The future of the late pop artist Robert Indiana’s legacy hinges on the outcome of a pair of lawsuits that have been underway since his death in May.

Over the years we’ve covered many stories about how the American copyright regime applies to graffiti art.  Now, a lawsuit against car manufacturer General Motors may test a new legal angle in this area of case law.

A recently-filed lawsuit provides insight into some of the risks involved in art transactions given the increased use of creative purchase structures and financing arrangements in the art market.

​In an important ruling issued last week, a federal judge allowed fraud claims asserted by art collector Andrew Hall to proceed against a former art-history professor and her son, Lorettan and Nicholas Gascard, alleging that they sold him a number of forged Leon Golub works.  The court’s decision is instructive for collectors who may have been duped into purchasing forged artworks, only to discover many years later that they were fakes.

Earlier this week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued the latest—and likely final—ruling in Marei von Saher’s decades-long attempt to recover artwork looted by the Nazis from her late father-in-law.  In ruling against von Saher, the Ninth Circuit has ensured that the Cranachs will remain in the museum, and accessible to the public, for the foreseeable future.  This ruling will have significant implications for heirs of those who originally owned Nazi-looted artworks, especially where such heirs have already tried and failed to recover artwork through the official restitution channels instituted by European governments in the post-war years.  

Yesterday afternoon, a lawsuit was filed in the New York State Supreme Court for the seizure and return of four artworks with an aggregate value of $1.66 million.  In addition to bringing a civil replevin claim seeking recovery of the Works, the plaintiff has requested a Court order authorizing a sheriff to seize the Works from the defendant.  As this lawsuit progresses further, it may present a useful opportunity to observe the application in the art-law context of a New York statute governing such seizure orders.

​Last summer, Grossman LLP successfully represented renowned artist and photographer Peter Beard and his studio in a lawsuit over three of his original artworks.  The Chase defendants appealed to a higher court—the state’s Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department—which held oral arguments on the appeal in January.  And this week, the appellate court again handed an important victory to Mr. Beard.

We continue to follow the ongoing conversation in the art world about how best to handle disputes over artwork that was looted or displaced during the chaos and persecution of World War II.  As one recent story demonstrates, sometimes a current possessor demonstrates willingness to return a work to rightful claimants but looks to a third party for compensation for the loss.

​Last week, a federal judge refused a request by Sesame Workshop—creator of classic children’s television show Sesame Street—to enjoin parts of a marketing campaign for an upcoming R-rated comedy film featuring a much darker take on puppets.

This blog writes often about copyright law, including defenses to copyright infringement claims, such as fair use.  One recent decision highlights the “de minimis” defense to copyright infringement, which recognizes that there are cases where a defendant may use someone else’s copyrighted material in a way that is so minor that it does not give rise to a cognizable claim. 

In a recent post, we discussed the European Parliament’s adoption earlier this month of a new Directive that will have far-reaching effects on Europe’s art market.  We predicted that the United States might soon follow the EU’s lead by implementing similar legislation.  Now, the U.S. Congress is officially headed down the same path.

We’ve written before about a high-profile case involving a Modigliani work, Seated Man with a Cane, which was allegedly taken from Oscar Stettiner, a Jewish art dealer who fled Paris in 1939 as the Nazis took over the city.  Last week, a New York state court judge permitted a representative of his estate to proceed with claims against the work’s current possessors.

Earlier this week, Justice O. Peter Sherwood of the New York County Supreme Court rejected collector Hubert Neumann’s attempt to prevent Sotheby’s from auctioning off Jean-Michael Basquiat’s monumental work, Flesh and Spirit.

The oddly audacious copying of artwork at Rabbit Town illustrates a simple fact about artists who want to defend their intellectual property rights; that mission gets more complicated when an issue crosses international borders, because there is no universal international copyright law that protects an artwork all over the world.

On April 19, the European Parliament—the legislative body of the European Union—adopted the 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive.  The new legislation will significantly affect Europe’s art market, and prominent members of the art world have already expressed their concerns about the practical consequences of the Directive.

In a lawsuit filed last week in New York state court (see No. 651889/2018, N.Y. Co.), an art collector has sued over the problems he purportedly encountered in purchasing a sculpture by famed artist Jeff Koons.

The Museum of Modern Art—universally known as MoMA—has filed a lawsuit against MoMaCha, a Lower East Side art gallery and café with a curiously similar name to the museum’s famous moniker.

The descendants of Austrian-Jewish cabaret performer Fritz Grunbaum have been working for years to recover some of the art that Grunbaum owned in the years before the Nazis rose to power.  Now, the Grunbaum heirs have achieved a new victory.  

In an important ruling issued last week, a New York state court dismissed claims by an art dealer who sued an artist’s catalogue raisonné for rejecting works the plaintiff had submitted for authentication.  The case has the potential to set an important precedent protecting art authenticators from disgruntled art owners.

​Several stories in the news recently have turned a spotlight on the complex world of collecting art and historical artifacts across international borders—and serve as a reminder of the importance of diligence and legal advice in such transactions.