Art Law Blog : New York Art Law Lawyer & Attorney : Fox Rothschild Law Firm : Theft, Intellectual Property, Institutional Negotiation : Manhattan, New York City

Pop star, Chris Brown, famous for his recent run-ins with the law and public break up with Rihanna, is now famous for scaring his neighbors with colorful street art goblins painted on a retaining wall at his Hollywood Hills home. According to recent reports, Brown has been the target of angry neighbors who claim that the monster-like figures are not only scaring children but devaluing the aesthetic beauty of the area.  The city of Los Angeles responded to the neighbors' complaints by citing Brown for unpermitted art, which includes a fine of $376. The citation allows Brown thirty (30) days to remove the art.  Brown’s attorney has commented that this is a first amendment issue and that Brown is prepared to fight.   

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Ralph Esmerian, jeweler, art collector and former chairman of the now defunct Folk Art Museum in New York City, is currently serving a six-year prison term for wire fraud and other charges.  As part of his fraudulent scheme, Esmerian, promised to donate 263 works of art to the Folk Art Museum in 2005.  At the same time, Esmerian used the same works of art as collateral to secure multimillion-dollar loans from Sotheby’s and Christie’s.  The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York recently approved the sale of all but 53 of the works at forthcoming Sotheby’s auctions.  Under an approved settlement agreement, the Folk Art Museum was permitted to keep 53 of the most valuable works and the balance was to be sold at auction.  Proceeds of the auction will be used to pay unsecured creditor claims in the bankruptcy. Sotheby’s and Christie’s each have a claim against the Esmerian estate.  Christie’s filed an objection against the Sotheby’s sales in the bankruptcy proceeding, which alleged that Sotheby’s intimidated the trustee into granting it authority to auction Esmerian’s collection. 

In other related news, the vacant Folk Art Museums’ building, which is located next to New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is slated for demolition.  According to reports, MoMA is set to take over the space and has indicated that the destruction was necessary because the current structure does not demonstrate acceptable esthetics.  The decision to raze the building has brought much criticism. 

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As a supplement to its highly acclaimed publications devoted to the state of the global art market, Skate’s Art Market Research recently launched its latest publication entitled Skate’s Focus. In its selection of the country of Poland, regarded as a “young but innovative and quickly growing art market in central Europe,” for the pilot issue Skate’s partners with local art market specialists to present an accurate and timely view of the country’s art market from the inside. In this manner, Skate’s Focus uniquely provides a dual perspective of the selected country, namely, the “global market presence of native artists” and the “performance of the country’s domestic art market.” The leading Polish magazine devoted to art, Art&Business Magazine, teams up with Skate’s for the current report in the inaugural issue of Skate’s Focus.

The current report of Skate’s Focus is organized into two parts. In the first part, Skate’s provides an overview of the Polish art market from a global perspective and devotes this part to several native artists, including Tamara de Lempicka, Roman Opalka, Henryk Siemiradzki, Piotr Uklanski, and Max Weber. In the second part, Skate’s highlights Poland’s local market along with a detailed overview of the country’s auction trading. This second part includes a wealth of information, such as annual turnover figures since 1990 to present, background of the leading local auction houses, geographical distribution of auction trading, investment performance of the country’s art, key artists on the market, and the price structure of the country’s art pursuant to various criteria.

Skate’s Focus concludes that one of the “most striking features” of Poland’s art market is the significant separation between those artists who represent the country on a global scale and those local artists who are active nearly exclusively at Polish auctions.  It is very rare for artists who have achieved international acclaim and monetary appreciation to have their respective works auctioned in their home country, rather such works are traded at the big international auction houses, namely, Christie’s and Sotheby’s. For the locally established artists who have not yet surpassed the domestic market and the young contemporary artists who are at the start of their careers, the Polish auction market is the typical venue where such artists’ works are actively traded.

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A West Virginia woman who purchased an authenticate miniature painting by renowned French impressionist painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, for $7 at a flea market along with other trinkets, is fighting in a Virginia federal court to keep ownership of the small work known as “Paysage bords de Seine” (On the Shore of the Seine).  According to reports, prior to authenticating the painting, the woman stored the diminutive painting in a plastic trash bag for over two years. However, after the work was offered for auction last year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stopped the sale and confiscated the work on the grounds that it had been stolen from a Baltimore museum in 1951. The woman argues that she is an innocent buyer who should retain the painting. The federal government filed an action to determine ownership of the work last month in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.  Each party has been instructed by the court to submit written pleadings setting forth the legal basis for the ownership interest in the Renoir.

