Displaying items by tag: court papers

A Manhattan real estate agent wants answers from his gallerista step-sister on why she hawked a family-owned painting by a renowned abstract artist last year for a measly $375,000 when it re-sold months later for millions.

Cyrus Greenspon claims in court papers that her step-sister's mega-cheap sell-off of their late dad's Ad Reinhardt painting was shady and a conflict of interest — namely because she got her former boss, the president of swanky Pace Gallery, to vouch for its low value and had a friend and former colleague buy it.

It’s a flip-flop over an art flip. In a surprising reversal, a Dallas judge has dismissed collector Marguerite Hoffman’s lawsuit for breach of contract against finance mogul David Martinez and defunct New York gallery L&M Arts, in a case that involves a spectacular flip of a multi-million dollar Mark Rothko.

Back in 2007, Martinez paid Hoffman $19 million for the painting, then turned around just three years later and sold it at Sotheby’s for a headline-grabbing $31.4 million (in the interim, court papers say, it was kept out of sight in storage).

When the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington — one of the nation’s oldest privately supported museums — announced in May that its artwork, landmark building and venerable school would be taken over by the National Gallery of Art and George Washington University, the arrangement was presented as a done deal.

But on Wednesday, a group of museum donors, current and former students, and former faculty and staff members went to court to try to block the dismantling of the Corcoran, saying it would violate the 1869 deed and the charter of the museum’s founder, William W. Corcoran, a banker who gave his art for the “perpetual establishment and maintenance of a public gallery and museum” to promote painting, sculpture and other fine arts. The opponents, members of a group called Save the Corcoran, contend in court papers that museum trustees want to “commit the gravest form of fiduciary breach: to destroy the very institution they are charged with protecting.”