A Confederate statue in Washington, D.C., that was toppled during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 will be reinstalled this October, the New York Times reports. The bronze statue, which depicts the Confederate general Albert Pike (1809–1891), is being restored by the National Park Service, which said that the restoration ‘aligns with […] recent executive orders to beautify the nation’s capital’. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents Washington, D.C., has announced plans to introduce a bill to remove the statue permanently, calling its reinstallation ‘as odd and indefensible as it is morally objectionable’.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office announced on 6 August that it had recently repatriated more than 30 artefacts to Spain, Italy and Hungary. The objects were recovered through an investigation into multiple antiquities trafficking networks. Among the artefacts is a marble head of Alexander the Great as Helios from the first century, which has been returned to Italy, and a Jesuit manuscript from 1675 stolen during the Second World War, now repatriated to Hungary.
Kasmin Gallery in Manhattan is closing after more than 35 years, with two senior staff members – gallery president Nicholas Olney and senior director Eric Gleason – establishing a new gallery called Olney Gleason. Founded by Paul Kasmin, son of London art dealer John Kasmin, the gallery currently represents the estates of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, alongside some 40 other artists and estates. The new gallery, reports the Art Newspaper, will continue to work with a number of as-yet-unconfirmed artists and estates from Kasmin’s roster. Olney Gleason’s flagship gallery will open later this year.
Another New York gallery has announced its closure: Clearing, which also has a location in Los Angeles, has ceased operations after 14 years, gallery owner Olivier Babin announced on Instagram on 7 August. In his post, Babin said that Clearing, which has represented artists such as Marguerite Humeau, could find ‘no viable path forward’ and was no longer able to ‘operate at the standards [they have] always held [themselves] to’. As well as Kasmin, Clearing’s closure follows the shuttering of several other New York galleries, including Blum Gallery (formerly Blum and Poe).
In Spain, a long legal dispute over a set of Romanesque murals looks set to continue, reports Ara. In June, the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that the Sijena murals should be returned to their original home in Aragon, the Monastery of Santa María de Sijena. The works were removed in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War and have been in the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) since 1961. However, a Catalan member of parliament has raised concerns – about damage to the fragile works if moved and about the condition of the 13th-century monastery – with the country’s Ministry of Culture, which could delay their return.
The US Court of Appeal has upheld a 2022 ruling that awarded $2.5m in sanctions to Peter Doig over a disavowed painting, the Art Newspaper reports. The ruling is the latest in a court battle dating back to 2013, in which retired prison officer Robert Fletcher and Chicago gallerist Peter Bartlow brought a $5m lawsuit against Doig over a painting signed ‘Pete Doige, 76’, which Doig denied painting. In 2016, a Chicago judge ruled that he did not paint the work, after which the artist was awarded $2.5m. The most recent ruling denies all future appeals over the sanction fee.
