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.
Disclosure of Buyers
High profile artists rarely speak publicly about the commercial dimensions of their practices. It is significant, then, that a leading British artist, the usually reticent Peter Doig, recently voiced concerns about the way artists can be mistreated…
Store-To-Own
The first Zero Art Fair in Upstate New York was scheduled to last four days in July 2024, but lasted only two, because nearly all the exhibited artworks were taken away by collectors – who paid no money to…
Dealers/Agents/Advisors: Beware
During summer 2023, a saga began to unfold concerning the art business of a prominent contemporary art market professional, based in New York City. The story raises significant legal and ethical issues for the art ecosystem. Lisa Schiff…
Trust
It is remarkable to hear of a dealer absconding with the proceeds of numerous artists’ sales, and of victim artists bringing remedial legal action. Artists often complain they have not received in good time – sometimes not at all…
Get Minted
2021 saw NFTs flooding into the contemporary art ecosystem; but will 2022 see their arrival as a welcome cornucopia of plenty or an unwanted pandora’s box of unforeseen pestilence? A selected survey of the current NFT landscape, keeping…
Automatic for the Beeple
Two inter connected lawsuits about the recent sale of a non fungible token (NFT) representing a born digital artwork were filed in July and September 2021, in the US and UK respectively. Both suits concern US…
Don’t You Trust Me?
Artists and dealers rarely if ever discuss in public their professional business relationships. Much praise, therefore, is due to London based artist Alvaro Barrington and his gallery dealer Sadie Coles for recently speaking publicly about the…
Anti-Flipping
‘Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)’ is the title of a remarkable and unique online selling exhibition held by Christie’s from 21 July to 21 August 2020. Dedicated to the promotion of works by ‘22 young, emerging…
Tattoo You
‘Where there’s a hit, there’s a writ’ is an old music business saying, which perhaps applies to legal responses in recent times to the rise in popularity of body art, tattooing in particular. In March 2020 landmark court…
Death of a Gallery
Blain|Southern’s sudden closure of its three gallery operations at London, Berlin and New York in February 2020 shocked the contemporary art world (Artnotes AM434). Apart from inevitable questions raised by Ernest Hemingway’s aperçu in The Sun…
Terms and Conditions
The social network revolution of the past two decades of digital and technological innovation and exponential growth has been embraced by artists to transform their communications with each other and their viewing audiences. But few of us…
Secondary Sales Risks
Caveat emptor is usually translated as ‘let the buyer beware’. Its common use in law and business connotes a doctrine that still operates today, especially in the increasingly lucrative market for secondary sales of contemporary art: caveat…
Continuing Silence
Many aspects of the art business world attract criticism or attack for being slippery and opaque, none more so than in the realm of sales transactions where privacy and discretion are paramount. First sales of artwork directly by…
Dealing Differently
In 1976 this column looked at the case of a London based artist who sent work to a New York gallery for exhibition and sale in the US: the works were sold and the gallery sent the artist…
Sculpture Competitions
Some interesting and important issues arise around the enduringly popular artists’ competition format. Many sculpture ‘competitions’ contain this word in their title, but some are promoted as ‘prizes’ or ‘awards’ or ‘contests’. What exactly has an artist won…
Public Art and the Law
Architects’ collaboration with artists and craftworkers has been the subject of serious debate and some activity over the past five years. The ‘art and architecture’ movement in the U.K. started with the 1982 ICA Conference,…
Doing a Deal: Part 1
Selling work is the primary source of income for most commercially successful artists, and is the strongest aspiration of most of those for whom a market place is not established. It is no surprise that…
Ballad of a Widening Wedge
Just because an agreement is in writing, freely signed by the parties, does not necessarily mean its words alone will bind them at law, in whole, in part, or at all. THE FIRST CASE Conservation…