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ARTS & CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS
Nixon Peabody’s Arts & Cultural Institutions practice offers unmatched experience bringing successful resolutions to high-profile and high-stakes matters to the domestic and international arts and cultural community.
Employing the skillful investigatory and litigation abilities necessary to address historically sensitive claims, our attorneys have led international provenance investigations in Europe and the U.S., earning groundbreaking resolutions and acquisitions for clients. Our experience involves artworks and cultural property allegedly confiscated or lost during times of conflict, and cultural property unlawfully exported or imported from its source country into the U.S. Several of the matters we have handled have shaped the state of the law today and involved masterpieces. Where others have had to settle, Nixon Peabody’s team has an unmatched courthouse record when prosecuting or defending clients’ art related rights.
Our team is equally regarded for its transactional experience. Nixon Peabody attorneys have negotiated and enabled the acquisition or loans of major international artworks and artifacts for numerous institutions and collectors, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the Art Institute of Chicago, and Yale University, among others. We have served as counsel on major museum transactions, and museum projects and financing across the United States, from the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to SFMOMA and the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco to the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum (LANHM).
We also assist our clients with art authenticity, auction house consignments, copyright, Visual Arts Rights Act (VARA) claims, and the unique issues owning, collecting, and operating in today’s international art world.
Our Arts & Cultural Institutions team
Nixon Peabody’s Arts & Cultural Institutions team combines art-industry-savvy representation with the support of a full-service international firm. We have offices in the key arts cultural centers of New York; Los Angeles; Boston; Washington, DC; Chicago; London; Paris; and Shanghai; and our attorneys also have extensive experience working in Europe; Asia; South America; and the Middle East. Our team includes a former general counsel of a major cultural institution, and a former U.S. District and Court of Appeals law clerk. Members of the team have fostered strong connections with art world professionals across the globe. The firm has sponsored the ALI-ABA Legal Problems in Museum Administration Conference and its attorneys regularly speak and participate in international conferences.
In just the past couple of years alone, foreign sovereigns, collectors, museums, dealers, and art professional have turned to Nixon Peabody’s Arts & Cultural Institutions team to handle significant arts related litigation in federal courts across the U.S., including the United States District Courts for the districts of the Southern District of New York, the Central District of California (Los Angeles), the District of Columbia (Washington, DC), the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago), the Eastern District of Louisiana (New Orleans), the Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit), the Northern District of Ohio (Toledo), and the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th Circuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Representative Experience- The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)-Fisher CollectionAgreement allows display of renowned private collection
Served as lead counsel and advisor on the agreement between SFMOMA and the family of Doris and the late Donald Fisher, co-founders of the Gap Inc., to showcase the Fisher’s renowned 1,100 piece private collection of modern and contemporary artwork as part of the museum’s expansion. The firm also supported SFMOMA’s efforts to raise landmark contributions of $250 million, used to expand the museum and grow its endowment.
SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra said Nixon Peabody was “critical to helping us realize our collective goal of bringing the Fisher Collection to SFMOMA and defining the museum’s future expansion.” Charles R. Schwab, SFMOMA’s Board Chairman, also said Nixon Peabody’s “negotiating skills, sense of urgency, and advice were essential in guiding our board to a successful and long lasting agreement with the Fisher Trust.” - Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation of Madrid, SpainFederal preemption of California law
Won a decisive ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, which determined that the internationally renowned Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation (“Foundation”) of Madrid, Spain, is the rightful owner of the oil painting by Camille Pissarro, Rue Saint-Honore, après-midi, effet de pluie (1897). In doing so, the court declared California’s World War II claim-revival statute preempted by the federal government’s power, as argued by the Nixon Peabody team. In dismissing the California plaintiff’s complaint with prejudice and without leave to amend, the court referenced the 1958 Settlement Agreement with the German government that fully and completely resolved the plaintiff’s claim to the painting. Nixon Peabody’s team discovered the 1958 Agreement’s full history through on-the-ground research in Europe. - Dunbar v. Seger-ThomschitzLouisiana law trumps Terezin Declaration
Won a landmark decision at the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed that a New Orleans family is the rightful owner of a prized early painting by noted German Expressionist Oskar Kokoschka. The ruling shows that the Terezin Declaration, which many have argued requires reopening art restitution claims arising from World War II, does not trump state law in such claims. The courts rejected the claimant’s argument that Louisiana prescription laws should in this case give way to “federal common law,” and recognized that the family’s ownership of the painting had been open and continuous for well over 10 years, fulfilling the requirements to establish ownership by acquisitive prescription under Louisiana law. . . . View all . . .
- The Republic of HungaryInternational Peace Treaties and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA)
Representing the Republic of Hungary and four Hungarian cultural institutions in an action challenging Hungary’s possession of more than 40 works of art. The issue of first impression in this case is whether the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty, 1973 Hungary-U.S. Bilateral Agreement, and FSIA allow a U.S. court to take jurisdiction over a foreign sovereign in an internationally watched art restitution claim referred to in the New York Times as “the world’s largest unresolved Holocaust art claim.” On September 1, 2011, the district court dismissed certain of the plaintiffs’ claims and confirmed Hungary’s rightful ownership to 11 important paintings. On December 16, 2011, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia certified the September 1, 2011, decision for interlocutory appeal on the key issues raised by Nixon Peabody’s team regarding the remaining claim and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia granted Hungary’s petition for permission to review these issues.
- Detroit Institute of Arts and the Toledo Museum of ArtOwnership rights, World War II-related claims
Successfully represented the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Toledo Museum of Art in landmark cases involving paintings by van Gogh (The Diggers—1889) and Gauguin (Street Scene in Tahiti—1891). We coordinated the museums’ international provenance research, advised the museum leadership and boards, and, in compliance with American Association of Museum (AMA) and Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) Guidelines on World War II–related art claims, succeeded in defending the museums’ ownership rights in reported federal court cases.
. . . Hide Representative Experience . . .Press
Media Clips- End of an Era
Thomson Reuters | January 25, 2013
This news brief recaps a federal court appellate court hearing to consider who is the rightful owner of paintings seized during World War II. Los Angeles commercial litigation partner and leader of the firm’s Arts & Cultural Institutions practice Thad Stauber, counsel to the Hungarian government, argued that the paintings should remain at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. - U.S. Court Considers Claim on Art Stolen during World War II
Los Angeles Times | January 23, 2013
This article focuses on a federal appellate court hearing in which judges are considering who is the rightful owner of artwork seized during World War II. The artwork includes paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, Hungary. Los Angeles commercial litigation partner and leader of the firm’s Arts & Cultural Institutions practice Thad Stauber serves as counsel to the Hungarian government. During the January 23 hearing, he argued that the paintings rightfully belong to his client. For the complete article, please click here:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-court-claim-art-stolen-world-war-ii-20130123,0,798333.story - Southland Man Carries on Quest to Recover Art Taken in Holocaust
Los Angeles Times | January 22, 2013
This feature story notes the efforts by ancestors of Baron Mór Lipót Herzog to try to recover artwork who claim it was seized during World War II, including paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, Hungary. Los Angeles commercial litigation partner and leader of the firm’s Arts & Cultural Institutions practice Thad Stauber, counsel to the Hungarian government, is quoted discussing his client’s expectation to be declared the rightful owner of the artwork. . . . View all . . .
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