In the Arts: Ruling Allows Art Sale to Help Finance New Museum

A court decision has cleared the way for the city of Denver to sell four works by the abstract expressionist Clyfford Still before they are formally acquired by a museum dedicated to the late artist, according to The Art Newspaper.

A decision authorizes the estate of Patricia Still, the artist’s late widow, to release the four paintings to the city, which can now sell the works and potentially raise $25-million for the planned Clyfford Still Museum’s endowment and collections fund.

The museum petitioned last year for release of four of the 400 paintings donated to Denver by Ms. Still’s estate in 2005. Some in the art world criticized the plan, saying it skirted ethics guidelines on museums selling items from their collections, but defenders said the proposal was not problematic because the Still Museum did not yet formally own the paintings.

In other arts news:

● The actor Alec Baldwin plans to donate all the proceeds from advertisements he is doing for bank Capital One to arts charities, according to The Wall Street Journal.

A spokesman for Mr. Baldwin—who in recent weeks has given $1-million to the New York Philharmonic and $500,000 to the city’s Roundabout Theatre Company—said culture groups will get “a few million” from the his ads promoting a Capital One credit card offer. The bank will also match donations of up to $50,000 made via its Web site to Americans for the Arts, another group Mr. Baldwin supports.

● The Getty Museum, in Los Angeles, has agreed to turn over a painting to the heir of a noted Jewish art dealer whose collection was looted and dispersed by the Nazis, the Los Angeles Times writes.

The decision on the 17th-century Dutch artist Pieter Molijn’s “”Landscape With Cottage and Figures” makes the Getty the first North America museum to return a work to the descendants of Jacques Goudstikker, who fled the Netherlands when Germany invaded in 1940 but died aboard the ship that was carrying him and his family to safety.