Inheritance fight imperils SF museum collection
An entire wing of the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum that was built to hold a peerless collection of art from Papua New Guinea could be emptied by an inheritance battle between heirs of the Annenberg publishing fortune.
That threat in the coast-to-coast dispute prompted San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera to obtain an emergency court order Friday to prevent the art from being seized and sold.
"We're going to do everything possible to make sure the collection is available to the city for the benefit of the public," Herrera said.
At the heart of the dispute is de Young Trustee John Friede, who appears to have promised his prized collection to the museum but also put it up as collateral in a legal dispute with his brothers in Florida.
The 400 works at the museum are part of the 4,000-piece Jolika Collection compiled by Friede and his wife, Marcia. The array, which includes masks and ritual headdresses, is considered the world's most important private collection of objects from Papua New Guinea.
Estimates of the value vary, but the 400 items at the de Young are insured for more than $90 million, a city official said. They take up more than a quarter of the museum's permanent exhibit space, and their inclusion at the de Young's Golden Gate Park building that opened in 2005 was hailed beyond the Bay Area in art trade publications and the New York Times.
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That threat in the coast-to-coast dispute prompted San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera to obtain an emergency court order Friday to prevent the art from being seized and sold.
"We're going to do everything possible to make sure the collection is available to the city for the benefit of the public," Herrera said.
At the heart of the dispute is de Young Trustee John Friede, who appears to have promised his prized collection to the museum but also put it up as collateral in a legal dispute with his brothers in Florida.
The 400 works at the museum are part of the 4,000-piece Jolika Collection compiled by Friede and his wife, Marcia. The array, which includes masks and ritual headdresses, is considered the world's most important private collection of objects from Papua New Guinea.
Estimates of the value vary, but the 400 items at the de Young are insured for more than $90 million, a city official said. They take up more than a quarter of the museum's permanent exhibit space, and their inclusion at the de Young's Golden Gate Park building that opened in 2005 was hailed beyond the Bay Area in art trade publications and the New York Times.