I was proud to advise the Allentown Art Museum, which announced today that it has reached an agreement with the heirs of Henry and Hertha Bromberg concerning Portrait of George, Duke of Saxony by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop. Pursuant to the agreement, the painting will be auctioned at Christie’s in New York next year following educational programming focusing on the painting’s history. The Museum’s press release can be read here. The story was also addressed in an excellent article in The New York Times by Graham Bowley.
(Portrait of George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony, by Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop)
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Topics:
Graham Bowley,
Paris,
Washington Conference Principles,
Christie's,
Hamburg,
Lucas Cranach the Elder,
The New York Times,
Nazi-confiscated art,
Henry Bromberg,
Hertha Bromberg,
Martin Bromberg,
Max Weintraub,
Reichsfluchtsteuer,
Allen Loebl,
F. Kleinberger Gallery,
property inventory,
Allentown Art Museum,
Portrait of George the Bearded Duke of Saxony,
Porträt des Georg dem Bärtigen Herzog von Sachsen,
Vermögensverzeichnis,
Wildenstein
I attended today’s press conference at District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr.’s office in Manhattan at which a drawing by Egon Schiele, Seated Nude Woman, Front View, was transferred to the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum. I represent the family of Gustav (“Gus”) Papanek, who relinquished the drawing to the District Attorney earlier this year. This case spotlights, once again, the breadth of Nazi crimes more than 80 years later. The Grünbaum story has rightly received considerable coverage (including a chapter in my book A Tragic Fate—Law and Ethics in the Battle Over Nazi Looted Art), my clients’ story is not widely known. I was honored to represent them today and throughout the process.
(Today's ceremony)
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Topics:
Egon Schiele,
The New York Times,
Vienna,
Bern,
A Tragic Fate,
Eberhard Kornfeld,
Fritz Grünbaum,
Gustav (“Gus”) Papanek,
Galerie Gutekunst & Klipstein,
Alvin Bragg Jr.,
Seated Nude Woman Front View,
Ernst Papanek,
Helene Papanek
As Germany puts on the much-anticipated exhibition in Bonn of Cornelius Gurlitt’s disputed collection, a strange story has developed not too far away in Düsseldorf. The Stadtmuseum, which is administered by the city itself, had organized—but now cancelled—“Max Stern: from Düsseldorf to Montreal.” The exhibition was scheduled to open in February in Düsseldorf, before traveling to the Haifa art museum in September of 2018 and to the McCord Museum in Montreal in 2019. The city’s acknowledgement that the decision was based on a claim for restitution from the Max Stern Estate is a disturbing development that provides no sound reason to cancel a show about an important dealer who, it is undisputed, was a seminal figure of Nazi persecution.
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Topics:
Nuremberg laws,
Cologne,
Cornelius Gurlitt,
Germany,
The Art Newspaper,
Köln,
Nazi-looted art,
Düsseldorf,
The New York Times,
A Tragic Fate,
Max Stern from Düsseldorf to Montreal,
McCord Museum,
Reichskammer der bildenden Künste,
Dr. and Mrs. Max Stern Foundation,
Max Stern Restitution Project,
Girl from the Sabine Mountains,
Max Stern,
Haifa,
Francis Xavier Winterhalter,
Mädchen aus den Sabiner Bergen,
The Artist’s Children,
Wilhelm von Schadow,
Düsseldorf Kunstpalast,
Andreas Achenbach,
Sicilian Landscape,
Norwegian Landscape,
Galerie Max Stern,
Mayor Thomas Geisel
The fusion of street art, high fashion, and the law is hardly new, but the Italian designer Moschino’s latest foray into this genre has landed the company in court. Joseph Tierney, a well known graffiti artist who works under the pseudonym “Rime”, filed a complaint against Moschino and its creative director, Jeremy Scott, alleging copyright infringement, trademark violations under the Lanham Act, and unfair competition, and appropriation of name and likeness under California law. Moschino’s allegedly unauthorized use of his work has harmed the artist in numerous ways, Tierney alleges, not the least by opening him up to accusations of selling out. In the words of Tierney’s complaint: “nothing is more antithetical to the outsider ‘street cred’ that is essential to graffiti artists than association with European chic, luxury and glamour – of which Moschino is the epitome.” This theory of harm was something we talked about at the "Copyrights on the Street" panel at the Copyright Society of the USA meeting in Newport this year, and it is now being put to the test.
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Topics:
Joseph Tierney,
copyright management information,
Vandal Eyes,
Digital Millennium Copyright Act,
Rime,
The Wall Street Journal,
Graffiti Art,
17 U.S.C. § 1202,
Gigi Hadid,
Hollywood Reporter,
Jeremy Scott,
Copyright,
Moschino,
Lanham Act,
The New York Times
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Topics:
Maria Altmann,
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
National Socialists,
Third Reich,
artdaily.org,
Reuters,
United States Supreme Court,
Gestapo,
Haaretz,
Deutschlandradio. Deutsche Presse Agentur,
Robin Young,
the Guardian,
The Art Newspaper,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
The Wall Street Journal,
Deutsche Welle,
Santa Fe,
KRQE News 13,
the Observer,
Markus Stoetzel,
Die Erle,
Mel Urbach,
Nazis,
Advisory Commission,
3SAT,
ZDF,
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Washington DC,
Hermann Goering,
Private Wealth,
Restitution,
Sullivan & Worcester LLP,
Here & Now,
Gerald Stiebel,
World War II,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities,
flight tax,
Süddeutsche Zeitung,
Adolf Hitler,
United States District Court,
The New York Times,
Federal Republic of Germany,
BBC News Europe,
Alan Phillip,
Welfenschatz,
NPR,
PrivateArtInvestor,
ArtNet news
