Norman Rockwell's sons sued to stop the Berkshire Museum selling paintings he gave it, and Shuffleton's Barbershop went to George Lucas's museum

While living in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Norman Rockwell gave 2 of his paintings to the Berkshire Museum in nearby Pittsfield: Shaftsbury Blacksmith Shop (1940), also called Blacksmith's Boy, Heel and Toe, and Shuffleton's Barbershop (1950). He died of emphysema at his Stockbridge home on 8 November 1978, aged 84. In July 2017 the museum's trustees announced a sale of 40 works through Sotheby's to raise up to $60 million, $40 million for the endowment and $20 million for renovation. On 20 October 2017 his sons Thomas, Jarvis and Peter Rockwell, with 2 local artists and several museum members, sued the trustees in Berkshire Superior Court. They alleged breach of fiduciary duty and a conflict with the state laws that created the museum. Attorney General Maura Healey's office asked the court to delay the sale while it completed its review. On 7 November 2017 Judge John Agostini refused to stop the sale. On 10 November 2017, 3 days before the first Sotheby's auction, a single justice of the Appeals Court halted it, and in December Justice Joseph Trainor extended the injunction to at least 29 January 2018. On 9 February 2018 the Attorney General and the museum reached an agreement. The sons dropped their challenge after it was announced that Shuffleton's Barbershop would stay on public view. On 5 April 2018 Justice David Lowy of the Supreme Judicial Court approved the agreement, allowing the museum to sell up to 40 works until proceeds reached $55 million. He cited the Attorney General's finding that the museum's "survival would be impossible without the proposed sale." On 11 April 2018 the museum sold Shuffleton's Barbershop to George Lucas's Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles for an undisclosed price, with a loan to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge into 2020. By late November 2018 the museum had raised $53.25 million from 22 works, including both Rockwell paintings.