Dispute Over Sale of 11 Wallis Paintings Returns to L.A.

A court fight over 11 paintings removed this year from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and sold by the foundation that owned them returned to Los Angeles on Thursday, where a judge ordered a conference later this summer to resolve the dispute.

Superior Court Judge Martha Goldin ordered the Aug. 17 conference without hearing additional testimony in the dispute between the museum and the foundation, established by the late film producer Hal B. Wallis.

The Los Angeles court action came less than a week after a state judge in New York dismissed a suit by the museum against the Wallis Foundation there when the foundation agreed to set up a bank trust account in California to control $39.6 million in auction proceeds from the sale of the paintings.

The New York judge had earlier presided over creation of an escrow account by the Christie’s auction house to safeguard the sale money.

Justice William Davis, of New York State Supreme Court, ruled last Friday that resolving the complex lawsuit on the East Coast was impractical since both organizations involved--and nearly all potential witnesses--are in California. The dismissal was on the narrow legal grounds that New York City was an inconvenient forum for the litigation to continue.

Goldin took the action here Thursday, sitting as a judge in Probate Court. In its successful attempt to get the lawsuit returned to California from New York, the Wallis Foundation argued that the same court that has authority over the Wallis estate should resolve questions of whether the foundation he created had legal authority to sell paintings the foundation was instructed to convey to the museum on a “permanent loan” basis.

Thursday’s order is the latest action in litigation initiated by the museum last month. The museum sued the foundation in an attempt to recover proceeds of the May 10 sale at Christie’s of eight Impressionist paintings once owned by Wallis that were displayed at the county museum from early 1987 through this past winter.

The museum is also disputing the subsequent auction of three Andrew Wyeth watercolors that had also been on permanent loan to the county facility. The museum seeks the entire $39.6 million in auction proceeds as well as an indeterminate additional sum to cover its costs in purchasing equivalent paintings.

The museum filed its original action in New York because the Christie’s money had not been turned over to the foundation. With the New York action dismissed, the museum said in court documents last week that it would file a separate California lawsuit essentially identical to the New York suit. That litigation would be in addition to the existing probate court matter affected by Thursday’s order.

The museum contends that a letter of instructions to the trustees of Wallis’ estate, signed by Wallis two weeks before his death in September, 1986, constitutes a mandatory order to the foundation. The letter directed the foundation to turn the paintings over to the museum and instructs trustees to remove them only for exhibit at some other nonprofit or publicly owned museum. The museum charges the foundation kept secret the existence of the letter of instructions.

The foundation contends that the letter of instructions was not a binding part of Wallis’ will and that the foundation trustees were free to dispose of the paintings if they wished. The foundation said the sale was ordered to take advantage of escalating art prices to generate cash to be used for other charitable activities.