Art Dealers

In art circles, the Wildenstein family is royalty, a wealthy, powerful dynasty whose name is almost as famous as the celebrated masterpieces it owns. The Wildenstein collection, amassed over the last 140 years, is, say experts, an "Aladdin's Cave," boasting 10,000 works by distinguished Old Masters and Impressionists, including Cézanne, Renoir, Manet, Monet and Van Gogh, to name a few. Such is the magnitude of this treasure trove, dotted around the globe in Paris, London, New York, Buenos Aires and Tokyo, that few outside the family know exactly what it contains.

The son of infamous German art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, who helped Adolf Hitler hoard art looted from Jews during the Holocaust, says he's now willing to return works his father had acquired to the heirs of their victimized owners. Attorney Christoph Edel, a court-appointed legal guardian for the 81-year-old Cornelius Gurlitt, issued a statement on Gurlitt's website this week saying that Gurlitt has told him, “if the works…should be justifiably suspected of being Nazi-looted art, please give them back to their Jewish owners.” Added Edel: “Let there be no doubt that we will comply with the instructions of our client.” It's a stronger commitment than Gurlitt previously had made.

In a wide-ranging antitrust investigation, the Justice Department has subpoenaed financial documents from several prominent New York art dealers and the auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's, the New York Times reported. Justice Department spokeswoman Jennifer Rose confirmed that an antitrust investigation is occurring. Dealers said they believe the probe centers on the possibility of collusion and price-fixing among art dealers buying at auction.

Officials in France returned three paintings that were confiscated by Nazi forces during World War II to the descendants of the paintings' rightful owners at a ceremony in Paris on Tuesday. The three works of art were a painting by 16th century Flemish artist Joos de Momper titled "Mountainous Landscape"; "Madonna and Child" by the 14th century Italian painter Lippo Memmi; and an 18th century portrait of a woman by an unknown painter. In a ceremony presided over by Aurélie Filippetti, France's minister of culture and communication, she said the French ministry of culture will be more proactive in researching the provenance of disputed works of art, according to a report in Le Monde.

Is an anonymous strip of South La Cienega Boulevard the next hot spot in L.A.'s art gallery scene? Dealers Anna Helwing, Tim Blum and Jeff Poe are banking on it. Helwing launched herself in the gallery business in mid-July in a 2,000-square-foot space at 2766 S. La Cienega Blvd., just north of Washington Boulevard. Blum and Poe, who have operated a small but prestigious contemporary art gallery in Santa Monica for the past nine years, will move to a 5,000-square-foot gallery at 2754 S.

After 23 years of dealing in art in the area, Sigmund and Muriel Wenger are moving to Los Angeles. It is a remarkable move, not only because of the couple's long identification with the San Diego art scene, but also because they are both in their 70s. The expectation would be that they would retire after having made a significant contribution to San Diego's art history. But the Wengers have always been an adventurous pair.

Benjamin Horowitz, influential art dealer who opened his Heritage Gallery in 1961, representing such artists as Charles White, William Gropper and David Alfaro Siqueiros, and a decade later became founding president of the Art Dealers Assn. of California, has died. He was 92. Horowitz died Friday in Los Angeles of natural causes, according to his gallery co-director, Charlotte Sherman.

Herbert Bearl Palmer, one of the first art dealers in Los Angeles to exhibit works by David Hockney, Bridget Riley and other leading contemporary artists, starting in the mid-1960s, died Dec. 12. He was 91. Palmer, who helped establish La Cienega Boulevard as an art district more than 40 years ago, died at his home in Brentwood of natural causes, his daughter, Meredith, said.

Kathy Fuld, the art-collecting wife of Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Richard Fuld, is selling a $20-million set of rare Abstract Expressionist drawings at a November auction, according to two art dealers. Christie's International, which is offering the works in New York on Nov. 12, declined to reveal the seller's identity. The auction house announced the sale of the drawings, including three by Willem de Kooning, four days after Lehman filed the largest bankruptcy in U.S.

Stanley R. Lerner--the 25-year-old Beverly Hills art dealer who helped authorities crack a major art fraud case--was sentenced Monday to three years in federal prison for cocaine dealing, although U.S. District Judge Robert M. Tagasuki said the time could be served in a halfway house. The judge pronounced the sentence, which also included a $50,000 fine and five years probation, behind closed doors.

