Art Law - DePaul Article: It's OK for US Museums To Sue Jews Over Artworks Stolen During the Holocaust

I was provided with an article from Volume XXIII of the DePaul Journal of Art, Technology and Intellectual Property Law (2013) at page 279.   The article is written by Simon Frankel, a partner of Covington & Burling who was counsel to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and his associate Ethan Forrest.  The article argues that it is ok for museums to sue Jews make sure that their rights to reclaim stolen artworks in museum collections are cut off.

I provide a contrary viewpoint in my recently-published article Nazi Looted Art and Cocaine: When Museum Directors Take It, Call The Cops.

I think that any museum directors who are suing Jews and asserting statutes of limitations and laches to avoid scrutiny of stolen artworks in their collections ought to be put in jail, particularly since taxpayers finance the cost of each acquisition of stolen art.  When Leonard Lauder announces a murky "billion dollar gift" what he means is that he won't pay a billion in taxes and will dump a lot of art that he bought in Switzerland on the cheap and potentially can't sell on the market on unsuspecting taxpayers and that years from now we run the risk of museum directors crying about how they can't figure out where the artworks came from and that when Jewish families invoke Holocaust-era claims, the museums can hire expensive lawyers to deny that the Holocaust ever happened, much as museums are now doing.  A billion dollar loss to New York City taxpayers means fewer schools, crappier roads, and that another billionaire gets a free ride for offloading potential junk in his portfolio.

We need to stop museums from accepting junk provenances: those that are not published and based on readily-available documents and that can be subjected to peer review, as the ethics codes of professional historians require.  The culture of museum secrecy and obfuscation has to end.

Lootedart.com has given my article top billing here.

Center for Art Law calls it an article with "a cheeky title and noble purpose" in a post titled "Attorney's Appeal for Intervention Against Museums Addicted to Nazi Looted Art" here

Jasper Jottings focus on my attack on museums enabling tax cheats here

Sullivan & Worcester's Art Law Report called my arguments "compelling" and the article "noteworthy" pointing out that it raises arguments that museums cannot easily answer here

www.dunnington.com
 Copyright law, fine art and navigating the courts. All practice, no theory.
Copyright Litigation Handbook (Thomson Reuters Westlaw 2012-2013) by Raymond J. Dowd 

Join Us Tonight - The Federal Bar Association Honoring Our Federal Defenders In the Eastern District of New York

 

Honoring Our Federal Defenders

The Federal Bar Association

Invites you

to an event honoring

Our Federal Defenders

~ Introduction by ~

The Honorable Chief Judge Carol Bagley Amon

United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of New York

~ Role of the Federal Defender Conducted By ~

Loretta E. Lynch

United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York

~With remarks by~

David Patton

Executive Director and Attorney-in-Chief of the Federal Defenders

Date:

May 20, 2013, 5:30pm

Reception to Follow

Location:

US District Court, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Ceremonial Courtroom, Brooklyn, NY 11201

For more information, please contact:

Phil Schatz, (212) 421-8100 ext. 313

Co-Sponsored by Network of Bar Leaders

David Patton

David Patton has been the Executive Director and Attorney-in-Chief of the Federal Defenders of New York since July 2011. From 2002 to 2008, he worked at the Federal Defenders as a trial attorney in the Manhattan office. During that time, he also served as an Adjunct Professor at N.Y.U. School of Law, where he taught the Federal Defender Clinic.

In 2008, Mr. Patton began teaching full time as an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Alabama. From 2010 to 2011, he was a Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Stanford Law School where he founded the school’s first trial-level criminal defense clinic. Mr. Patton is also on the faculty of the Southern Public Defender Training Center, a non-profit dedicated to training new public defenders throughout the South. Among other publications, he is the author of Guns, Crime Control, and a Systemic Approach to Federal Sentencing, 32 Cardozo L. Rev. 1427 (2011).

Mr. Patton is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served as an editor of the Virginia Law Review. He clerked for the Honorable Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Prior to joining the Federal Defenders in 2002, Mr. Patton was an associate at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.



www.dunnington.com
 Copyright law, fine art and navigating the courts. All practice, no theory.
Copyright Litigation Handbook (Thomson Reuters Westlaw 2012-2013) by Raymond J. Dowd 

Art Law: Masterpieces and Mystery - Nazi Art Looting Presentation at Dayton Art Institute May 21

For those interested in art law and are in the vicinity of Dayton, Ohio, I hope that you will consider coming to my program sponsored by the Federal Bar Association and the Dayton Bar Association at the Dayton Art Institute on May 21, more information here.

For a great video introduction of the program on Dayton television by Michael Roediger, Executive Director of the Dayton Art Institute, check out the video below.

Mysteries of the Holocaust

For my recent article in Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion titled:  Nazi Looted Art: When Museum Directors Take It, Call the Cops, check out my last post here.


www.dunnington.com
 Copyright law, fine art and navigating the courts. All practice, no theory.
Copyright Litigation Handbook (Thomson Reuters Westlaw 2012-2013) by Raymond J. Dowd 

Nazi Looted Art and Cocaine: When Museum Directors Take It, It Call the Cops

 

Egon Schiele's Girl with Black Hair - Stolen From Fritz Grunbaum When He Was In the Dachau Concentration Camp, now at the Allen Art Museum at Oberlin College

The Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, as part of their Nuremberg volume, just published my article:  Nazi Looted Art and Cocaine: When Museum Directors Take It, Call the Cops.  Check out Volume 14 here.

