Europe

UK issues export bar for £3.4m Turner masterpiece sold at Sotheby’s auction: Following an application for an export licence by its owner after buying it at auction in July 2018, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced it should be temporarily blocked from leaving the country in the hope a buyer can be found to pay the £3.4m price and keep it in the UK.

30.11.2018, Antiques Trade Gazette: UK issues export bar for £3.4m Turner masterpiece sold at Sotheby’s auction

30.11.2018, The Guardian: Minister blocks export of £3.4m JMW Turner painting

Senegal and Ivory Coast will ask for return of objects in French museums: Senegal will request the return of all items in French museums’ collections that are identified as originating from the country, said Senegal’s culture minister Abdou Latif Coulibaly, at a press conference in Dakar on Tuesday announcing the opening of the Musée des civilisations noires on 6 December. The minister’s statement comes just four days after the publication of a controversial report on the restitution of African heritage in French museums. “We are ready to find solutions with France,” the minister said. “But if 10,000 pieces are identified in the collections, we are asking for all 10,000.”

29.11.2018, The Art Newspaper: Senegal and Ivory Coast will ask for return of objects in French museums

29.11.2018, Artnet: Senegal and the Ivory Coast Ask France to Return Looted Art in the Wake of a Groundbreaking Restitution Report

29.11.2018, Le Journal des Arts: La Côte d’Ivoire va demander à la France la restitution d’une centaine d’œuvres d’art

28.11.2018, Le Journal des Arts: Le Sénégal souhaite la restitution de « toutes » ses œuvres

Looted Art and the ‘Universal Museum’: Can 21st-Century Collections Ever Escape Colonialism’s Violent Legacy?: It is one of the most important of Easter Island’s stone giants, but for 150 years it has stood in the British Museum. If the current governor of the Chilean island, whose indigenous inhabitants are known as the Rapa Nui, has her way, this will change very soon. Last week, a delegation from the island arrived in the United Kingdom and made its way to the British Museum. ‘We are just a body. You, the British people, have our soul’, declared governor Tarita Alarcón Rapu. She herself was seeing the statue for the very first time. Her grandmother, she added tearfully, had always wanted to see the statue but died before she could.

28.11.2018, Frieze: Looted Art and the ‘Universal Museum’: Can 21st-Century Collections Ever Escape Colonialism’s Violent Legacy?

28.11.2018, The Art Newspaper: Return of African Artifacts Sets a Tricky Precedent for Europe’s Museums

30.11.2018, The Financial Times: Museums should rise to Macron’s art challenge

01.12.2018, Le Monde: Restitution d’œuvres d’art africaines : un rapport en forme de plaidoyer

Renoir Estimated at $180,000 Is Stolen From Austrian Auction House: At 5:15 p.m. on Monday, three apparently middle-aged men — one carrying a bag from a shoe shop — walked into the Dorotheum auction house in Vienna and went to the second floor. There, they walked up to “Golfe, mer, falaises vertes” — an 1895 painting of some green cliffs and the sea by Pierre-Auguste Renoir that was to be auctioned Wednesday for an estimated $131,000 to $181,000. Then they took it out of its frame and walked out.

28.11.2018, The New York Times: Renoir Estimated at $180,000 Is Stolen From Austrian Auction House

28.11.2018, Antiques Trade Gazette: Reports: Renoir stolen from Viennese auction house Dorotheum

28.11.2018, The Guardian: Renoir painting stolen from auction house in central Vienna

29.11.2018, CNN Style: Thieves walk off with Renoir painting ahead of auction

29.11.2018, Artnet: Thieves Steal a Renoir Landscape Right Off the Walls of the Dorotheum Auction House

Legal challenges remain for restituting African artefacts from French museums: Be careful what you wish for. That may be the lesson for French President Emmanuel Macron as he received last week the report commissioned in March on the restitution of African artefacts currently held in French Museums. The commission followed the President’s speech in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso one year ago, in which he had called for “the conditions to be met within five years for the temporary or permanent restitution of African heritage to Africa”. The report was drafted by two academics: Felwine Sarr, a Senegalese writer and economics professor for Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, Senegal, and Bénédicte Savoy, a professor of art history at Technische Universität in Berlin and at the Collège de France in Paris.

28.11.2018, The Art Newspaper: Legal challenges remain for restituting African artefacts from French museums

On the Heels of a Dramatic Restitution Report, France Is Returning 26 Artifacts to Benin. Will Other Countries Follow Suit?: Twenty-six bronze artifacts taken from Benin during the colonial era will be returned from France to their country of origin. The news comes on the heels of a dramatic report presented at the Élysée palace on Friday, advising French President Emmanuel Macron to enact a permanent restitution agenda for all art taken “without consent” from Africa during the colonial era.

26.11.2018, Artnet: On the Heels of a Dramatic Restitution Report, France Is Returning 26 Artifacts to Benin. Will Other Countries Follow Suit?

