“It seems outrageous to demand a photographer be asked to pay for the use of her own work, particularly when she has gifted that work to the public. It seems like another example of corporate bullying. But the suit will undoubtedly be complicated, as everything to do with posting images on the Web is. If, for example, an image is free, does it mean anyone else is free to charge for cataloguing it and giving access to it? If you put your old dresser on the curb and I pick it up, can’t I sell it myself?”

“The museum’s historic Art Deco building has been under construction since 2013, when it first announced the $12 million expansion. … Without expanding the exterior of the building, Isozaki and Gauld’s redesign” – which opens December 1 – “will increase the size of the museum’s exhibition space by 50 percent, adding four new galleries.”

“Mr. Lauder, 72, would not identify the piece or its creator during an interview, saying that negotiations on its return were being finalized. He did say he was surprised that a work with a disputed provenance had made it into the museum, which focuses on art created in Austria and Germany from 1890 to 1940.”

“This is a woman who had donated more than $10 million to the city-owned museums over the years. Even more important, she guided the institution through a $190 million capital campaign that gave San Francisco the de Young Museum’s award-winning building in 2005, and she led numerous smaller fund drives for the Fine Arts Museums as well as for several other cultural and social service organizations in town.”

“They thought the etching had become too faded, so they decided to scratch over it to make it easier to see. … The carving on the northern island of Tro is one of the country’s most famous historic sites and an important clue as to when people began skiing.” (This may not end as well as “Beast Jesus” did.)