Selling That Warhol In the Museum Attic: Brandeis' Deaccessioning Raises Legal Issues

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Sheppard Mullin

Museum collections have long tantalized would-be buyers and dealers of fine art. With most museums displaying a third or less of their collections at any given time - before it moved into its new building in 2004, the Museum of Modern Art was able to display only 10 percent of its magnificent collection - there's a lot of beautiful and valuable art that's not often seen by private collectors or the general public.
 

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The Art of Making Donations

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Sheppard Mullin

Charitable donations of artwork can give rise to substantial tax benefits, but donors need to be aware that not all donations are treated equally for tax purposes.

Many donors are not aware that the use to which the recipient organization puts the art will impact the amount of the charitable deduction the donor receives. Most donors assume that the deduction will be equal to the fair market value of the artwork at the time of the contribution (subject to certain limitations based on the donor's adjusted gross income). This is the case, however, only if the artwork is related to the exempt purpose of the charitable organization. If it is not, then the amount of the deduction is reduced by the amount of gain that would have been long-term capital gain had the donor sold the property at its fair market value when it was contributed. In other words, the amount of the charitable deduction will be limited to the donor's basis in the artwork (i.e. what he or she paid for it) rather than the artwork's fair market value. For donors who have held artwork for a long period of time, this difference can be substantial.
 

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Where There is a Will, Is There a Way?

Posted on January 29, 2009 by Sheppard Mullin

Indiana Jones, quite possibly the most famous treasure-plundering, antiquity-hoarding fictional archeologist of our time, has a way of making the process of art reclamation or, depending on one's perspective, appropriation, look grand.  Indy, usually covered with grime, soot, debris and a perfect layer of five-o-clock shadow, dodges boulders, bullets and brutes armed with bows and arrows as he swashbuckles through exotic locales in search of his next great treasure.  Of course, real life is never as grand and, despite the ongoing presence of evildoers, intrepid seekers are usually stopped dead in their tracks by much less ominous forces than bullets or giant rocks.

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