The dealer, Lawrence B. Salander, has been indicted on charges he stole $88 million from investors and collectors who consigned artwork to him and said they were cheated out of the sale proceeds or never saw the pieces again, according to a person briefed on the case. Salander and his business, the Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, were charged by a grand jury with 100 counts including grand larceny, falsifying business records, scheming to defraud, forgery and perjury, according to the person, who declined to be identified because the charges had not been formally announced.

Tennis star John McEnroe allegedly helped nab Salander.

More from the International Herald Tribune here.

The Little Gallery at Bowling Green State University’s Firelands campus has been shuttered in a protest of censorship after a sculpture was removed from an exhibition by a dean without the gallery director’s knowledge.

“We removed a sculpture that graphically depicts a female middle school student, on her knees, performing oral sex on a standing male middle school science teacher,” the university wrote in response to the flap. “As an institution of higher education, Bowling Green State University strongly supports the right of free speech and artistic expression. However, we also have a responsibility … to not expose the children and families we invite to our campus to inappropriate material.”

David Sapp, an art professor and director of the gallery, shut down the entire exhibit as a sign of protest. Inside Higher Ed and the Toledo Blade have more here and here.

No, the Mexican cartels are not getting into the art business (at least not yet). The Boston Globe reported today that a Yale professor who learned to paint with his left hand after part of his right hand was ripped away in an explosion by the Unabomber will get back two beloved paintings that were recently stolen.

New Haven police said Monday a weekend raid of a home where drugs were allegedly sold has turned up 39 pieces of stolen art, including two paintings believed to belong to Unabomber victim David Gelernter. The art was stolen from the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale and the public library and traded for drugs.

The New Haven Independent has the complete story.

Via Reuters:

The owner of a painting by Francis Bacon sued Christie’s auction house on Friday for not living up to a guaranteed $40 million minimum selling price for the Irish-born artist’s piece “Study for Self Portrait.” Weiss Family Art LLC, which owns the 1964 self-portrait, sued Christie’s for breach of contract in a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, seeking damages in an amount to be determined at trial.

The lawsuit said the auction house had agreed to pay a minimum price of $40 million, whether the work sold or not.

National Public Radio’s All Things Considered covers what it calls “the biggest heist in U.S. history,” that being the heist of art valued at half a billion dollars from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston. Olrich Boser, author of The Gardner Heist, talks about the crime and new leads that have recently emerged. Listen to the broadcast here.

The descendants of Major George Maule contacted the Art Loss Register claiming that a painting of Maule had been stolen 30 years ago – 15 years before Versace bought it. The Art Loss Register in turn alerted Sotheby’s and it agreed to withdraw it. More from The Independent.

In a Madona-Angelina Jolie-esque move, Vanessa Beecroft has decided to turn the act of adoption into an artistic performance. The CBC has a lengthy expose on a new film documentary, The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins, which captures 16-months of Beecroft’s thoughts and actions to adopt two Sudanese babies.

Of particular import to this site are the two legal issues raised: one, and according to the CBC, that “Sudan has no laws around adoption,” and two, Beecroft’s threat to sue the filmmaker, Pietra Brettkelly, demanding that changes be made to the film’s edited version. We don’t know much about Sudanese law (in fact, nothing at all), but once again we see that although most artists cringe at the thought of obtaining legal documents to memorialize agreements, having had one in this case would have saved Beecroft and Brettkelly the embarrasment of having to threaten legal action or the energy and financial means necessary to defend a lawsuit.

Shameless self-promotion?