The article argues that the U.S. government clearly condemned the theft of artworks from victims of Nazism and that federal and state statutes have consistently forbidden the traffic and concealment of stolen property.  As such, Nazi looted art should be treated as a contraband substance, like cocaine, and should be returned to its true owners under the common law precept that no one can take good title from a thief.   The article further argues that federal courts have misconstrued state statutes of limitations and principles of equity to permit museums and private collectors to inappropriately launder title to stolen artworks.  The article arguest that it is time for prosecutors to act and that the National Stolen Property Act gives them a weapon to do so.  They have the weapons and evidence, only the political courage to confront powerful museums with the evidence is lacking.  The article argues that museums, colleges and individuals who use technical defenses to keep stolen property as the Toledo Museum of Fine Art, the Detroit Institute of the Arts, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the MoMA and the Guggenheim have done bring only disgrace upon themselves and don't clean title to the stolen goods.   The article further argues that this is not a victimless crime because the wealthy donors who have "donated" the stolen artworks to museums got a tax break for the "fair market value" of the artworks.  Accordingly these tax cheats, with the complicity of inattentive museum trustees, have stolen from their fellow taxpayers and have unfairly saddled publicly-supported institutions with costly problems.

www.dunnington.com
 Copyright law, fine art and navigating the courts. All practice, no theory.
Copyright Litigation Handbook (Thomson Reuters Westlaw 2012-2013) by Raymond J. Dowd 

Join Us Tonight at the SDNY: Honoring Our Federal Defenders

Honoring Our Federal Defenders

 

The Federal Bar Association Chapter

for the Southern District of New York

Invites you

to an event honoring

Our Federal Defenders

~ Introduction by ~

The Honorable Chief Judge Loretta A. Preska

United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York

~ Role of the Federal Defender Conducted By ~

Richard B. Zabel

Deputy United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York

~With remarks by~

David Patton

Executive Director and Attorney-in-Chief of the Federal Defenders

Date:

May 14, 2013, 5:30pm

Reception to Follow

Location:

US District Court, 500 Pearl Street, Room 850, New York, NY 10007

For more information, please contact:

Phil Schatz, (212) 421-8100 ext. 313
 

The Federal Defenders of New York represents people accused of federal crimes in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York who cannot afford to hire an attorney.  The office was formed in the years after the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, decided 50 years ago.  Gideon's promise of equal justice for rich and poor alike remains one of the most important constitutional principles ever espoused. The singular promise -- that the quality of justice afforded to citizens should not depend on their financial means -- has resonated with Americans since the decision was written in 1963. 

Yet, on this 50th Anniversary of Gideon, the Federal Defenders of New York, and offices like it around the country, are facing the most difficult challenges in the history of the federal defender program.  Federal budget sequestration has resulted in steep cuts, greatly endangering the quality of justice in federal courts.  Offices around the country are laying off and furloughing lawyers and staff, and cutting investigative and expert services.  David Patton, the Executive Director of the Federal Defenders of New York, will discuss his office's work and the challenges faced by the budget crisis.

 

             David Patton has been the Executive Director and Attorney-in-Chief of the Federal Defenders of New York since July 2011. From 2002 to 2008, he worked at the Federal Defenders as a trial attorney in the Manhattan office. During that time, he also served as an Adjunct Professor at N.Y.U. School of Law, where he taught the Federal Defender Clinic.

In 2008, Mr. Patton began teaching full time as an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Alabama. From 2010 to 2011, he was a Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Stanford Law School where he founded the school’s first trial-level criminal defense clinic. Mr. Patton is also on the faculty of the Southern Public Defender Training Center, a non-profit dedicated to training new public defenders throughout the South. Among other publications, he is the author of Guns, Crime Control, and a Systemic Approach to Federal Sentencing, 32 Cardozo L. Rev. 1427 (2011).

Mr. Patton is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served as an editor of the Virginia Law Review. He clerked for the Honorable Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Prior to joining the Federal Defenders in 2002, Mr. Patton was an associate at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell

www.dunnington.com
 Copyright law, fine art and navigating the courts. All practice, no theory.
Copyright Litigation Handbook (Thomson Reuters Westlaw 2012-2013) by Raymond J. Dowd 

Masterpieces & Mystery: Nazi Art Looting Presentation at the Dayton Art Institute on May 21

Masterpieces & Mystery

Dayton Art Institute

 

Date: Tuesday, May 21

Time: 5:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Location: Dayton Art Institute- NCR Renaissance Auditorium

Tickets: $35 non-members
$30 museum members
$30 Federal and Dayton Bar Association members

Federal courts are increasingly faced with claims from owners of artwork stolen by the Nazis during World War II. Meet Raymond Dowd, who has served as trial counsel in several art recovery cases. Dowd, a national officer of the Federal Bar Association and partner in the law firm of Dunnington, Bartholow & Miller, LLP in New York City, will share stories and insights from his work on cases that have resulted in recovering lost art taken from victims of the Nazis during World War II.
There will be a pre-reception in the Shaw Gothic Cloister and an after-reception in the General Motors Entrance Rotunda.

Masterpieces & Mystery is a presentation of the Federal Bar Association Dayton Chapter and The Dayton Art Institute. Reception sponsored in part by Economy Linen.
 

5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Heavy Appetizers & Open Beer/Wine Bar (Included in Ticket Price)

6:00 p.m. – 7:00/7:30 p.m. – Masterpieces and Mysteries

7:00/7:30 p.m. – 8:00/8:30 p.m.  Coffee and Dessert Social (Included in Ticket Price)

How To Go:

Date: Tuesday, May 21, 5:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Location: NCR Renaissance Auditorium
Reservations: Contact 937-512-0152 or meberle@daytonart.org

Or:

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS ONLINE!


www.dunnington.com
 Copyright law, fine art and navigating the courts. All practice, no theory.
Copyright Litigation Handbook (Thomson Reuters Westlaw 2012-2013) by Raymond J. Dowd