Posted on: August 14, 2024 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper
The latest issue of our quarterly journal, Art Antiquity and Law, has now gone to press and hard copies should be in the post soon to subscribers. Digital subscribers will be able to access it via Hein even earlier. This issue contains several articles relating to the collections of art and artefacts contained in the […]
Posted on: July 8, 2024 by Lauren Gowler
Norval Morrisseau – also known by his Anishinaabe name “Copper Thunderbird” – left a lasting mark on contemporary Indigenous art in Canada with his vibrant and spiritually charged paintings. Active between the 1960s and 2000s, Norval Morrisseau achieved recognition through his distinctive Woodland-style art, exhibiting in galleries around the globe. However, amidst this remarkable legacy, […]
Posted on: August 7, 2023 by Olivia Shaw
A Question of Restitution Is a new wind of cultural migration blowing? Around the world, cultural artefacts are being returned from museum collections to their homelands. In particular, a growing socio-political awareness of historic wrongs has focused critical attention on the relationship anthropology and museology share with Indigenous peoples worldwide. As policies and practices on […]
Posted on: June 18, 2020 by Alexander Herman
Amidst the sad turmoil (for some) and the uncertainty (for all) brought on by the pandemic and the resultant lockdown, it is perhaps more forgivable than usual to miss an important anniversary. I am referring here to the fact that 2020 marks 50 years since the adoption of the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting […]
Posted on: December 2, 2019 by Charlotte Dunn
Legal cases involving questions of authenticity, attribution and provenance are generally not easily determined. However, in a recent Canadian case, the Court of Appeal for Ontario applied contract law to tackle (or avoid) the issue. The case involved a painting, entitled Spirit Energy of Mother Earth, purportedly by the renowned First Nations artist, Norval Morrisseau. […]
Posted on: April 17, 2019 by Alexander Herman
Last June, a Federal Court decision in Canada caused quite a stir. It related to the export control system that applies in Canada for cultural property and the definition of the term ‘national importance’. As we reported in September, the case involved the attempted export from Canada of an oil painting by French Impressionist Gustave […]
Posted on: March 13, 2019 by Kiri Cragin Folwell
Last week, our Assistant Director Alexander Herman gave a talk at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, on the topic of museums, law, ethics, deaccession and restitution. The talk was entitled “Values & Art: Ethics in the Management of Culture” and was part of Ryerson’s Business Ethics speaker series at the Ted Rogers School of Management. […]
Posted on: September 4, 2018 by Alexander Herman
A once-in-a-generation case has caused major ripples in the Canadian museum world. And we’re not talking about the attempted sale of a Chagall by the National Gallery of Canada this spring. No, this was an actual court case, before the Federal Court of Canada, to determine whether the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board (the […]
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 […]