Canadian Gallery Wins in Key Ruling on Dispute Over Donated Paintings

Eighty-five paintings said to be the “heart and soul” of one of eastern Canada’s most important museum collections will be staying in the province of New Brunswick.

Peter Cory, a retired justice of Canada’s Supreme Court, announced last week that the paintings belong to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, ending a dispute between the gallery and the descendents of its founder and chief benefactor, the late William Maxwell Aitken, the first Lord Beaverbrook. Mr. Cory has been serving as the arbitrator in the controversy (The Chronicle, February 8).

“We’re quite elated,” said Bernard Riordon, chief executive of the gallery, which is located in New Brunswick’s capital, Fredericton, 400 miles northeast of Boston. “We feel this is a validation of the position we took in claiming ownership of the works.”

The high-profile dispute began in 2004, when Lord Beaverbrook’s grandsons, Timothy Aitken of Toronto and Max Aitken III of London, who is the current Lord Beaverbrook, announced they intended to sell two of the most valuable paintings, Lucien Freud’s Hotel Room and J.M.W. Turner’s Fountain of Indolence, together believed to be worth about $26-million, with the majority of the proceeds going to support other interests of their foundations.

In studying its options, the gallery’s board found evidence suggesting the records for many of the museum’s original paintings might have been tampered with after the gallery opened in 1959. The evidence indicated that the gallery may have been the true owner of the paintings, not the foundations controlled by Lord Beaverbrook’s grandsons.

The dispute turned bitter, and the parties were soon in court. Judge Cory was chosen as the arbiter for the dispute over the 133 paintings claimed by the Beaverbrook UK Foundation, which is run by Max Aitken. A separate case involving an additional 78 paintings owned by the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation, run by Timothy Aitken, is expected to go to trial in New Brunswick later this year.

Evidence Presented

Mr. Cory found that Lord Beaverbrook had given the paintings to the gallery before its opening in 1959, based on speeches, letters, press accounts, customs documents, and the testimony of surviving witnesses.

According to the ruling, Lord Beaverbrook — then the owner of the Express newspaper group and one of the most influential men in the British Commonwealth — inappropriately asserted ownership of 88 paintings after the fact, placing them under the control of the Beaverbrook UK Foundation.

The Beaverbrook UK Foundation may also wind up paying a substantial portion of the gallery’s legal bill, according to the gallery’s lawyer, Larry Lowenstein, since losers of cases usually must pay legal costs in Canada.

The ruling granted the gallery ownership of 85 paintings currently in its possession, plus another three that had been transferred to the foundation before the dispute arose. Two of those paintings have been sold, so the gallery will be eligible for monetary compensation, according to Mr. Lowenstein.

Forty-eight additional paintings that were donated to the gallery after its 1959 opening were ruled the property of the Beaverbrook UK Foundation.

The Beaverbrook UK Foundation issued a statement from Max Aitken saying that Mr. Cory’s decision was “contrary to the uninterrupted and uniform consensus between the parties that existed for at least four decades” and that an appeal was “inevitable.”

Representatives of the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation were not available for comment last week. “We can understand the disappointment that the current Lord Beaverbrook would feel, but we hope we will be able to work together to continue to fulfill the legacy of his grandfather,” Mr. Riordon said. “In every family you have a feud now and then, but you try to get past that and move forward.”