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The Philadelphia Antique Show will be held April 12^th-15^th  at the Philadelphia Convention Center in Center City, Philadelphia. Like last year’s event, this year the Philadelphia Antique Show, which has been celebrated for fifty-two (52) years, will include works of art through the mid-twentieth century. Katharine Eyre, the event’s chair, noted that “the combination of modern art and objects alongside exemplary antiques of the American home will attract an audience of serious art collectors, curators, and art enthusiasts, as well as invite returning patrons to experience this must-attend event.”  To be accurate – I guess the Philadelphia Antique Show should consider changing its name because for an object to be an “antique” it must be at least one hundred years old.  I have to chuckle because on a trip down South a few years back, my husband and I were traveling on a quiet road in Virginia dappled with artisans and antique shops when we saw a sign that read “Antiques Made Daily” – it still makes me laugh.

As part of this April event, the Pewter Collectors’ Club of America (PCCA) will present Pewter: The Philadelphia Story as the 2013 loan exhibit for the event. In conjunction with the PCCA display, on Saturday, April 13th from 1:00-2:00 p.m. Richard B. Benson, the current President of the PCCA, will present an illustrated lecture on the Business and Craftsmanship of colonial era Philadelphia pewterers. Additionally, on Sunday, April 14th from 1:00-2:00 p.m. acclaimed architect, Gil Schafer, will give a talk - The Great American House: Tradition for the Way We Live Now - in which he will describe how blending classical architecture, interior decoration, and landscape can create homes with a feeling of history. Further, on Monday, April 15th from 2:00-3:00 p.m. a panel of experts will explore developments in furniture and furnishings from the eighteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. The panelists include - David Raizman (moderator), History of Modern Design, Drexel University Westphal School of Design; Regina Lee Blaszczyk, Professor of History and Chair in the History of Business and Society at the University of Leeds and author of The Color Revolution; Alexandra Kirtley, the Montgomery-Galvin Assoc. Curator of American Decorative Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Thomas Savage, Director of Museum Affairs, Winterthur. In addition to the preview party festivities, which will be held Friday night, April 12th, the event will include a wine and cheese event for new collectors on Saturday evening, April 13th. Proceeds of the Philadelphia Antique Show will benefit the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Center for Resuscitation Science (CRS) at Penn Medicine.

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In a recent lawsuit, several museum goers, which include foreign tourists, have challenged the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “recommended” admission fee of $25 stating that the admission policy is deceptive and that most visitors do not understand that there is a “pay-as-you-wish (but-you-must-pay-something)” policy for admission to the museum. The Met, which is located at 82nd Street and Fifth Avenue in heart of New York City, has enjoyed its prime rent free location at the edge of Central Park since its inception.  In exchange for certain subsidies, including payment by the City of New York for maintenance, utilities and security, there is a 1893 New York statute that mandates that the public be admitted free of charge at least five days and two evenings per week.  However, proponents of the “pay-as-you-wish” policy state the City of New York agreed to the revised admission policy, which required a donation if even a penny, in the 1970s. The Met’s admission policy has been challenged before.  It will interesting to see where this lawsuit leads. 

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The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art is in a slump.  It has reportedly faced an exodus of board members and challenges raising money.

Now, according to this article in the New York Times, after exploring the potential for a merger to help with its finances, the the Museum appears to have decided to try to go it alone, releasing a statement on Tuesday announcing its intention to stay independent.

Apparently this  included a decision to reject a merger offer extended by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Hopefully the museum will find better sailing in the days ahead, particularly as it is the only, or one of the only, major museums in the LA area dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary art.

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Federal law enforcement officials released information today indicating that the thieves linked to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist may have been identified (curiously, however, the thieves identities have not been disclosed).  In 1990 thirteen masterworks of art, including works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, Manet, and Renoir valued at approximately $500 million, were stolen from the Boston museum.  Vacant frames which remain on the museum walls remind visitors to the museum of the infamous heist.  Unfortunately, although the thieves may have been identified, the artwork is still at large and law enforcement is asking for the public to provide any information to help with the recovery. 

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An exquisite new exhibition entitled "Sicily:  Art and Invention between Greece and Rome" is scheduled to open at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California on April 3, 2013 and will run through August 13, 2013. 

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On March 2, 2013, the Young Friends of the Philadelphia Museum of Art will hold their annual Winter Gala celebrating the exhibition “Great and Mighty Things”: Outsider Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection. The event attracts over six hundred (600) young professionals and art enthusiasts of all ages. Tickets are available on the Museum’s website. All are welcome to this event. Click here for more information regarding tickets.

