Descendants of Nazi-Persecuted Jewish Collector Demand Cancellation of Sotheby’s Pissarro Painting Sale, Artist Imelda Cajipe Endaya is First Woman to Receive Top Philippine Honor, and More: Morning Links for September 25, 2026

To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter.

Good Morning!

• Descendants of Jewish collector Salomon Flavian are demanding that a Paris court annul the sale of a Pissarro painting at Sotheby’s in London, which they claim was looted by Nazis.
• At 77, Filipina artist Imelda Cajipe Endaya just became the first woman to receive the Order of National Artists of the Philippines for Visual Arts.
• Germany’s culture minister said that plans to fund Berlin’s arts scene should not support cultural programming that excludes Jewish artists.

The Headlines

UNTANGLING A PISSARRO’S PAST. Descendants of Jewish collector Salomon Flavian are demanding that a Paris court annul the sale of a 1902 painting by Camille Pissarro at Sotheby’s in London, on June 25, 2024, which they claim was looted by Nazis, reports The Art Newspaper. However, in the complicated case, Sotheby’s asserted that two other relatives of Flavian, who are not among the plaintiffs, had previously signed away their ownership claim on the painting, titled Darse de pêche et bassin Duquesne (Fishing Dock and Duquesne Basin), through the Toronto-based company representing them, the Mondex Corporation. Members of the family who had not signed any settlement permitting the Sotheby’s sale learned about it afterwards. To make matters more confusing, Mondex has also claimed in court that the painting was never looted by Nazi’s, though the report does not explain why, in that case, Mondex would have brokered a financial settlement with two of Flavian’s heirs prior to the sale, as this would suggest the heirs had some sort of legal claim over the works as having been Nazi looted. Lastly, for those wondering, why this case is being held in Paris, lawyers for Sotheby’s argued that it actually shouldn’t, since the sale was made in London, and the parties involved have “no relationship with France.”

GLASS HALF BROKEN. At 77 years of age, Filipina artist Imelda Cajipe Endaya just became the first woman to receive the Order of National Artists of the Philippines for Visual Arts, established in 1972, reports ArtAsiaPacific. Through paintings, prints, and installations, Endaya’s work examines the social struggles in her native Philippines, from gender and labor inequality to migration and globalization, to name a few. “People say I have just broken a glass ceiling. There should be more successful women artists after me,” said Endaya in a statement.

The Digest

German culture minister Wolfram Weimer said that a federal plan to fund Berlin’s arts scene by €2.9 billion ($3.3 billion) over the next decade should not become “the financier of a cultural policy that threatens to systematically exclude Jewish artists,” and warned that subsidies could be removed. [dpa]

A new coalition of artists, writers, designers, and other creatives living in the Philippines is protesting the planned construction of a US-led, Pax Silica AI manufacturing hub. [ArtAsiaPacific]

In the wake of shuttered San Francisco art schools, independent initiatives, often run by artists, are stepping in, with examples including this summer’s free Present Company “experiment in arts education” in the West Marin Headlands Center for the Arts, and new education programs at the Mission District’s Southern Exposure nonprofit, which are both free and offer stipends to participants. [San Francisco Examiner]

Hundreds of arts and culture workers protested earlier this week the Colombian government’s plan to cut its cultural budget by 30 percent. [The Art Newspaper]

The Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland has unveiled three new buildings at its museum, a gallery, a cultural space, and an office building, plus about 108,000 square feet of new gardens and verdant landscapes, all designed by Atelier Peter Zumthor. [Artforum]

The Kicker

SPIRITED AWAY. Paris is welcoming a new art center next month, called Le Large, but its location, quite a trek west from the center and just outside of town on an island on the Seine River, Île Seguin, has a rocky history of failed real estate, arts and cultural ventures, writes Le Monde. For years, the island was home to the Renault car-making headquarters, but since its departure in 1992, it has struggled to find a replacement. Many know of the collector François Pinault’s abandoned attempt to build a museum there, but his is only one of a long string of projects that never saw the light of day. Some have even dubbed the strip of land the “cursed island,” to the point that Le Large founder, collector, and real estate developer Laurent Dumasbrought in a Native American leader, followed by a shaman, and a voodoo priest healer to chase away any lurking evil spirits. “I’m extremely sensitive to spirit forces,” he told Le Monde. On October 17, when Le Large opens with its debut exhibition, “Moteur imaginare,” curated by Cecilia Alemani, we may have a sense of whether it worked.