Posted on: May 16, 2016 by Alexander Herman
My aunt, Gabrielle de Montmollin, a photographer and artist in Canada, is currently exhibiting her work in Toronto. I thought the show would be a good opportunity to discuss some of the copyright issues raised by her artistic approach. In particular, it serves as a way to explore a relatively new exception existing under Canadian […]
Posted on: April 29, 2015 by Alexander Herman
Earlier this month, it was reported that Canada was returning a 900-year-old sandstone statue to India. This was done with all the necessary pomp and ceremony, with each nation’s prime minister more than ready for a dual photo op with the piece. Of course it represented much more than mere cultural restitution: as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated, cultural relations between […]
Posted on: April 17, 2015 by Alexander Herman
Last month, the Dutch Restitutions Committee published its recommendation regarding a claim brought forward by the heirs of the three Stettiner siblings who ran the Stettiner Gallery in Paris until it was closed during the Second World War. The claim involved a portrait by Salomon Koninck (1609-1656) entitled Old Man with Beard, which currently forms part […]
Posted on: October 1, 2014 by Alexander Herman
A fascinating story on the work of the Max Stern Restitution Project has appeared in the latest issue of The Walrus and is thankfully available online. The Stern Project, run out of Concordia University in Montreal, Canada has the task of reconstituting the art collection of the famed Düsseldorf dealer, Max Stern. Stern, who was Jewish, fled Nazi Germany in 1937 […]
Posted on: September 22, 2014 by Paul Stevenson
Reports this month of an important maritime discovery as news outlets announce the likely find of a Devon-built explorer ship which it is thought was lost under the Arctic sea 160 years ago. The expedition of British Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin holds near mythic status in Canada, mystique underscored by reference to his expedition […]
Posted on: April 14, 2014 by Alexander Herman
It was recently revealed that a final settlement had been reached in the decade-long Beaverbrook art saga. The dispute involved over 200 works that had once belonged to Max Aitken, aka Lord Beaverbrook, the Canadian-born London-based newspaper magnate. Before he died in 1964, Beaverbrook had founded an art gallery in his home province of New […]
Posted on: February 26, 2014 by Nina M. Neuhaus
The Police have recovered one of two items stolen from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) in the autumn of 2011. The recovered item is a limestone Persian Achaemenid Bas Relief panel dating from the 5th century BC and depicting the head of a guard. Remarkably, the thief was able to steal the small-scale (21 […]