Displaying items by tag: legal battle

The trial continued Thursday in a lawsuit brought by three trustees of the Robert Rauschenberg Revocable Trust, who are suing the artist's foundation for $60 million in fees for services rendered.

The worth of Rauschenberg's work was again the focus.

The trustees are Bennet Grutman, who was also Rauschenberg's accountant; Darryl Pottorf, close friend and companion and executor of the artist's will; and Bill Goldston, who partnered with the artist for a fine art print publishing company.

The long-running legal dispute over the Norton Simon Museum's 16th century "Adam" and "Eve" paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder took a turn on Friday when a federal appeals court reversed a 2012 decision from a lower court that had dismissed plaintiff Marei Von Saher's claims on the valuable works of art.

The 9th Circuit Court ruled 2-to-1 to reverse U.S. District Judge John Walter's dismissal of Von Saher's suit. Von Saher, who currently resides in New York, will now be able to resume her claim on the paintings in district court.

Cambodia on Tuesday officially welcomed the return of three ancient statues looted from the kingdom more than 40 years ago, including one retrieved after a long legal battle in the United States.

Authorities say the 10th-century sandstone artworks were stolen in the 1970s as the country was gripped by civil war, from the Koh Ker temple site near the famed Angkor Wat complex.

The statues, part of a nine-strong ensemble, depict warriors "Duryodhana" and "Bhima" locked in combat -- as well as a bystander called "Balarama".

One of the Getty's most prized ancient artworks is hanging in a legal balance this week in Italy's highest court, leaving the L.A. museum's leaders feeling as if they have landed in a Franz Kafka tale, a judicial and bureaucratic nightmare they can neither understand nor escape.

But unlike a hapless Kafka character, the Getty has an inkling as to why its nearly life-size statue, known as "Victorious Youth" or the "Getty Bronze," is back in a maze of judicial and investigative proceedings. And rather than suffer passively, the Getty — the world's richest art institution, with a $6-billion endowment — may well draw a line.

A collection of bronze sculptures made from plaster models of wax originals by Edgar Degas were at the center of a legal battle in New York. American art dealer Walter Maibaum sued the Canadian businessman Yank Barry and the Global Village Champions Foundation, a charity he spearheaded, for breaching a number of sales contracts. Maibaum also claimed that Barry failed to pay him for a number of bronzes.

In 2004, Maibaum, the executive director of the Degas Sculpture Project in Newark, NJ, discovered 74 plaster sculptures made from wax originals by Degas at a foundry near Paris. In 2005, the French Valsuani foundry began producing 29 sets of bronzes from 73 of the newly discovered plaster figures. Maibaum claimed that because Valsuani owned the plasters, it did not need to get permission from Degas’ heirs to cast the bronzes. In 2007, Succession Degas authenticated the plasters and the resulting bronze editions.

In 2008, Barry agreed to buy at least two sets of 73 bronzes from Maibaum, with the option to buy eight more sets. Ultimately, Barry failed to pay for the sculptures and never received any works from Maibaum. The contract was amended in 2009 but again, Barry failed to pay and no works were received. Finally, in 2010, Barry proposed that his charity buy a set of 74 bronzes, estimated to be worth $30 million, with the intent to raffle them to raise money for the victims of the Haiti earthquake. After receiving $400,000 from Barry, Maibaum shipped the sculptures. He never received another payment and the Haiti raffle was abandoned.

Ultimately, the Degas Sculpture Project amicably resolved its dispute with Barry, Global Village Champions Foundation, and all others named in the filings. A statement was issued that said, "Global Village Champions Foundation, Inc. is not an instrumentality of fraud, but rather a very worthy charitable organization that works to eradicate hunger around the world. The Dega Sculpture Project Ltd has the utmost respect for Mr. Barry, a two time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, in that goal and we fully commend Global Village Champions Foundation, Inc. for its international humanitarian efforts."

Pablo Picasso’s Paris studio where he painted the iconic Guernica in 1937 is at the center of a legal battle. The cultural group The National Committee for Artistic Education (CNEA) has been using the historic loft as its headquarters since 2002 but a French court is considering evicting the committee.

Founded in 1966, CNEA promotes arts education in schools and was given the space by Paris’ Chambre des Huissiers de Justice. As property prices in the artsy Saint-Germain-des Prés soar, the Chambre could make a considerable profit from the loft.

Besides being Picasso’s home and studio from 1936 to 1955, No. 7 Rue Grands-Augustins was the setting of a Honore de Balzac short story, the first home of Jean-Louis Barrault’s theatre company and a popular meeting place for Jean-Paul Sartre, George Bataille and Jean Cocteau. CNEA has hosted over 700 events at the loft.

Onetime friends and business partners, powerhouse art dealer Larry Gagosian and billionaire collector Ronald O. Perelman have been involved in a bitter legal battle since September 2012. On January 25, 2013 Gagosian asked a New York judge to dismiss the case, which accuses him of using his high standing in the art world to arrange secret deals and influence art prices; Gagosian claims that the lawsuit is frivolous.

The ongoing clash started last year when Perelman purchased Jeff Koons’ (b. 1955) $4 million Popeye sculpture from Gagosian along with two other works said to be a Cy Twombly (1928-2011) painting and a Richard Serra (b. 1939) sculpture. Perelman paid for Koons’ oversize granite sculpture in full, but decided to cancel the deal when the work took longer than expected to complete. Since the value of Koons’ work is constantly on the rise, Perelman insisted that Gagosian owed him $12 million rather than the $4 million he initially paid for the unfinished work.

In his lawsuit, Perelman claimed that Gagosian had a secret agreement with Koons to redirect most of the profit from Popeye’s resale away from Perelman and towards Koons. The sculpture in question was ultimately sold to an unnamed buyer for $4.5 million and Gagosian gave $4.25 million of that back to Perelman, a fact Gagosian pointed out in court on Friday. Gagosian also claimed that Perelman refused to pay the agreed-upon price for the Twombly and Serra works, insisting that he would compensate for the debt he accumulated by giving Gagosian a number of artworks from his collection that he no longer wanted. Rather than benefitting from the deal as Perelman asserts, Gagosian said that he has lost $1.8 million so far.

While Perelman maintains that Gagosian is dishonest and deceitful in his dealings, Gagosian claims that the lawsuit is simply a way for his former friend to mar his name. Perelman’s side has made subpoenas as the battle continues.  

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles will return a terracotta head depicting the Greek god Hades to Sicily. The museum has been working with Italian officials for two years to decide whether or not the artifact should be returned. The Getty purchased the terracotta head from New York collector Maurice Tempelsman for $530,000 in 1985. Tempelsman had originally acquired the piece from the disgraced antiquities dealer Robin Symes.

Officials determined that the terracotta head was originally located in Sicily at a sanctuary site for the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. The piece’s provenance was discovered by comparing the head to four terracotta fragments found near the famous and highly looted archaeological site Morgantina in Sicily. It soon came to light that the head was illegally excavated from Morgantina in the early 1970s.

The Getty entered into an agreement with Italy’s Ministry of Culture in 2007 after a long legal battle regarding looted works and the museum’s former curator, Marion True. The Getty now has connections in various parts of Italy to facilitate cultural exchange and has been working closely with Sicilian officials since 2010.

The head of Hades will be on view at the Getty Villa as part of the exhibition The Sanctuaries of Demeter and Persephone at Morgantina through January 21, 2013. The work will then join the Getty-organized traveling exhibition Sicily: Art and Invention between Greece and Rome before being placed in Sicily’s Museo Archeologico.