Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most consequential developments coming out of the art world and art market. Here’s what you need to know on this Thursday, December 15.

NEED-TO-READ

Jewish Heirs Sue Insurance Company Over Painting – The heirs of a German Jewish banker are suing a Japan-based insurance holding company to reclaim one of Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers paintings, which they say their ancestor sold under duress in 1934. The painting is currently on display at the firm’s art museum in Tokyo. (Courthouse News)

Was It a Good Year for Women Artists? – “This is the fifth year that an editor has commissioned me to hymn the present moment as a great one for women artists,” Hettie Judah writes for the Guardian. But despite such eager lip service, the recently-published Burns Halperin report shows in actual data, the perceptions of progress in the art world are largely a myth”. (Guardian, Burns Halperin Report)

Museum of Sex Heads to Miami – The museum will open in spring 2023 in a repurposed warehouse in Miami’s Allapattah district, near the Rubell Museum and Superblue, with a solo show of Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama’s sexy robots as well as a 100-year survey of social mores around sex and sexual health. (Artforum)

Less Than 10 Percent of Working U.K. Artists Are Working-Class – A study by the British Sociological Foundation found only around 8 percent of working creatives come from working-class backgrounds—around half of what that number was in the 1960s. What’s driving the change? There are fewer working-class people in the U.K. as a whole, and the chances of gaining a career in the creative industries has remained the same level. (Hyperallergic)

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Armory Show Names Curators – The New York art fair has revealed the starry lineup behind its special sections: Eva Respini of the ICA Boston will curate the Platform section for large installations; Candice Hopkins of the Forge Project will organize the Focus section for solo and dual artist presentations; and Adrienne Edwards of the Whitney will chair the Curatorial Leadership Summit. (ARTnews)

Princeton University Art Museum Gets Abstract Trove – Alumnus Preston Haskell donated eight abstract paintings by Gerhard Richter, Helen Frankenthaler, and Willem de Kooning, alongside an unspecified sum to support the construction of the university’s new Adjaye Associates-designed museum. (TAN)

Felix Names Exhibitors – The poolside art fair will welcome 60 exhibitors back to L.A.’s Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel from February 15 to 19, including Morán Morán, Nicodim, and Rachel Uffner. (ARTnews)

FOR ART’S SAKE

Spaniards Hate the Las Meninas Sculptures – Art critics and Madrid residents share antipathy for Spanish artist Antonio Azzato’s annual street art tribute to Diego Velázquez’s masterpiece. The hope, Spanish critic Carlos Delgado said, is that “at some point, someone with some discretion manages to stop such embarrassment.” (ARTnews)