Tag Archives: law

Chicago conference on art restitution and human rights

Posted on: September 30, 2015 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper

Those of our readers from Chicago (or passing through the area) may be interested in a fascinating conference coming up called Art Restitution, Preservation of Cultural Heritage and the Human Right to Identity hosted by the John Marshall Law School, running on 15-16th October 2015. The programme includes presentations on the return of Nazi-looted art, the protection of cultural sites during […]

Proposed law in Scotland could affect museum objects

Posted on: September 25, 2015 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper

A change to the law in Scotland could have an impact on objects left at museums, where the owner has disappeared or has become untraceable. The draft bill before the Scottish Parliament would first seek to introduce a 20 year positive prescription period, whereby a possessor of corporeal movable property (i.e. an object like a painting) would […]

Legal settlement reached between Getty and Armenian Church

Posted on: September 22, 2015 by Alexander Herman

An important legal settlement has been reached between the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the American branch of an Armenian Church. The dispute, which had dragged on for a number of years, involved eight illustrated manuscript pages that had once been part of the Zeyt’un Gospels but which had been separated from the rest of the […]

Upcoming Shows on Appropriation and Pop Art

Posted on: September 16, 2015 by Alexander Herman

Two interesting exhibitions are coming up. One is at Sotheby’s in New York and will feature appropriation art by the likes of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. It will run from 23 September to 16 October and yes, the works are for sale. The other is at London’s Tate Modern and will feature Pop Artists from the […]

Ethiopian loot and human remains… still in Britain

Posted on: September 7, 2015 by Alexander Herman

There was a story this morning in the Guardian which once again brought to light the requests by Ethiopia for the return of the remains of one of the country’s royal princes, Prince Alemayehu, currently buried at Windsor Castle near London. The young prince had been brought to England in 1868 following the destruction of the Abyssinian fortress town of Magdala at […]

Art law practice event on 9 October in London

Posted on: September 3, 2015 by Ruth Redmond-Cooper

Our friends at the Franco-British Lawers Society (England & Wales section) will be hosting a free event in London on 9 October entitled ‘The Art of Advising – Art Law in Practice‘. The event will be held at Notre Dame University, London campus (famous venue for a number of IAL courses and conferences) and will run […]

Yassin, reuse and copyright

Posted on: July 29, 2015 by Alexander Herman

Those adventurous enough to explore the London area of Holland Park for their cultural fix (there is opera in the park after all), may have come across the house of Frederic (Lord) Leighton, which is open to the public as a museum. Leighton, who was President of the Royal Academy during the late Nineteenth Century, created the Victorian collector’s […]

Kennewick Man is back: The pitfalls of modern science

Posted on: July 1, 2015 by Alexander Herman

An article published on 18 June 2015 in the scientific weekly Nature has given the world a new appreciation of the origins of the human remains known as ‘Kennewick Man’. The remains were discovered in the State of Washington in 1996 and preliminary studies showed that Kennewick Man was roughly 9,000 years old and had no noticeable morphological connection […]

The Hugh Lane Collection: a hundred years on

Posted on: May 31, 2015 by Alexander Herman

The disputed collection that had once belonged to the great Irish dealer and collector Sir Hugh Lane has once again made the headlines. Lane died one hundred years ago this month on the Lusitania when the ship was sunk by German U-boats on its journey from New York to Liverpool. He had put together a fantastic art […]

International Art Transactions

Posted on: May 14, 2015 by Alexander Herman

A great seminar yesterday afternoon at Maurice Turnor Gardner in London, with a broad range of topics covered: conflicts of laws, title to ancient artefacts, vesting statutes, negligence in art appraisal, export licensing, customs warehousing, import VAT and freeports. I think it’s fair to say that our speakers covered most, if not all, of the […]