Fox Rothschild LLP is a donor/sponsor of this much-anticipated annual event. The black-tie reception, entitled “A Great and Mighty Benefit,” will take place in the Museum’s Great Stair Hall. Guests will have the opportunity to stroll and mingle in the exhibition galleries where one of the country’s finest private collections of outsider art will be on view. The evening will begin with an exclusive VIP pre-gala reception and tour of the exhibition given by Museum trustee and collector Sheldon Bonovitz. VIP guests will also receive a gift bag and access to the Museum’s East Balcony, which will host a lounge, extended bar, and the best view of the city. The gala itself, which begins at 8:00 p.m., features dancing, live music, and a raffle and silent auction. Guests can win orchestra tickets, private dance lessons, a rafting adventure, and much more. Visitors will also have the opportunity to see themselves on the walls of the Museum, as images from a photo booth will project on a large screen in the Great Stair Hall.

The Outsider Art collection of  Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz is an interesting collection of self- taught American artists from 1930-1980. Highlights of the collection include works by William Edmondson (1874-1951).  Edmondson was a retired janitor from Nashville, Tennessee, who took up carving tombstones and outdoor stone ornaments in his mid to late fifties. As he honed his craft, Edmondson’s created a sculpture garden in his backyard of hand carved limestone sculptures of birds, animals and figures. Six of Edmondson’s work will be on display with the collection. Click here for more information regarding the collection.

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On Friday February 15, 2013 a devastating fire ravaged Pratt Institute’s historic landmark six-story main building in Brooklyn, New York.  Designed by Lamb & Rich Architects, the Romanesque Revival fortress dating back to 1887 was designated a New York City landmark and has been on the national register of historic places along with thirty-five (35) other buildings that make up the Pratt Institute district since 2005.  The Pratt Institute is a prestigious undergraduate art and design school founded by American businessman Charles Pratt.  The school started as a center for vocational training for tradesmen and blossomed into renowned art and design  school we know today.  The Friday fire destroyed hundreds of works of art stored in the studio as well as expensive art supplies and materials.  One student set to interview with Yale University’s graduate art program lost her entire portfolio of paintings and prints to the fire. Being an attorney, I ask - does insurance compensate loss of student’s art work in a situation like this? How does one quantify such a loss? Click here for more details about the incident. 

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This latest post is a follow up to my colleague Daniel Schnapp's recent post from earlier this week on last week's London art auctions.

Last week London art auctions brought in about $440 million with international bidders not shy about snapping up various high-profile works in the high-end art market, as recently reported in this article.  Two of the biggest auction houses, namely, Christie's and Sotheby's, had "exceptionally strong sales" in which a number of pre-sale estimates were shattered with respect to sales of impressionist, modern, and surrealist art.

Despite Europe's economic storm, all the money out there in the art market is "very global" and the art market appears to "confound all other financial indicators," observes Judd Tully, editor-at-large of Art and Auction magazine.

One of the biggest sales at Christie's last week was an Amedeo Modigliani 1919 portrait of his lover Jeanne Hebuterne that sold above its top estimate to an anonymous telephone bidder for $42.1 million.  Christie's impressionist and modern auctions garnered a total of $214 million.

At Sotheby's the day before, a 1932 work by Pablo Picasso entitled "Woman Sitting Near a Window" (a portrait of Picasso's muse, Marie-Therese Walter) was snatched up for $45 million.  Sotheby's impressionist and modern auctions brought in slightly more than Christie's at $228 million.

Although other works by artists Egon Schiele and Claude Monet likewise commanded high prices at the recent London auctions, there were some high-profile lots that fell short of meeting their respective reserve prices.

Amidst the talk of the impressionist and modern art market fading away due to lack of material, Tully further observes that when really good works appear there seems to be "a lot of appetite" for such art. 

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A recent contemporary art auction at Sotheby's in London brought in more than £74 million, which, according to the Huffington Post, is the auction house's second-highest total for a February sale of contemporary art in London.

The sale of the auction included works by Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and Francis Bacon.  According to the article, buyers from 14 countries participated in the auction, which also saw 14 works sell for over £1 million.

The highest amount for the evening's sale was Francis Bacon's oil on canvas triptych 'Three Studies For A Self-Portrait', which sold for £13,761,250, approximately dead center in the estimate of £10-15 million.

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In recent years, the Association of Art Museum Directors ("AAMD") announced the implementation of its landmark 2008 guidelines with respect to the addition of ancient art to North American art museum collections.  The impetus for the AAMD guidelines arose from numerous complaints from Greece, Italy, and other ancient regions, in which museums had for quite some time turned a "blind eye" to evidence that certain pieces in their collections had been in fact looted from various archeological sites.

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