Art news daily: 14 February

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Current and former members of Berkshire Museum plan to continue legal battle over deaccession | Following news that the Berkshire Museum and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office had reached an agreement over the former’s proposed sale of works from its collection, a number of individuals with connections to the institution have said they will continue to oppose the move. According to ArtNews, former and current members of the Berkshire Museum will not drop a lawsuit aimed at preventing the sale, arguing that the institution’s board violated its contract with members. It is as yet unknown whether another group of plaintiffs – including the three sons of Norman Rockwell – will also fight the agreement.

France returns three Joachim Patinir paintings to heirs of dispossessed Jewish collectors | AFP reports that the French government has agreed to return three paintings by Joachim Patinir to the heirs of collectors Herta and Henry Bromberg, who were forced to flee Nazi persecution in the 1930s (French language article). The works were handed over at an event at the Louvre presided by culture minister Françoise Nyssen on Monday. Among the paintings returned was the Flemish artist’s Triptych of the Crucifixion, which the Brombergs were forced to sell in order to leave Paris for the United States in 1938.

NADA takes in 16 new members | The New Art Dealers Alliance has accepted 16 new galleries from nine cities on to its roster, reports Artforum. The new members include the Los Angeles’s AA|LA gallery, SHRINE and Denny Gallery in New York and M. Le Blanc from Chicago. Eleven of the new additions will exhibit at this year’s edition of NADA New York.

Feitler family donates $5m to Smart Museum of Art | Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art has received a gift of $5m from the Feitler family, reports the Chicago Tribune. The donation, one of the largest in the institution’s history, will go towards the creation of a new centre for academic inquiry, to be directed by by curator Issa Lampe.

Lead image: used under Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 3.0; original image cropped)