Martha Lufkin

Crime archive

Over 30 Manhattan art collectors have come forward voluntarily to pay $6 million in unpaid State sales tax on works of art

NY District Attorney promises amnesty for those who come forward while corporate executive Samuel Waksal enters a guilty plea for tax evasion

Cambodiaarchive

US imposes import restriction on certain Khmer artefacts

“The pillage of such items from Cambodia is an emergency”

Looted artarchive

Hector Feliciano seeks $6.8 million from Rosenberg heirs for finding Nazi loot

The complaint demands a 17.5% finders fee for aiding the recovery of stolen artworks

Newsarchive

Austria can be sued in the US in claim that it forced Jew to give Klimts after World War II

Austria is not an adequate forum to resolve Nazi loot claim, says California federal court

Knoedler and Seattle Art Museum settle over Matisse lawsuit

In 1954 Knoedler sold picture stolen from Paul Rosenberg by Nazis

Picasso case determines that faith in dealers should be warranted

Court says non-professional buyers do not have to check “provenance”

Museumsarchive

MoMA legal fees in Schiele suit disclosed

The museum has spent over $250,000 contesting the attempted subpoena of two paintings

Schiele war loot restitution case continues as MoMA attempts to return disputed works to the Leopold Museum

In the interests of future exhibitions, the New York Court of Appeals rules that Schieles on loan to Museum of Modern Art must be returned to the lender then a federal magistrate seizes one of pictures

Lootingarchive

New York Court of Appeals rules that Schiele paintings must be returned to Leopold Foundation

The paintings are claimed to have been stolen from their rightful owners during the Nazi annexation of Austria

Congress can enforce “decency” when making arts grants, US Supreme Court rules

"Avant-gardeartistes remain entirely free to épater les bourgeois," wrote Justice Antonin Scalia, "they are merely deprived of the additional satisfaction of having the bourgeoisie taxed to pay for it"

Return of 1939 World Fair art demanded

A relation of the Polish painter Tadeusz Pruszkowski, who died in 1942, has asked Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, to hand over seven Polish paintings and four tapestries, but the Jesuit Institution says the objects properly belong to it

Co-ownership rejected by Budapest Museum of Fine Arts for alleged war loot

Montreal Museum maintains they bought the Vasari in good faith

May 1998archive

Supreme Court justices consider whether decency test for NEA grants is unconstitutional

Instead of raising hopes that they might deal a decisive slap in the face to Congressional limits on artistic expression, the justices gave no clear indication of where they were heading in the case