26.11.2018, Frieze: Macron Orders Return of Looted Benin Thrones and Statues ‘Without Delay’

Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech can keep its name, Paris court rules: The Paris Court of Appeal has ruled that the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent can continue using the company name Jardin Majorelle for the lush Marrakech garden that the French couturier and his partner bought in 1980. After Saint Laurent died in 2008, Bergé donated the garden to the foundation in Paris that preserves his legacy. The court ruling is the latest twist in a legal dispute between the foundation and Michel Pidancet, the grandson of the second wife of the French painter Jacques Majorelle, who created the garden in the 1930s.

26.11.2018, The Art Newspaper: Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech can keep its name, Paris court rules

A Belgian Court Has Seized 58 Banksy Artworks Worth Over $15 Million From an ‘Illegal’ Brussels Exhibition: It turns out Banksy isn’t the only one hanging up works by Banksy without permission. A Belgian court has shut down a Banksy exhibition in Brussels, known as “Banksy Unauthorised,” as questions swirl around who is the rightful owner of the 58 works on view. On Thursday at midnight, bailiffs loaded up and drove the works to an unidentified location, where they will be held until the next court hearing in January, according to the Guardian.

26.11.2018, Artnet: A Belgian Court Has Seized 58 Banksy Artworks Worth Over $15 Million From an ‘Illegal’ Brussels Exhibition

26.11.2018, Le Journal des Arts: L’artiste Banksy au cœur d’un imbroglio belge

Five Countries Slow to Address Nazi-Looted Art, U.S. Expert Says: In 1998, confronted by the fact that so much of the art stolen by the Nazis during World War II had yet to be returned to its rightful owners, 44 nations agreed to the Washington Principles, a treaty of sorts that committed its signers to making best efforts to return the looted art. But speaking Monday in Berlin at a conference convened to measure progress in that undertaking on the agreement’s 20th anniversary, the man who negotiated the principles on behalf of the United States delivered a blunt rebuke to what he characterized as foot-dragging by five countries.

26.11.2018, The New York Times: Five Countries Slow to Address Nazi-Looted Art, U.S. Expert Says

26.11.2018, The Art Newspaper: Washington Principles: the restitution of Nazi-looted art is still a work in progress, 20 years on

26.11.2018, The Commission for Art Recovery: 20 Years of the Washington Principles: Roadmap to the Future, Conference in Berlin, November 26-28, 2018 Keynote Speech by Ronald S. Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress and Chairman of the Commission for Art Recovery

28.11.2018, Le Quotidien de l’Art: Spoliation artistique : la France sur la sellette

28.11.2018, Le Journal des Arts: Un millier de spécialistes font le bilan des principes de Washington ratifiés en 1998

United States

Wall Street Titan to Get a Refund Over Fake Art: A federal jury in New Hampshire said a former college professor and her son defrauded a Wall Street titan by selling him a series of fake paintings they claimed were by the modern artist Leon Golub.

30.11.2018, The New York Times: Wall Street Titan to Get a Refund Over Fake Art

29.11.2018, Artnet: A Jury Sides With Top Art Collector Andy Hall in a Dramatic Lawsuit Over Fake Golub Paintings, Awarding Him $468,000

$1.3m worth of ivory seized in California—the largest haul since a ban was adopted in the state: An antiques and jewellery store in San Diego has been targeted for trafficking illegal ivory. Yesterday (28 November) authorities seized more than 300 pieces of elephant and rhinoceros ivory worth $1.3m from the Carlton Gallery in La Jolla and a nearby storage facility. The owner, Victor Hyman Cohen, and a salesperson could face a maximum penalty of one year in jail and fines ranging from $1,000 to $40,000.

29.11.2018, The Art Newspaper: $1.3m worth of ivory seized in California—the largest haul since a ban was adopted in the state

‘These aren’t extinct cultures’ – indigenous art gets a stage at the Met: If you walk into the Met Fifth Avenue, there is one unlikely sign gracing the entranceway of an exhibit, which reads: “The Metropolitan Museum of Art is situated on the Lenape island of Manhahtaan (Mannahatta) in Lenapehoking, the Lenape homeland.”

27.11.2018, The Guardian: ‘These aren’t extinct cultures’ – indigenous art gets a stage at the Met

Berkshire Museum Completes Controversial, Contested Art Sales, Netting $53.3 M.: Nearly a year and a half after it announced plans to part with 40 artworks from its collection in order to close a budget gap, pay for building repairs and renovations, and pursue a new programming agenda, the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, said today that it has completed the sales, bringing in $53.25 million for 22 works.

27.11.2018, ArtNews: Berkshire Museum Completes Controversial, Contested Art Sales, Netting $53.3 M.

