Arts & Cultural Institutions

Overview

Leading cultural institutions, foreign sovereigns, international art collectors, dealers, and artists need a distinct advantage in art-related transactions and disputes. Nixon Peabody’s Arts & Cultural Institutions team engineers transformative deals, represents estates of legendary artists, and wins high-profile disputes.

Clients depend on us to represent their interests in trials and proceedings throughout the US and arbitral bodies worldwide, including controversies spanning Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

We handle media management and crisis intervention, navigating emergent situations to restore public trust.

And we assist in significant art and cultural property transactions, helping you expand and enter global markets with cross-border deals.

We work at the forefront of the industry to protect your art and your assets.

Representative Experience

• Sterling Ruby: Advising next-generation artist and international contemporary art galleries
• Whitney Museum of American Art: Advised the organization on a promised gift agreement by Dorothy Lichtenstein, widow of painter Roy Lichtenstein, to donate the artist’s studio to the Museum
• University of Oklahoma and the University of Oklahoma Foundation, Inc. (OU Foundation): Led the legal team in the successful defense of a 2016 art-sharing agreement in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and a French court. This internationally lauded settlement, regarding the Camille Pissarro painting, Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep (1886), established a model for how to fairly and justly settle modern-day art restitution cases.
• School of the Art Institute of Chicago: Successful federal court tradename lawsuit, establishing the school’s exclusive common law tradename rights
• The National Gallery, London: Won a lawsuit regarding the gallery’s Matisse painting, The Portrait of Greta Moll (1908)
• Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation: Led winning trial counsel to the world-renowned institution, affirming its ownership of important artwork by Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the Fisher Family: Led dealmaking counsel bringing the multibillion-dollar modern art collection of the Fisher (GAP) Family to SFMOMA along with the transformation of SFMOMA’s new 150,000-square-foot exhibition gallery
• Consortium of Dutch museums: Secured a U.S. Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit win as lead counsel to twenty Dutch museums in an international dispute challenging a recent Dutch Restitution Committee determination that the Netherlands owns certain artworks restituted to it after World War II