michael O’Hare, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley, Erin Richardson, Frank & Glory, Smith Green & Gold LLP, New York State Department of Law, Michael Conforti, Amy Whitaker, Stefanie Jandl, Deborah Kass, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Meleko Mokgosi, Wendy Red Star, Carrie Mae Weems, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Roxana Velásquez, The San Diego Museum of Art, University of Georgia Museum of Art, Jamaal Sheats, Fisk University, Kristina Durocher, Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Historic New England, Lawrence Yerdon, Strawbery Banke Museum, Scott Wands, American Association for State and Local History, When is it Okay to Sell the Monet?, Glenn Adamson, Bern University of the Arts, Michelle Millar, The Newark Museum of Art

As promised, here are the details and registration information for the Responsible Art Market initiative's inaugural US event on May 23, 2019 at Columbia University.  The preliminary program is below (some sponsors still pending), sign up today today to attend (free)! 

Topics: Jane Levine, Switzerland, Appraisers Association of America, Suzanne Gyorgy, Sotheby's, Megan Noh, ARTnews, Art Law Centre, University of Geneva, Responsible Art Market initiative, Justine Ferland, CitiBank, PAIAM, Sarah Douglas, Birgit Kurtz, Gibbons P.C., Rebecca Fine, Athena Art Finance Corp., Pryor Cashman, Linda Selvin, Jennifer Mass, Scientific Analysis of Fine Art, LLC

I am pleased to be speaking on a panel at the upcoming Global Auction House Summit presented by Invaluable, the leading technology partner for online auction services.  I will be presenting on the issues of Managing Reputation & Risk, and look forward to a lively discussion.  The conference schedule is reprinted below, and registration is available here. 

Topics: Auctions, London, Melanie Gerlis, The Art Newspaper, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Events, Sotheby's, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Art Loss Register, Real Estate Development, Affordable Housing, Institutional Shareholder Services, Proxy Voting Policies, John Albrecht, US Trust, ARTMYN, Cuseum, Andrea Danese, Athena Art Finance, Jakob Dupont, Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers of Fine Art, Lori Hotz, Lobus, Bas Kuiper, Sophie MacPherson, Julian Radcliffe, Global Auction House Summit, Leonard Joel, Martina Batovic, Dorotheum, Evan Beard, Anna Brady, Anthony Calnek, Brendan Ciecko, Pierre Fautrel, Obvious, Andy Foster, Phillips, Financial Times, Dr. Anna-Sophie Hollenders, Raue LLP, AMFAD, Christopher McKeogh, Gene Shapiro, Sarah Wendell Sherrill, Mary-Alice Stack, Creative United, Rob Weisberg, Invaluable, Georgina C. Winthrop, Grogan & Company, Shapiro Auctions

I am pleased to be taking part in a symposium at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles on September 26, 2018, “The Future of Nazi Looted Art Recovery in the US and Abroad.”  Presented by Cypress LLP and the Sotheby’s Institute of Art/Claremont Graduate University, the program assembles an impressive group of presenters in whose company I’m grateful to be included.  Registration is available here, and the schedule is below:

Topics: Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Nazi-looted art, Simon Frankel, Commission for Looted Art in Europe, Covington & Burling LLP, Anne Webber, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Sotheby's, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Daniel McClean, Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act, HEAR Act, Isabel von Klitzing, The Orpheus Clock, Simon Goodman, Lucian Simmons, Eyal Dolev, Jonathan Petropolous, Claremont McKenna College, The Faustian Bargain, Laurence Eisenstein, Eisenstein Malanchuk LLP, Lothar Fremy, Rosbach & Fremy, Nixon Peabody LLP, Mark Labaton, Getty Institute, Bob Muller, René Gimpel, Cypress LLP, Jonathan Neil, Skirball Center, The Art World in Nazi Germany, Dr. Lynn Rother, Thaddeus Stauber, Stephen Clark

The idea of moral rights continues to be a notable difference between European and American intellectual property rights with respect to visual arts. Last week’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in a case brought by artist Chuck Close and others addressing the California Resale Royalty Act (the CRRA) underscores those distinctions. In holding that the CRRA is mostly preempted by federal copyright law and thus can be applied to entitle artists to secondary royalties only for sales of art in a single calendar year—1977—the 9th Circuit affirmed the skepticism with which American law continues to regard anything other than classic copyright. Given the failure of efforts to pass national legislation to provide for resale royalties, this decision is probably the end of the line for the foreseeable future in the U.S. for droit de suite, the term of art used to describe the concept.

