From The Village Voice:

Baird Ryan, the vice-president of Gerald Peters Gallery on East 78th Street, testified that [Astor’s son] Anthony Marshall sold him a painting Astor loved for a whopping $12 million.

In February 2002, as Astor neared the age of 100, Marshall told his mother — who was worth $100 million — that she needed to sell her painting, “Up the Avenue from Thirty-Fourth Street, May 1917” by Childe Hassam because she was short on cash.

Prosecutors have argued that Marshall and his lawyer — co-defendant Francis Morrissey — strong armed the senile doyenne when she was 101 to sign papers changing her will so that he could get another $60 million.

Marshall, 84, faces a maximum of 25 years behind bars if he is convicted of the top charge of grand larceny after the Manhattan DA claimed he sold the painting, then awarded himself a $2 million “commission.”

From The Art Newspaper:

The International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) has launched a website compiling foreign cultural property laws and other information affecting the ethics and legality of transferring cultural property. The resource (viewable at www.ifar.org/art_law.php) also creates a database of catalogues raisonnés for artists.

The site is intended to help people navigate the large body of law relating to acquisition, ownership and authenticity of art objects, and was aided by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Studies.

A Swedish heiress has sued the law firm of Proskauer Rose for nearly $9 million, accusing the firm of manipulating its billing practices in order to overcharge her by millions. In a separate malpractice claim, she alleges that the firm mishandled her lawsuit against an art buyer who purchased an Andy Warhol silkscreen that had been stolen from her.

From The American Law Daily:

The heiress of a Swedish building fortune, Kerstin Lindholm of Greenwich, Conn., retained Proskauer in March 2002 to pursue claims against Peter Brant, the media mogul and Warhol enthusiast who purchased “Red Elvis” for $2.9 million in 2000 while it was on loan to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, court records show. Brant bought the painting–worth at least $12 million in 2003–from a crooked Swedish art dealer who sold it out from under Lindholm [.] The dealer eventually served prison time for the theft, but Lindholm never got the painting back.

This is where it gets interesting:

Now Lindholm and Proskauer are involved in an ugly dispute over fees that peaked earlier this month, when Lindholm sued the firm in state court in Connecticut. And her legal team at Bello, Lapine & Cassone in Stamford, Conn. has included something of a smoking gun as an exhibit in their complaint–an internal Proskauer memo written on letterhead bearing the name of a Proskauer associate who appears to have reviewed the firm’s Lindholm file at some point. (The note is undated.) In the handwritten note, the associate writes that descriptions of the firm’s work “may suggest double billing for same work,” that “rates are quite high,” and that there was an “overall excessive handling of every item in the case.”

More from The American Law Daily here.

With general admission is scheduled to rise at the Art Institute of Chicago to $18 from $12 on May 23, Ald. Ed Burke is trying to compel the museum to increase its free hours by enforcing an ordinance from 1891. Burke wants the Art Institute to revert to offering 2 ½ free days weekly, but the Art Institute claims it already exceeds the “free hour” requirement.

Burke said Monday that city lawyers believe the 1891 agreement between the Art Institute and Chicago remains valid even though the museum has long since moved to the Park District’s jurisdiction. The 1891 contract, which established that the Michigan Avenue building would be erected for the city’s use during the 1893 Columbian Exposition before being taken over by the museum, specified that the Art Institute would offer free admission on Wednesdays, Saturdays and a half-day on Sundays.

The Institute currently offers free admission on Thursday nights as well as Friday summer nights and all of February.

More from The Chicago Tribune.

EFF reports that internet giant Wikipedia is threatening two artists with a trademark infringement lawsuit if the artists do not stop using the word “wikipedia” in their non-commercial domain name and website. “Wikipedia” is a trademark owned by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Artists Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern have created a noncommercial website, Wikipedia Art, which documents a previous art project of theirs (ironically shut down by Wikipedia). The domain name for this new project is wikipediaart.org.

According to EFF:

Wikipedia should know better. There is no trademark or cybersquatting issue here. First, the site is entirely noncommercial, which puts it beyond the reach of U.S. trademark law. (We note that Paul Levy of Public Citizen, who has helped establish key precedents on this issue, has signed on to represent Wikipedia Art). Moreover, even if U.S. trademark laws somehow reached this noncommercial activity, the artists’ use of the mark is an obvious fair use. Wikipedia Art uses the “Wikipedia” mark to refer to the project: a critical comment on Wikipedia and creativity. The disputed site describes the project, provides links to media coverage of the project, and so on. It does not use any more of the Wikipedia mark than need be; for example, it doesn’t even use the Wikipedia logo. Simply put, the site does not purport to be, nor does it look anything like, Wikipedia and the artists have done nothing to suggest Wikipedia endorses their work. Finally, the creators are engaging in precisely the kind of critical speech sheltered by the First Amendment.

A chronological order of events is available here.

Although Brandeis University officials said recently that the Rose Museum remained open and functioning, the Board of Overseers issued a statement Thursday noting that not only does the collection now lack a director or curator, but that

“[s]ince the University’s announcement on January 26, 2009 that it would close the museum, membership and Rose Overseer dues, and all donations, have ceased or been asked to be returned,” amounting to more than $2.5 million.”

According to their recent statement, Brandeis “continues to take steps to dismantle the beloved institution.”

The statement adds, “In her letter, [Brandeis Provost Marty Wyngaarden] Krauss attempted to clarify future plans for the Rose Art Museum once the University closes it on June 30, 2009. Despite the existence of the current Board of Overseers for the museum, Brandeis has named a new committee to ‘explore future options for the Rose.'”

The statement continues:

According to Brandeis, the committee is designed to “explore options” for the future of the Rose, but is specifically prohibited from determining the fate of the works of art that are the heart of the institution, leaving that to the administration and Brandeis Board of Trustees. Although the committee includes representatives from various constituencies, including the Rose Art Museum Board of Overseers, members were hand-picked by the administration and the Rose was not allowed to choose its own representative.

According to The Boston Globe, “[a]t least 30 professors have signed a letter of protest, to be delivered to Krauss and Brandeis president Jehuda Reinharz on Monday. If the university is serious about keeping the museum ‘open to the public with professionally trained staff,’ as stated in Krauss’s letter, [Rose Museum Director Michael] Rush should be allowed to keep his job, they say.”

An artist with a one-person show has found himself in the middle of controversy. UConn Students have called the sculptures “racist,” and one senator said the art show was “the most controversial issue we’ve ever had to deal with.”

The controversy comes from Randall Nelson’s installation at the University of Connecticut’s Homer Babbidge Library, where according to the Hartford Courant, “[s]ome of the 15 pieces in the show he has spent years preparing have been moved, rejected or altered. And [where] the Student Board of Governors took the unusual step of declaring that the show should be moved out of the library, where it was scheduled to be on display through May 15.”

Adding insult to injury, Nelson’s work won’t just be moved to the William Benton Museum of Art, but it will also have limited stage presence. It appears the Benton Museum is operating under reduced hours thanks to the current recession. Deaccessioning anyone?