Norton Simon Museum Countersues Over Nazi-Looted Cranach

By Tom Whitfield

The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena countersued the Jewish Federation Los Angeles on Wednesday over a Lucas Cranach diptych, Adam and Eve, made around 1530, that the Federation claims as Nazi-looted property.

The Courthouse News Service first reported the filing. At stake is whether a new California law — one allowing residents to revisit failed legal attempts to recuperate Nazi-looted art — can reopen a fight the museum says a federal court already settled.

What does the countersuit argue?

The museum's complaint leans on a previous federal lawsuit decided in its favor, the von Saher case, which it says should override the Federation's new ownership claim.

Its language is blunt. The filing states that "the finality of the prior von Saher judgment is beyond dispute … this court found on the merits that the museum was the sole owner of the Cranachs."

Note what the museum does not say: nothing in the reported filing addresses the substance of the looting allegation itself. The argument is procedural — finality first, merits second. That is a rational strategy, but it leaves the restitution question untouched. Whichever way the court rules, the decision will test how far the new California statute can stretch against a closed federal judgment.

Danh Võ to take over the Met's façade in 2027

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has selected Danh Võ for its 2027 Genesis Façade Commission, ArtAsiaPacific reports. The Vietnamese-born artist plans four sculptures for the Fifth Avenue Beaux-Arts façade — the fourth presentation installed there.

"A façade is the place where the museum meets the street, and it is also an expression of its values over time," Võ said in a statement.

The Norwegian-Congolese artist Sandra Mujinga will make a site-specific installation for the Met's 2027 Great Hall Commission.

Biennale Jogja Foundation to close

The Biennale Jogja Foundation in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, will close its operations after 16 years. The foundation cited "a political regime" amid "chaotic economic and political policies, increasing censorship, and violence against activists and protesters."

Also in the news

• A restored 1914 Confederate memorial could return to Arlington National Cemetery, three years after its removal. It includes the figure of a Black woman holding the child of a white officer, and a slave following his owner to war. (NBC)
• The Centre Pompidou Paraná in southern Brazil has been delayed again amid a local government shift; opening is now expected in 2029. (The Art Newspaper)
• Australia has returned a 14,000-year-old carved stone slab to Jordan, found in Wadi Al Hammah and taken to the National Gallery of Australia in 1985. (Menafn)
• Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza will auction a 1944 Edward Hopper painting of a sailboat at sea on November 18 at Sotheby's New York, high estimate $30 million. (El País)
• Rubaiya Qatar, a new quadrennial running November 21 to April 30 in Doha, has named more than 120 participating artists. (ArtReview)

The Kicker: William Kentridge on comedy and disaster

William Kentridge premieres a new stop-animation film, A Nicely Built City (Never Resists Destruction), at London's Goodman Gallery, with an accompanying exhibition. The film tracks Johannesburg's industrial transformation and how wilderness returns to the city as its center collapses.

Asked about humor alongside political weight, Kentridge told Ocula: "I don't think there's a contradiction between the serious and the light, and how the one illuminates the other. I think the category of the absurd is also important. Tragedy isn't a good way of dealing with social disaster. Comedy may be closer, but the category of the absurd, which can move between the two, is central."

The Cranach filing, meanwhile, moves the restitution fight from statehouse to courtroom — and the first test of California's new law may set the terms for every claimant who follows.