28.11.2018, Apollo Magazine: Berkshire Museum completes controversial deaccessioning sales

30.11.2018, Le Journal des Arts: Le Berkshire Museum veut tourner la page

Aiming to Preserve Artists’ Legacies, Hauser & Wirth Founds Nonprofit Institute for Archival Projects: Hauser & Wirth gallery has founded the Hauser & Wirth Institute, a New York–based 501(c)3 nonprofit that will be devoted to overseeing projects related to artists’ archives. The Institute will be headed up by Jennifer Gross, who was formerly the chief curator and deputy director of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and will also facilitate a series of fellowships.

27.11.2018, ArtNews: Aiming to Preserve Artists’ Legacies, Hauser & Wirth Founds Nonprofit Institute for Archival Projects

03.12.2018, Artnet: The Gray Market: Why the Hauser & Wirth Institute’s ‘Wholly Independent’ Research Can Still Be a Major Market Play

World

Is the Contemporary Art Market Due for a Contraction? A Look Beyond the Mega-Sales Presents a Dimmer Picture: It’s not a world-shaking revelation that the auction market operates at a decidedly higher price band than the gallery market. Spending enough cash to make you a gallery VIP might not rescue you from a seat assignment in Sotheby’s overflow room. But with plenty of top-tier collectors gearing up for Art Basel Miami Beach and a vanguard of high-level dealers bringing enough blue-chip resale work to fill a private museum, it would be naïve to assume the results of this November’s premier auctions may not be instructive for the private market’s last major event of 2018.

30.11.2018, Artnet: Is the Contemporary Art Market Due for a Contraction? A Look Beyond the Mega-Sales Presents a Dimmer Picture

Back After the Hurricane, Puerto Rico’s MECA Art Fair Is Making Its Mark Through Pure Enthusiasm: MECA international art fair persists no matter what you throw at it. The budding contemporary art fair launched last June, one month after Puerto Rico declared a form of bankruptcy. It returned this month, November 16-19, 2018, in Old San Juan, fourteen months after the island-wide disaster of Hurricane Maria. In the face of all this, what does this small but mighty fair have to offer?

30.11.2018, Artnet: Back After the Hurricane, Puerto Rico’s MECA Art Fair Is Making Its Mark Through Pure Enthusiasm

Collecting antiquities can be profitable yet their provenance can bite back: It was described as an exceptional example of its type, its “highly expressive face . . . and sensitively modelled body” epitomising the “high point” of ancient Egyptian artistic expression. The limestone statue of Sekhemka, an Egyptian inspector of scribes who lived some 4,500 years ago, lived up to its billing when it came up for sale at Christie’s in 2014, shattering the auction record for an ancient Egyptian artwork. It sold for £15.7m, including fees, more than double its estimate of £4m-£6m.

30.11.2018, The Financial Times: Collecting antiquities can be profitable yet their provenance can bite back

Would the ‘royal’ Salvator Mundi please stand up?: Fresh doubts are emerging over the English royal provenance of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi (dated around 1500), which was bought a year ago for Abu Dhabi. New evidence has revealed that another painting of the same subject, now in Moscow’s Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, is more likely to be the one recorded in the historic inventories.

28.11.2018, The Art Newspaper: Would the ‘royal’ Salvator Mundi please stand up?

29.11.2018, The Times: Leonardo hit by king-size doubts

Censorship could stifle China’s art market: Increasingly stringent censorship in China under president Xi Jinping’s regime could be a barrier to the otherwise unparalleled growth of the art market in mainland China, a Western dealer has said.

27.11.2018, The Art Newspaper: Censorship could stifle China’s art market

As Hong Kong Sleepwalks Towards Authoritarianism, Artists Fight for its Political Awakening: In January last year, the CIA released more than twelve million pages of declassified documents online. Amidst the more eye-catching material on UFOs, invisible ink, and the psychic powers of celebrity spoon-bender, Uri Geller, were hundreds of files relating to Hong Kong. They revealed how concerned the Agency was about the territory’s future under Chinese rule. The great unknown, concluded one report from the 1980s, was how much local autonomy Beijing would grant Hong Kong after the British returned it to China in 1997, ‘or even whether its efforts will make much difference given Hong Kong residents’ distrust of Chinese sincerity.’

27.11.2018, Frieze: As Hong Kong Sleepwalks Towards Authoritarianism, Artists Fight for its Political Awakening

Chinese Master’s 1,000-Year-Old Scroll Fetches $59 Million: A 1,000-year-old Chinese scroll rendered by the era’s most important artist sold for HK$463 million ($59 million), falling short of expectations that it would set a new Asian record for a work of art at auction.

25.11.2018, Bloomberg: Chinese Master’s 1,000-Year-Old Scroll Fetches $59 Million

27.11.2018, Artnet: A Rare 11th-Century Scroll by the ‘Chinese da Vinci’ Sold for Nearly $60 Million at Christie’s Hong Kong