The French government has adopted a bill to return objects taken by force from France’s former colonies, Le Monde reports. The bill, announced by culture minister Rachida Dati on 30 July, comes almost eight years after President Macron’s pledge to return colonial-era African artefacts in French collections to their country of origin. Under the proposals, restitution requests can only come from a foreign state and will be accepted only if the object in question will be put on public display, reports the Art Newspaper. They must also have been stolen, looted, donated under duress or sold without authority during the period between 1815 and 1972. Currently, the French parliament has to pass a new law every time an object is to be returned. Final restitution decisions will be made by the Conseil d’Etat after examination by a committee of experts. The bill will be debated by the Senate on 24 September.
Sotheby’s has returned gems linked to the Buddha to India, reports the BBC. The Piprahwa gems, excavated by British official William Claxton Peppé in 1898 from a burial ground containing remains believed to belong the Buddha, were set to be auctioned at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in May. The sale was postponed after the Indian government intervened. After negotiations between Peppé’s descendants – the current owners – and the Indian government, the gems have been purchased by Godrej Industries Group and will go on permanent display in India. In a social media post on 30 July, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi described the return of the ‘sacred relics [after] 127 long years’ as a ‘joyous day for our cultural heritage’.
The artist, playwright and theatre director Robert Wilson has died at the age of 83. Wilson studied architecture at the Pratt Institute in New York before founding the performance collective the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds. After a staging of his 12-hour silent play The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin in 1973, Wilson met the composer Philip Glass, with whom he created the acclaimed opera Einstein on the Beach (1976). Wilson presented his drawings, paintings and sculptures at museums such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Centre Pompidou in Paris; in 1993, he won the Golden Lion for sculpture at the Venice Biennale. He also curated exhibitions, including ‘Power and Beauty in China’s Last Dynasty’ at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 2018. Wilson’s death after ‘a brief but acute illness’ was announced by the Watermill Center, the arts foundation he founded in 1992.
Wesley LePatner, a recently elected trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was one of four people killed by a gunman in an office building in midtown Manhattan on 28 July, the New York Times reports. LePatner, a senior managing director at the investment firm Blackstone, became a trustee in February, and was also a member of its Friends of European Painting group. Max Hollein, director and CEO of the Met, described the museum as ‘heartbroken’ by the tragic death of ‘a person of deep intellect and warmth’.
A man has died after jumping from the Whitney Museum of American Art on 30 July, Art News reports. The museum’s director, Scott Rothkopf, informed staff of his death by email that evening. At the time of writing on 1 August, the man has not been identified.
