Yale Asserts Suit Over Van Gogh Imperils Other Art
The ownership of tens of billions of dollars of art and other goods could be thrown into doubt if a lawsuit seeking the return of a famous Vincent Van Gogh painting is successful, claims a court filing by Yale University, according to the
New York Times.
The Ivy League university sued in federal court in March to assert its ownership rights over ‘’The Night Cafe’’ and to block a descendant of the original owner from claiming it. Pierre Konowaloff is the purported great-grandson of industrialist and aristocrat Ivan Morozov, who bought the painting in 1908.
Russia nationalized Morozov’s property during the Communist Revolution. The painting, which the Soviet government later sold, has been hanging in the Yale University Art Gallery for almost fifty years.
“Invalidating title to the painting would set US courts at odds with the Russian government and cloud title to what Konowaloff concedes is at least twenty dollars billion of art in global commerce,’’ Yale’s attorneys wrote in court papers filed Wednesday.
It also would “imply the invalidity of title to countless billions of dollars more of other sorts of property expropriated and sold’’ by Russian authorities, Yale’s attorney wrote.
Any federal court invalidation of Russian nationalization decrees from the early twentieth century would create ‘’significant tensions’’ between the United States and the Russian Federation, Yale argues. Russia continues to possess, display, and defend its title to many artworks that were nationalized, including against Konowaloff’s litigation and threats of litigation in France and Britain, Yale says.
Yale says the court does not have the authority to evaluate the legality of a Russian nationalization. The university says former owners have challenged titles to artwork and other property seized from them in Russia, but their claims were rejected by the US Supreme Court and state, federal, and foreign courts.
Konowaloff’s attorney, Allan Gerson, said in an e-mail that the argument was ‘’ridiculous’’ and that the lawsuit was not against Russia. He has argued that the court does not have to determine the lawfulness of the Russian confiscation of the painting, saying Yale cannot establish that it has good title.
December 28, 2009
Stanford’s Cantor Center Acquires A Noguchi
Museum curators keep wish lists, and the sculpture of Isamu Noguchi has been high on Hilarie Faberman’s since she began working at Stanford’s Cantor Center for Visual Arts seventeen years ago, reports the
San Francisco Chronicle. So when she and museum director Tom Seligman, who see eye to eye on Noguchi and much else, heard that a 1962 bronze titled _Victim_ was available, they jumped at it.
The Cantor’s acquisition for $800,000 of _Victim_ makes obvious sense when it stands before Frank Lobdell’s _Fall 1964_ as it will when the Cantor unveils it in February. The works’ affinity suggests that the two artists might have met, but they never did.
“I see it as an antiwar piece,” Faberman said of “Victim.” “When I think of it, bones and body parts come to mind, and the Lobdell is about that as well.” She also envisions it keeping company with a Franz Kline painting from the same period that she hopes will enter the collection in the future.
When the Stanford University Art Museum reopened as the Cantor Center in 1999, after a decade of extensive expansion and earthquake repairs and retrofitting, “we had five Noguchis for three years through the museum Loan Network,” Faberman said.
Noguchi was born in Los Angeles in 1904 to a Japanese mother and an Irish American father. He was raised in Japan and returned to the United States as a teenager for schooling. In his twenties, he worked as a studio assistant to Constantin Brancusi in Paris, and finally settled in New York, where he won recognition as a sculptor, furniture, stage designer, and landscape architect.
“You don’t see a lot of Noguchi out here,” Faberman said, “which is odd because he was born in Los Angeles and was Asian American.” (The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, over which the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will soon preside, includes three major Noguchi sculptures.)
December 28, 2009
Loyola University Receives $50 Million Gift
Loyola University of Chicago has received a fifty-million-dollar gift, which it will use for student scholarships and a planned new academic building on its North Side campus. The university says the gift from the Cuneo Foundation is the largest in its 140-year history, according to the
Chicago Tribune.
The Cuneo family have been longtime benefactors of the school. Their gift includes the Cuneo Museum and Gardens in the Chicago suburb of Vernon Hills. The school plans to use the family’s one-time mansion and estate for educational events, weddings, and other corporate doings.
December 08, 2009
Bhupen Barman (1973–2009)
One of the youngest faculty members of faculty of fine arts in MS University of Baroda, India, Bhupen Barman, thirty-six, passed away on Saturday morning, according to the |http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/vadodara/MSU-fine-arts-teacher-dies-of-cardiac-arrest/articleshow/5305888.cms|_Times of India_|.
Barman had graduated from the faculty and was a temporary lecturer with the sculpture department. His sudden death has shocked many at the faculty as well as those in the art circuit.
Barman came to the city from Guwhati to study at the faculty which he later joined. He had also participated in many national and international art shows and was awarded the Lalit Kala Akademi Award in 2005. Very few artists from Assam have been conferred with this honor.
December 07, 2009
