Austria Returns Stolen and Extorted Altar Panels to Jewish Heir

According to the article linked below, Austria's Provenance Commission has recommended the return of artwork stolen by the Nazis, but then blocked in Austria by a post-War export ban.  After World War II, Austrian museums used the export ban to systematically extort Jews of their property.

Today, American museums that hold property stolen from Jews systematically extort them in one-sided "settlements" wrapped in great confidentiality, and bury the research to conceal the wrongdoing of the museum's former trustees and employees.   History will view this practice of systematic extortion by the members of the American Association of Museums with the same horror that we view the post-War extortion practices of the Austrian museums.

Austria also let the Leopold Museum keep an extorted work on the false pretext that the government of Austria doesn't own the Leopold Museum, so a law covering "federal museums" doesn't cover it.   This is a scandalous lie, since the government of Austria purchased Leopold's collection and will assume complete control of it on the death of Leopold and his wife.

Leopold brought the stolen Schiele Portrait of Wally into the United States and is supposed to stand trial this summer on the issue of whether or not he knew it was stolen when he brought it here.

Austria Urges Return of Altar Panels to Jewish Heir (Update1)

Purchase Copyright Litigation Handbook from West here

Dutch Return Corot Painting Looted By Nazis From a Jewish Banker

Camille Corot - Jeune femme a la fontaine

Dutch restitute a Corot looted by the Nazis from the Jewish banker Georg Behrens, by Catherine Hickley on Bloomberg here.

NYCLA Art Litigation and Dispute Resolution Institute, November 2009 - Now Available on DVD

If you missed the November New York County Lawyers' Association Art Litigation and Dispute Resolution Institute program, you can now get it on DVD, our speakers and topics were truly extraordinary.   Ordering information at NYCLA.org - here.

Program Co-chairs:


Hon. Stephen G. Crane, JAMS; Raymond J. Dowd, Dunnington Bartholow & Miller LLP


Description:


An unparalleled panel of experts from the bench, bar, museums, art galleries, auction houses, trade and on-line publications, appraisers and insurance companies take you through the most relevant issues in today’s art world. Agenda includes:

Holocaust Restitution Claims: Courtrooms, ADR or a U.S. Restitution Commission?
Proving Provenance of Artworks: Discovery and Investigative Tools
Installation Art: Construction, Control & Caretaking in a Litigious World
The Artist’s Estate and Foundation: Problems and Perspectives
Biennials and Art Fairs: Law and Practice
Expert Appraisals: Practice and Ethics
Deviations from Trust Indentures, Cy Pres and Deaccessioning
Original Tape Date: November 20, 2009

Credits: 7.5 MCLE Credits

7.5 MCLE Credits: 4 Ethics; 1 Skills; 2.5 PP; Non-Transitional

Faculty:

Chris Alfieri, Biennial Corporation, Director Prospect 1 New Orleans; Helen Allen, PULSE Art Fair, Affordable Art Fairs; Richard Altman, Altman Law Office; Judith Bresler, Withersworldwide; Prof. Lynn Catterson, Columbia University; Hon. Stephen G. Crane (Ret.); Sharon Flescher, International Foundation for Art Research; Prof. Edward Gaffney, Valparaiso Law School; Hon. Nicholas Garaufis,U.S. Dist. Ct., EDNY; Hon. Kristin Booth Glen, Surrogate, NY County; Robert Gober, Artist; Charles Goldstein, Herrick Feinstein, Commission for Art Recovery; Elizabeth von Habsburg, Gurr Johns International; Nick Holmes, Whitney Museum; Hon. Barbara Jaffe, Civil Ct., NYC; Amb. J. Christian Kennedy, Special Envoy, Holocaust Issues, US. Dept. of State; Prof. Jennifer Kreder, NKU Salmon B. Chase College of Law; Jules Kroll, Jemkroll Holdings LLC; Hon. Phyllis Beck; Ralph Lerner, Withersworldwide; Chris Marinello, The Art Loss Register; Judith Prowda, Sotheby’s Institute; Hon. Reena Raggi, U.S. Ct. of Appeals, 2d Cir.; Ronald Spencer, Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP; Carol Steinberg, School of Visual Arts; Peter Stevens, The Estate of David Smith; Hon. Richard Wesley, U.S. Ct of Appeals, 2d Cir.; James P. Wynne, FBI, Art Crimes Unit; Donn Zaretsky, John Silberman Associates PC

All Programs include: (1) Affirmation and (1) DVD/CD packet.

Course Materials: DVDs have a PDF version of the course materials on the DVD. CD orders will come with a separate PDF version of the course materials. Written materials provided only upon request.

Scholarly Access To Images

The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science has put out a sheet called "Best Practices for Access to Images: Recommendations for Scholarly Use and Publishing." The practices identify restrictions that have been put on access to public domain works for researchers in the humanities and talks about how scholars should be restricted in how they use images of public domain works.

In recently researching a case of Nazi looted art, I have been frustrated by non-profit institutions blocking access to copies of documents necessary to trace Nazi-art looting practices in Switzerland. One institution was the Getty blocking access to an official government report, another a German museum claiming that I had to get copyright permission from a deceased Swiss art dealer to make copies of his correspondence with the Nazi regime. Each institution was informed that the documents were for use in an impending court case.

My feeling is that any restrictions on scholarly use of public domain materials by an entity that enjoys tax-free status is presumptively a violation of the public trust, and a restriction of the public domain that conflicts with the complete preemption of copyright law. Only in certain limited cases should museum and library archives be banned from public view, and certainly not unclassified Nazi-era documents. I am sensitive to the fact that libraries and institutions cannot exist on thin air and that some financial support is necessary. If endowments and other funds do permit subsidized access, charging scholars for access should be the last resort.

In the Dastar case the court worried about mutant species of copyright laws making public domain materials unavailable forever, and was explicit that public domain meant the right to use without attribution. Didn't Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., which held that exact copies of public domain images are not protected by copyright resolve these issues?

Charging fair access fees on an equitable basis (akin to charging for photocopies) seems reasonable. But museums, now all too often acting as a multibillion-dollar theme park industry focused on building new wings and expanding their parking lots, have a tendency to want to cash in to the max on every aspect of merchandising the cultural property in their grasp. If they want to do that, they are violating their core missions and should be taxed like everyone else.

I am grateful to many amazing librarians I have known over the years. I am supportive of this type of research in the humanities. And I don't mind mentioning that the image appearing above, which is a link to the Max Plaenck website, is an image created by Rembrandt of Aristotle with the Head of Homer and that it is to be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But should I be required to do so? And what if it turns out not to be a Rembrandt?