Resource Center

Stories

The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast.

These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need.

Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:



Search results for "art collection" ...

  • Clout's Sick List

    "A Chicago Sun-Times computer-assisted analysis found that patronage workers in Chicago city government filed workplace injury claims at a rate that if true, would make being a political patronage worker in Chicago the most dangerous occupation in America. The series found that patronage workers filed worker's compensation claims against the city at a rate experts deemed implausible and city officials acknowledged was problematic. By doing so, these workers were able to stay home- or, in some cases the newspaper found, work other jobs- while collecting 75 percent of their city pay, tax-free. Many of these workers have claimed repeated workplace injuries. And many have been off work for years."

    Tags: workplace; injuries; political patrongage; workplace-injury claims

    By Tim Novak; Art Golab

    Chicago Sun-Times

    2006

  • De Kooning's Hidden Legacy

    Willem de Kooning was an artist who succumbed to Alzheimer's Disease in the late 1980s. Yet, he continued to paint until 1990, and his daughter and only child Lisa de Kooning and John Eastman, his longtime lawyer's son, were appointed conservators of de Kooning's works and estate. They faced a challenge in trying to get fans to accept his later paintings not as the work of a man afflicted with Alzheimer's, but as worthy additions to his large catalog. Eastman and de Kooning liquidated Willem de Kooning's art holdings and attempted to create a market for his work, with the paintings "being placed in prestigious public and private collections."

    Tags: Art; Alzheimer's Disease; Willem de Kooning; paintings

    By Kelly Devine Thomas

    ARTnews

    2006

  • Gold in Educators' Unused Sick Days

    This investigation uncovered a provision in Chicago public school principals that allows them to save up unused sick days to cash in upon retirement. Not only can they collect up to 315 days of unused sick pay, but 244 of those can also be used as service time to increase their pension.

    Tags: education; salary; teachers union; school board; retirement; pension plan

    By Art Golab;Rosalind Rossi

    Chicago Sun-Times

    2004

  • How a Nursing - Home Empire Built on Medicare Collapsed: Robert Elkins Mined Benefits To Revolutionize Industry; Then the Rules Changed. The Odyssey of a Ghirlandaio

    Integrated Health Services Inc is a huge player in the nursing home industry. It pioneered the practice of "subacte care" in which patients such as recovering stroke victims are able to receive the same care in a nursing home as they would in a hospital. Providing this service makes the nursing homes eligible for more Medicare funding. IHS used the money they received inappropriately; some of it went towards an art collection. After the government cut funding for Medicare, IHS suffered tremendously.

    Tags: art collection; bankruptcy; fraud; subacute care; Naples; loans; Integrated Health Services Inc; IHS

    By Lucette Lagnado

    Wall Street Journal (New York)

    2002

  • The world's top art cop; looted antiquities?

    Artnews reports on Italian art investigations aimed to protect the country's antiquities. The first piece profiles "Roberto Conforti, head of the Italian art and antiquities police, the largest such force in the world." The second story sheds light on a finding by the Italian investigators that antiquities exposed in American museum and worth millions of dollars have been illegally excavated from Italy in the 80s and 90s. Italy is pursuing claims for the objects and threaten to block important loan agreements with museums, Eakin reports.

    Tags: smuggling; looting; ancient Greek statues; archeology; Hellenistic silver; terra-cotta; Metropolitan; Princeton University Art Museum; Fleishman Collection

    By Hugh Eakin

    ARTnews

    2002

  • Who Owns the Lubomirski Durers?

    ARTworks follows through the centuries the path of Lubomirski Durers, a group of great drawings worth millions of dollars. The paintings were placed in a Polish museum in 1823 by Prince Henryk Lubomirski, later seized by the Soviets, exposed in a Ukrainian library, and finally looted by the Nazis. The art pieces were discovered by U.S. troops and secretly turned over to the grandson of Prince Lubomirski by order of the State department, the story reveals. Now both the Polish museum and the Ukrainian library demand the return, but American high-level diplomats and ten museums in the U.S.A. Canada and Europe have made a decision to reject the claims. "Experts say [this] is the most complicated of all war-loot restitution cases," the magazine reports.

    Tags: National Archives; Monuments; Fine Arts & Archives (MFA&A); Central Collecting Point (CCP) Munich; property; National Gallery of ART; Ossolinski National Institute in Lemberg (Lviv; Lvov); CAR

    By Konstantin Akinsha;Sylvia Hochfield

    ARTnews

    2001

  • A Crisis Of Fakes

    Even museum culture isn't free from politics, bureaucracy and pettiness. The debate which arrises around the possibility of forgeries within a museum collection has the potential to start feuds and ruin careers. It also highlights the financial relationship between art dealers and museums. The New York Times Magazine explores a scandal involving six potentially forgered drawings at the J. Paul Ghetty Museum.

    Tags: J. Paul Getty Museum; Nicolas Turner; art forgeries; Eric Hebborn

    By Peter Landesman

    New York Times Magazine

    2001

  • The Barnes storm

    For almost a decade, Philadelphia lawyer Richard Glanton held sway over one of the world's great collections of post-impressionist art. Now, in the wake of his ouster, Glanton is locked in a bitter feud with his enemies and, as American Lawyer reports, facing difficult questions about his stewardship.

    Tags: Lincoln University Philadelphia Museum of Art Harrassment Courts

    By John Anderson

    The American Lawyer

    1998

  • No title (id: 13708)

    ARTnews investigates New York's Dahesh Museum. The museum was founded by Dr. Dahesh, either a successful Middle Eastern writer and art lover or, to his thousands of followers worldwide, a miracle-working religious prophet ranking with Christ, Mohammad, and Buddha. Dr. Dahesh amassed his art collection in Beirut and managed to smuggle it out of the war-torn city - about 3,000 works packed in a huge container and driven through the dangerous streets to the airport during the peak of a civil war. (Dec. 1996)

    Tags: Protzman The riddle of Dr. Dahesh Contest entry Smuggling Art 8 pgs.

    By None

    ARTnews

    1996

  • No title (id: 13707)

    ARTnews investigates how Russian art has come to the West illegally for the past 70 years while the Soviet Union was isolated behind the iron curtain. Forgers, smugglers, and corrupt officials control the traffic and make huge profits from it, while collectors, dealers, and museums in the West are duped. (Feb. and Sept. 1996)

    Tags: Akinsha Kozlov Hochfield The betrayal of the Russian avant-guarde Contest entry Forgery Smuggling Paintings Collections 24 pgs.

    By None

    ARTnews

    1996