Posted on: July 4, 2018 by Alexander Herman
We’re happy to be heading to Liverpool to provide legal training this week on collections, acquisitions and due diligence for the National Museums Liverpool. This is a one-day training open only to those working at museums within this larger network, including the Walker Art Gallery, the World Museum, the Maritime Museum, the Slavery Museum and […]
Posted on: April 27, 2018 by Alexander Herman
The National Gallery of Canada, as reported earlier, had plans to sell one of its two major works by Marc Chagall, La Tour Eiffel, at auction at Christies in New York on 15 May, with an estimate of $6 million to $ 9 million. This led to much uproar in the Canadian press and amongst the […]
Posted on: April 18, 2018 by Alexander Herman
As reported earlier this month, the National Gallery of Canada has plans to sell a painting from its collection by artist Marc Chagall at Christie’s in New York on 15 May. The funds will be used to acquire a work by Jacques-Louis David, which was confirmed this week by the Gallery. The Chagall piece on […]
Posted on: February 28, 2018 by Alexander Herman
We were fortunate enough to be able to take the students from the LLM programme in Art, Business and Law to the V&A to hear the museum’s in-house solicitor, Anthony Misquitta, speak about the various legal issues faced by the institution on a daily basis. This covered things like copyright and digitisation, trade mark issues […]
Posted on: February 9, 2018 by Alexander Herman
The story begins 150 years ago. In 1868, deep in the deserts of east Africa, a British expedition led by General Robert Napier, was attacking the capital of the Abyssinian Empire, Maqdala, ruled over by King Tewodros. The British were looking to teach Tewodros a lesson for having imprisoned a number of British envoys and […]
Posted on: January 31, 2018 by Alexander Herman
The recent case involving art dealer and former auctioneer Simon de Pury makes clear once again why it is always advisable to get your contracts down in writing. The art world is notorious for doing things on a handshake (or a wink/nudge) and the facts behind this dispute are a perfect example. The case involved […]
Posted on: January 19, 2018 by Alexander Herman
An interesting story has made it out of Bristol, the home city (apparently) of the elusive street artist Banksy. Back in 2009, Banksy had collaborated with the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery on an exhibition called Banksy versus Bristol Museum. In true Banksy style, it featured a burnt-out ice cream van on the Museum’s front […]
Posted on: November 24, 2017 by Alexander Herman
The Institute of Art & Law was in Doha, Qatar last week providing an in-house training course on art, law and collections management for Qatar Museums, the governmental body that oversees the state-owned museums in the small Persian Gulf state. The course included one day on intellectual property and collections, another on contracts, acquisitions and […]
Posted on: September 14, 2017 by Alexander Herman
Along with the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary, University of London, we were happy to host US attorney Nicholas O’Donnell last night for a talk on Nazi-looted art and the ongoing attempts at reclaiming lost works from museums and private collections in the US. Nicholas was in London promoting his new book, […]
Posted on: August 22, 2017 by Alexander Herman
Last week, the International Criminal Court in the Hague pronounced on the amount in reparations to be paid in last year’s Al Mahdi case. And it was a hefty sum: €2.7 million has been levied against the defendant, Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, for his role in overseeing the destruction of ten cultural monuments in […]