There is, for better or worse, clearly no political constituency for resale royalties in the U.S. As I told Law360, and as we’ve opined before about the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), property rights are in many ways a quintessential American policy. We all reflected on the Declaration of Independence last week, and its proclamation of the primacy of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—which revised John Locke’s famous statement that governments are instituted to secure “life, liberty, and property.” Copyright is and always will be a limitation on absolute ownership, but Americans guard those limitations jealously. There is little sign that will soon change.

Topics: American Royalties Too Act, Chuck Close, Commerce Clause, Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990, Christie's, Cal. Civ. Code § 986(a), VARA, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Dormant Commerce Clause, Preemption, droit de suite, California Resale Royalty Act, U.S. Constitution, Sotheby's, eBay, CRRA, Declaration of Independence, Copyright Act of 1976, Morseburg v. Baylon, John Locke, Supremacy Clause, 1909 Copyright Act

Since the passage in 2016 of the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act, many commenters (here included) have grappled with what the implications of the law will be on the scope and frequency of future claims.  Even as litigants are faced with policy arguments about whether individual claims belong in U.S. courts—arguments that the HEAR Act should have put to rest—it is occasionally worthwhile to consider how prior cases would have been affected.  Such analysis can draw into relief why the law was such a significant step forward.  This week, news that a painting by Vincent Van Gogh once owned by Elizabeth Taylor will go to auction again provides one such example.  A beautiful painting in the collection of the biggest movie star in the world makes for a great sales pitch, but missing in the coverage is any mention of Margarethe Mauthner, a German Jew who owned the painting before fleeing the Nazi regime.  The exact circumstances under which she lost possession of the painting are unclear, but those circumstances might have had the chance to be determined had the HEAR Act been passed earlier.  The importance of that opportunity is worth considering as the law is assessed going forward. 

Topics: Margarethe Mauthner, Nazi-looted art, Van Gogh, Christie's, Holocaust Victims Redress Act, Sotheby's, Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act, HEAR Act, A Tragic Fate, Vue de l'asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Rémy, Alfred Wolf, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Cassirer

Topics: Norman Rockwell, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Sotheby's, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Pittsfield, Berkshire Museum, Zenas Crane, Hudson River School, Frederic Edwin Church, Shuffleton’s Barbershop, Maura Healey, Massachusetts Appeals Court

Sullivan & Worcester LLP has filed an appeal on behalf of its clients, the members of the Berkshire Museum who sued to enjoin the museum’s sale of 40 works of art and sculpture.  The appeal is brought as a result of the Berkshire County Superior Court’s November 7, 2017 denial of their request for an injunction, and dismissal of the case (before the Appeals Court utlimately enjoined the sale until at least December).  That Superior Court order denied not only the members’ request, but also a motion by another group that include Norman Rockwell’s sons and the motion by Attorney General Maura Healey to pause the sale originally scheduled for November 13, 2017 at Sotheby’s in New York—a sale that would have included Rockwell’s Shuffleton’s Barbershop and other masterpieces. 

Topics: Norman Rockwell, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Sotheby's, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Berkshire Museum, Zenas Crane, Shuffleton’s Barbershop, Attorney General, Maura Healey, Berkshire County Superior Court

Forty Masterpieces of American and European Art Scheduled for Auction

Topics: Norman Rockwell, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Sotheby's, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Pittsfield, Zenas Crane, Trustees of the Berkshire Museum, Hudson River School, Frederic Edwin Church, Pieter de Hooch, Shuffleton’s Barbershop, Shaftsbury Blacksmith Shop