Archive of Henry Lydiate‘s Artlaw column, published in Art Monthly since 1976. Have a legal question about your career? Check our Directory or send us a legal query.
Collaborative Works
Tracey Emin’s recent dispute with a north London primary school over the ownership and authorship of an artwork raised an interesting public debate, much of it focusing on the market value of art: ‘A £35,000 Tracey Emin quilt…
Joint Enterprise
During the 40 years following the Boyles’ partnership, increasing numbers of visual artists in the UK have chosen that way of working. ‘Boyle Family’ is a retrospective exhibition marking the 40th anniversary of Mark Boyle and Joan Hills’…
Photographing Art Collections
In May 2007 a conference was held in London to discuss a leading court judgment, made in 1999, which ruled that exact photographic copies of public domain images could not be protected by copyright because the copies…
Public Sculpture
Sculptures situated in public places can easily be photographed, filmed, or drawn without the knowledge of the sculptor, and such two dimensional reproductions might equally easily be merchandised commercially. What rights, if any, do sculptors have over their…
Performance Art
In 1964 Joseph Beuys gave an improvised 30 minute performance broadcast live on Germany’s second public television channel ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen), which he called Marcel Duchamp’s Silence Is Overrated. The performance was not taped but Beuys allowed…
3D Artworks
The 1977 movie Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope was the subject of a recent lengthy trial at the High Court in London, at the heart of which lay the fiendishly difficult question of what – in…