Knoedler Obituary (1857 – 2011): Select Legal History of the Oldest American Art Gallery

By Irina Tarsis

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

~T.S. Eliot

Every important art museum and private collection in the United States likely owns works of art that at one point or another, or more than once, sold through one of the oldest and finest American art galleries, Knoedler & Co (the Gallery). A tour through the annals of case law also uncovers many a Knoedler references, from matters under review by the United States Tax Court to illegal wire-tapping hearings, from the United States Customs Court citations to nineteenth century unfair competition conflicts, from World War II looted art to Soviet nationalization title disputes, from warranty breaches to racketeering, and fraud.

The rise and demise of the Gallery span three centuries. It was established by Michael Knoedler and members of a French firm Goupil, Vibert & Cie (later Boussod, Valadon & Cie) in 1848, well before the founding of the major museums in the United States. In 1857, Michael Knoedler bought out the Gallery from his French partners and shifted from selling French Salon paintings to providing old master paintings to the American art market. In 1971, the Gallery was acquired by Armand Hammer, a clever businessman and the founder of The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center in California, who decades earlier brought valuables nationalized by the Soviets into the United States and sold books, paintings, jewels and much more in American department stores as well as antique shops.