LONDON - The elderly gentleman appeared nervous when authorities questioned him during a customs check aboard a train from Switzerland to Germany. He was carrying about $12,000 in cash, just within the legal limit. But a feeling that something was not quite right eventually led them several months later to raid the apartment in Munich where the man lived as a recluse. What they found was astonishing: paintings by Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse and Paul Klee among 1,500 works of art crammed amid piles of canned food.

Leslie Sacks, the Los Angeles art dealer who ran gallery spaces at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica and in Brentwood, has died. The South African-born gallerist died Sept. 26 at the age of 61 after a battle with cancer, according to a gallery release sent this week.  The gallery said Sacks' widow, Gina, will take a more active role in the management of the business and the two spaces will continue to operate normally in adherence to Sacks' wishes. PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2013 Sacks first established himself in the L.A. gallery scene in 1991 when he opened Leslie Sacks Fine Art in Brentwood.

A New York art dealer has admitted her involvement in a 15-year scam that cost art buyers $80 million. Glafira Rosales, 57, of Sands Point, appeared in a Manhattan court Monday and pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme to sell more than 60 fake works of modern art to New York art galleries. From 1994 to 2009, Rosales sold 63 counterfeit paintings as newly discovered pieces by 20th century masters -- including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell -- to Manhattan galleries, earning her $33.2 million.

Federal agents have seized an estimated $100 million in art over the last two years from a prominent Manhattan antiquities dealer they describe as one of the most prolific antiquities smugglers in the world. Subhash Kapoor, a 64-year-old American citizen, awaits trial in India, where he is accused of being part of an antiquities smuggling ring that American and Indian investigators say spanned continents. U.S. authorities have issued their own arrest warrant for Kapoor, saying they have evidence he supplied stolen art to leading museums around the world.

One of the biggest problems in our politics is that people don't think for themselves. We let radio and television hosts, pundits and politicians tell us what to believe. And one of the biggest problems in our arts is that people don't enjoy for themselves. We let museum curators, gallery owners, critics and professors tell us what to feel. A recent battle in the art world illustrates the point. The billionaire Ronald Perelman is suing the multimillionaire art dealer Larry Gagosian on the grounds, among others, that Gagosian overvalued an unfinished sculpture of Popeye (yes, the Sailor Man)

Arts organizations in New York that have sustained damage from Hurricane Sandy are getting a helping hand from foundations and other groups that have agreed to donate money to the relief effort. The Andy Warhol Foundation recently announced that it has allocated $2 million that will go to help artists and nonprofit arts organizations that have experienced serious damage from the storm. The foundation said the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and the Lambent Foundation will add to the money.

A prominent Beverly Hills art dealer was charged with five counts of grand theft Tuesday in connection with a widening police investigation into art fraud in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Lee Sonnier, former manager of the Upstairs Gallery on Rodeo Drive, was charged with failing to deliver four pieces of art that were sold for about $872,000. Three were works attributed to the Impressionist master Pierre Auguste Renoir and one was a drawing.

A Laguna Beach art dealer has been sentenced to two years in prison for selling San Fernando Valley art collectors nearly $90,000 in copies of authentic paintings by Chagall, Erte and Picasso, the Los Angeles Police Department said Thursday. Theodore John Robertson Jr., 46, was also ordered to pay $88,600 in restitution Tuesday in Los Angeles Municipal Court, Detective Bill Martin said.

The annual ArtReview Power 100 list is out and this year's ranking of the art world's most influential and powerful people features a woman in the No. 1 spot for the first time. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the curator at Documenta (13) in Germany, occupies the top slot as determined by an international jury convened by the online magazine. Last year's No. 1 was Ai Weiwei, who ranks No. 3 this year, just behind art dealer Larry Gagosian. Rounding out the top five are art dealers Iwan Wirth at No. 4 and David Zwirner at No. 5. ArtReview said Christov-Bakargiev was chosen for the No. 1 spot because of "her influential and globally ambitious" Documenta exhibition, which this year extended to Kabul, Afghanistan; Banff, Canada, and venues in Egypt.

Who is the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art? According to the museum it's Jeffrey Deitch, the former New York art dealer who - with virtually no prior museum experience - assumed the top job at one of America's leading institutions two years ago. But don't be so sure. Late Wednesday, MOCA dumped Paul Schimmel, its chief curator for 22 years and a prime reason for the museum's stellar international reputation. No curator working in the United States today has a more impressive record of exhibitions and acquisitions in the field of art since 1950 than Schimmel.