In his presentation at the Fordham Centre London on this Monday November 19, From Murder To Museums: Abraham Lincoln, Adolf Hitler and the Hunt For Nazi Looted Art in America, Raymond J. Dowd, Partner - Dunnington Bartholow & Miller LLP - NYC recounts how he seized two stolen Schieles after were spotting them at the Salon+Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory in November 2015, leading to international headlines upon restitution. The Schieles are now at Christie's auction house in New York pending an appeal.
Dowd traces how history's greatest murder has, until now, concealed history's greatest robbery. The presentation traces Abraham Lincoln's idea of taking the profit out of war through the Lieber Code Executive Order 100 of April 1863, to the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions, to the Nuremberg Trials, to show that returning the stolen property to Holocaust victims was a truly American idea that was embraced by the Allied powers in the London Declaration of January 9, 1943.
Dowd discusses how 1. confiscatory US tax laws, 2. a fair market value deduction for artworks donated to museums, and 3. an unwillingness of museums to look gift horses in the mouth led to the current situation of US museums having to deal with large inventories of unprovenanced artworks that left Europe after 1933, but were created prior to 1946. Learn how U.S. taxpayers foot the bill while America's elite filled the nation's greatest cultural institutions with toxic assets.
Dowd presents a new vision of how our museums can better fulfill their charitable and educational missions while respecting the often bloodstained history of the artworks in their care.
RSVP details at the link below:
www.dunnington.com
Copyright law, fine art and navigating the courts. Attorney and AuthorCopyright Litigation Handbook (Thomson Reuters Westlaw 2017-2018) by Raymond J. Dowd
