Displaying items by tag: settlement

The long-running dispute between the former board of North Miami’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the city that housed it is over.

Attorneys for both sides met this week after months of mediation to work out the final settlement, emerging with a plan Wednesday that will split the museum’s assets between the city and departed board members, who have since founded a new institution, and close the lawsuit that was filed earlier this year.

According to a joint statement released Wednesday, North Miami will keep the majority of the 600-work permanent collection, some of which was donated by board members who left MOCA, that was a major sticking point in the mediation talks.

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) has cleared its biggest remaining hurdle to secure its art collection. Last week, the city of Detroit reached a settlement with its largest holdout creditor, the Financial Guaranty Insurance Company (FGIC). As Detroit’s 16-month-long bankruptcy trial comes to a close this week, the 11th-hour deal all but guarantees that the DIA’s collection will not be sold to pay down the city’s debt.

The bond insurer FGIC—which is owed around $1bn of Detroit’s $18bn debt—was one of the most vocal opponents to the so-called “Grand Bargain”, a scheme to safeguard the DIA’s collection while generating money for the city’s pensioners.

O. Aldon James, the former director of the prestigious National Arts Club in New York, has been ordered to pay $950,000 to settle claims that he mismanaged the institution and used its funds to support his lavish lifestyle. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued James in September 2013, claiming that him, his brother and an associate were using over a dozen apartments and other space at the club’s headquarters rent-free. Schneiderman also said that James used tens of thousands of dollars to purchase goods from antique store, flea markets and vintage clothing boutiques.

The settlement will be divided between Schneiderman and the club – $50,000 will go to the plaintiff and the remaining $900,000 will be given to the organization. However, many critics feel that James and his cohorts should have been more severely punished since the club has accrued over $1 million in legal fees alone thanks to the debacle. In addition to the fine, James has been banned from any future nonprofit leadership roles and must vacate the spaces he occupied at the club by the end of July.

The private National Arts Club was founded in 1898 by the art and literary critic for the New York Times, Charles DeKay. The organization’s goal has remained intact: to “stimulate, foster and promote public interest in the arts and to educate the American people in the fine arts.” A long list of distinguished artists have belong to the National Arts Club since its founding including Robert Henri, William Merritt Chase and Alfred Stieglitz.    

In an effort to curb the massive debts accrued by the American Folk Art Museum’s former chairman, Ralph Esmerian, the institution has decided to sell over 200 works from its collection at an auction at Sotheby’s. Esmerian, the former owner of the jewelry company Fred Leighton, is currently serving a six-year jail sentence for wire fraud and other charges.

In 2005, Esmerian promised to donate 263 works from his illustrious collection to the Folk Art Museum. However, he used some of those same works as collateral to secure multi-million-dollar loans with Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Late last month, Manhattan’s U.S. Bankruptcy Court arranged a settlement with the museum allowing the Folk Art Museum to keep 53 of the promised works as long as they enhance the institution’s collection and aid its educational mission. The remaining works, which include paintings, sculptures, scrimshaw, and needleworks, will be sold at Sotheby’s.

The trustee responsible for liquidating Esmerian’s estate has decided to sell the remainder of the collection through Sotheby’s, much to Christie’s dismay. Christie’s filed an objection to the settlement on March 15, 2013 claiming that Sotheby’s intimidated the trustee into choosing them to host the important auction.

The Esmerian sale will be held in December 2013 or January 2014 and the profits will go towards repaying the creditors the former chairman defrauded.    

Steven Cohen, an American hedge fund manager and founder of SAC Capital Advisors LP, purchased Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) La Reve (1932) from casino tycoon Steve Wynn for $155 million. The sale marks the highest price paid by a U.S. collector for an artwork.

Cohen and Wynn have been in discussion about the sale since 2006. Originally, Wynn agreed to sell the painting to Cohen for $139 million but the transaction was cancelled after Wynn, whose vision is compromised, put his elbow through the canvas. The work has since been restored and the repair was factored into the selling price.

The sale comes less than two weeks after SAC Capital settled an ongoing insider trading case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $600 million; it was the largest insider trading settlement in history. Cohen, who started collecting art in 2001, has an expansive collection that includes works by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Edouard Manet (1832-1883), Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Jasper Johns (b. 1930), and Gerhard Richter (b. 1932).

When Ralph Esmerian, owner of the jewelry company Fred Leighton, filed for bankruptcy and was sentenced to six years in jail for fraud in 2011, the American Folk Art Museum felt the repercussions. Esmerian, a prominent donor and former chairman of the institution, had promised the museum 263 works from his illustrious collection. Since Esmerian’s downfall, the museum has been working with a trustee of the case to reach an agreement, which was recently realized.

The settlement between the Folk Art Museum and Esmerian states that the institution is entitled to 53 of the artworks he promised to donate. While the chosen pieces are yet to be specified to the public, they were selected for their exceptional quality and include portraits, needleworks, fraktur, sculpture, pottery, and scrimshaw. The retained works will enhance the museum’s collection and aid its educational mission.

The Folk Art Museum will be forced to part with the other 210 promised works, which will most likely be sold at auction in an effort to settle other bankruptcy estate claims.

The children of the New York art dealer, Ileana Sonnabend, have donated Robert Rauschenberg’s mixed media assemblage, Canyon (1959), to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. While the acquisition is a welcomed addition to MoMA’s existing Rauschenberg collection, the work wasn’t always so warmly regarded.

The Sonnabend heirs received Canyon after their mother’s death in 2007 and the work was soon at the center of a battle between MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the piece had been displayed intermittently since 2005. MoMA ramped up its efforts and promised to add Ms. Sonnabend’s name to the Founders Wall in the museum’s lobby. Officials also vowed to mount an entire show devoted to Canyon as well as Sonnabend, an important player in the modern art movement. While the Met made offers of their own, the Sonnabend family ultimately decided that MoMA was the right home for the work considering the expansive Rauschenberg collection already in the institution’s possession.

Sadly, this is not the first dramatic episode Canyon has been involved in. When the Sonnabend children inherited the work five years ago, appraisers valued the assemblage at $0. The presence of a stuffed bald eagle, a bird that is protected by federal laws, halted any possible sales of trades involving the work. The I.R.S., on the other hand, shrugged this off and claimed that Canyon was worth $65 million and demanded that Sonnabend’s family pay $29.2 million in taxes and another $11.7 million in penalties.

Eventually, a settlement was worked out and I.R.S. dropped all tax charges. In order for this to happen, the Sonnabends were required to donate Canyon to a museum where it could be put on public display. Canyon will be on view at MoMA beginning today, November 28.