Art Law

• Publication year: 2020
• Author: By Simon J. Frankel & Sean Howell

Art Law

By Simon J. Frankel & Sean Howell

There were several cases concerning art law in 2020 that should be of interest to California litigators. A long-running legal battle over rights to a Nazi-looted Pissarro painting concluded with a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the Spanish government was not required to return the painting, though the court chided Spain for not doing so voluntarily. In a separate case, the Ninth Circuit held that a gallery had a viable defamation claim against a person who had asserted that a painting was not by the artist the gallery claimed, reversing the district court’s finding for the defendant on summary judgment. Finally, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California rejected a motion to dismiss copyright claims brought by a photographer who took an iconic image of Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, holding among other points that, despite the photograph’s popularity, the question of when the photographer learned that his rights were being infringed by the photograph’s reproduction could not be resolved on a motion to dismiss.

After Fifteen-Year Legal Battle, Ninth Circuit Affirms Spanish Foundation’s Right to Keep Nazi-Looted Pissarro Painting

A long-running dispute over a painting by the French Impressionist Camille Pissarro that had been stolen by the Nazi regime in 1939 came to an end when the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment in favor of the defendant.¹ The Ninth Circuit panel chided the Spanish government for not returning the painting, but held such an outcome was not dictated by Spanish law.

Plaintiff David Cassirer, the estate of Ava Cassirer, and the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County (“the Cassirers”) originally sought to force the return of the painting (“Rue St.-Honore, Apres-Midi, Effet de Pluie” (1897)) to the Cassirer family in a lawsuit filed in 2005 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. They named the Kingdom of Spain and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation (“the Foundation”), which operates a museum and organizes public exhibitions on behalf of the Spanish State, as defendants. The Foundation had acquired the painting with funding from the state for $350 million in 1993.

Following two appeals and a bench trial, the district court found for the Foundation, holding that it had acquired valid title under Spain’s law of prescriptive acquisition because it lacked actual knowledge that the painting had been stolen when it purchased the painting. (The Ninth Circuit had previously reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Foundation.²) The Cassirers appealed, arguing that both the Foundation and a prior purchaser of the painting had actual knowledge that the painting was stolen, and that the Foundation therefore lacked valid title to the painting.

The Ninth Circuit held that there was evidence sufficient to support the district court’s finding that neither the Foundation nor the painting’s previous owner, the Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, had actual knowledge that the painting had been stolen. The Cassirers had argued at trial that a mis-transcription by the Baron’s employee of the name of the seller and the name of the painting when the Baron purchased the artwork indicated that the Baron had deliberately falsified the record to obscure the painting’s true provenance. The Ninth Circuit...