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Where were the defense lawyers when Steven Lee Olson and his girlfriend really needed them? Susan Tranquada, the love interest of the suspect arrested Tuesday night in the Goya theft, blabbed yesterday to The Record of Bergen County, NJ, home to both CultureGrrl and the alleged thief. He is said to have spirited the painting away after it was tucked in for the night last … [Read more...] about Goya Arrest Update: The Girlfriend Talks

---They finally made an arrest in the theft of the Goya (subsequently recovered) en route from the Toledo Museum to the Guggenheim Museum. The thief who broke into the unattended transport truck was allegedly Steven Lee Olson, a self-employed truck driver, who had contacted authorities only days after the incident to say he had found it in his basement. Still no publication of … [Read more...] about Links in the Pink: Alleged Goya Thief Arrested, Hispanic Society’s Koran Deaccessions

This could be a new talking point for those in the "universal museum" camp, who argue that it's not always best to return antiquities to their countries of origin. ANSA, the Italian news agency, reports: Invisible agents are attacking precious works of art in Italian museums, dissolving paintings and eroding statues, according to a report published on Tuesday by a leading … [Read more...] about Cultural Patrimony Alerts: Italian Pollution Risks, French Deaccession Discussions

It's not those pointy teeth, nor the inappropriate juxtaposition of Damien Hirst's oeuvre with an 18th-century Copley copy and a 19th-century Homer, with which it has little resonance beyond the obvious shark connection. No, the scariest thing about the tank recently installed at the Metropolitan Museum is the big sign on a pole, standing right next to it, with a whole list of … [Read more...] about What’s the Scariest Thing About the Shark at the Met?

This just in: Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle has set a Feb. 19 date for a three-day trial on the question of whether Fisk University should be allowed to sell a half-share of its Stieglitz Collection to Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum. This is undoubtedly not the "expedited" trial that Fisk had been hoping for. Reporting on yesterday's court hearing, Erik Schelzig of the … [Read more...] about Fisk-Crystal Bridges Deal: Trial Date Set; Walton’s Spinners at Work

Spidey Left Out This just in from the Metropolitan Museum: George Clooney and Julia Roberts will be co-chairs (along with the eternal Anna Wintour) of the museum's May 8 gala benefit for its Costume Institute, celebrating the opening of "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy." Shouldn't Toby Maguire aka Spiderman (above) have had a starring role in this? Harold, I think I have a … [Read more...] about Celebrity Watch: Clooney and Roberts at the Met; Bellows in Beverly Hills

A motion for an injunction to stop the Maier Museum sales has just been filed in Lynchburg Circuit Court by 19 plaintiffs, including Randolph College students and alumnae, Maier donors, former Maier Museum associate director Ellen Agnew and former Randolph College director of museum studies Laura Katzman. You can read the complaint here. You can read the announcement of the … [Read more...] about Latest Developments in Maier and Fisk Deaccession Attempts

---Want the FULL story of the MASS MoCA mess? Geoff Edgers of the Boston Globe is you man. His 3,500 words on the subject, plus narrated slide show of the installation- and de-installation-in-progress, are here. The thing that bothers me most about Debacle Büchel is the financial and reputational damage to an institution that has been such a positive, creative and supportive … [Read more...] about Shrink These Links: MASS MoCA Woes, Global Hermitage Shrinks, Russians Fear Legal Claims on Art Loans

As I predicted, Donn Zaretsky of the Art Law Blog has now posted a detailed and informative analysis of the Promotion of Artistic Giving Act, H.R. 3881, designed to correct the fractional gifts mess. Donn likes what he sees: It does appear that, if passed, it would live up to its name and bring the practice of fractional giving back from the dead. "If passed"...that's the big … [Read more...] about Detailed Analysis of the New Fractional Gifts Bill

Eileen Goldspiel, the American Association of Museums' interim director for government & media relations, responds to AAM's Silence, in which I asked why the museums' organization had made no statement about Randolph College's planned sale of art from its Maier Museum. Goldspiel writes: It is indeed AAM's policy not to comment on specific actions of individual institutions, … [Read more...] about BlogBack: AAM on Its Reponse to Maier Sales

Unveiling a "Restored" Mona Lisa Pascal Cotte, a French engineer who took "ultra-detailed digital scans" of the "Mona Lisa," says he can now tell us a lot more about what Leonardo's masterpiece is supposed to look like. Marcus Wohlsen of Associated Press reports: Cotte created a reproduction of the Mona Lisa with the light blues and brilliant whites he thinks represent the … [Read more...] about Mona Lisa Revealed?

No it's not Six Art Bloggers in Search of an Author, the e-mailed roundtable, moderated by critic Peter Plagens in the November issue of Art in America. (The actual title of the piece is: "Report from the Blogosphere: The New Grass Roots." A.i.A.'s barebones website never links to its articles.) This five-page compilation of answers to such questions as "What's the purpose of … [Read more...] about Last Week’s Biggest Development in Blogdom

Caravaggio, "Sleeping Cupid," Indianapolis Museum of Art, The Clowes Fund Collection In what is by far the most flavorful recounting of yesterday's courtroom scrum in the Salander-O'Reilly Galleries meltdown, the NY Times' Anemona Hartocollis today reports how the request by the Indianapolis Museum's lawyer for the immediate return of a loaned Caravaggio, "Sleeping Cupid" … [Read more...] about Not Funny: Indianapolis Museum’s Padlocked Caravaggio

---The Philadelphia Inquirer shows up at the Norristown, PA, courtroom where the latest Barnes drama unfolded earlier today. Diane Mastrull reports: One attorney for a group opposed to the move accused the judge of not doing enough fast enough. Visibly irritated yet composed, Montgomery County Orphans' Court Judge Stanley R. Ott accused the lawyer for the Friends of the Barnes … [Read more...] about Updates: Barnes Courtroom Drama, Wilmerding’s NGA Board Chairmanship, Virginia Museum Association’s Opposition to Maier Disposals, AAM’s Silence

It must have been a slow news day at The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas. The newspaper, which serves residents in the area of the future home of Alice Walton's planned Crystal Bridges Museum, devoted more than half of a 630-word editorial to deploring and extensively quoting my Wall Street Journal article about the Wal-Mart heiress' collecting activities. The editorial … [Read more...] about The Arkansas Editorial of Me!