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.
When I Paint My Masterpiece
Damien Hirst sculptures made by preserving animals in formaldehyde were dated by his company to the 1990s even though they were made in 2017, an investigation by the UK’s Guardian newspaper alleged in March 2024.…
Ties That Bind
A recently filed lawsuit focuses on whether it is lawful for an exclusive trader of goods to sell only to would be buyers deemed suitable. The eventual outcome of the case may have significance for the way…
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…
Trademark or Copyright?
Towards the end of 2022, a significant judicial decision tackled a longstanding discussion within intellectual property law circles: whether copyright and registered trademark protections can apply simultaneously to the same image. Such questioning was the focus of…
Collecting
In surveying the contemporary art ecosystem in 2022 at its close, a novel initiative appears to have been largely overlooked, which merits wider exposure and consideration: a Code of Conduct for Contemporary Art Collectors (CCCAC). Primarily adopting a professional…
Selling Art Now
In August 2022 a first sale of recent work by emerging artists via an innovative live virtual public auction was launched by veteran art market professional Simon de Pury, drawing upon his vast experience as both public…
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…
It’s a Wrap
Until 3 October 2021 a live stream from Paris shows the Arc de Triomphe entirely wrapped in fabric: a project conceived by artists Christo and Jeanne Claude over 60 years ago, which they developed and financed, but…
Crypto Art Business
Free Comb with Pagoda, 1986, is a mixed media work on paper signed with Jean Michel Basquiat’s oft used pseudonym Lenny at the lower right. Bought in 2015 by a private buyer, the physical work together with…
Private Parties
Is there legal validity in ‘the well known custom and practice in the art world that the identity of a private buyer or owner of a painting is not revealed’? A recent trial held at London’s High Court…
Flower Thrower Law Report
Banksy’s guarding of his personal identity suffered a set back on 14 September 2020, when the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) cancelled Banksy’s 2014 registration as an EU trade mark of the renowned stencil image of…
Christo & Jeanne-Claude
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff died on 31 May 2020 in New York City, a decade after his spouse Jeanne Claude Denat de Guillebon also died there: they were astrological twins (both born on 13 June 1935) and for…
Things Have Changed
Covid 19’s devastating impact on the visual art world has required lockdown of artists at home; closure of art schools, galleries, museums, art fairs and auction rooms; and, in common with most of the rest of the…
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…
Being An Artist’s Lawyer
In April 2020 a unique event will take place in Los Angeles at Southwestern Law School’s Donald E Biederman Entertainment and Media Law Institute. As part of the Institute’s programme of Continuing Legal Education for California…
Legal Drivers
Banksy began his practice as a freehand street graffiti artist, subsequently using stencils to facilitate the swifter execution of work – and thus avoidance of detection and arrest for criminal damage or trespass to other people’s property. He…
Collecting Performance Art
A unique art fair exclusively showcasing performance art was held for 72 hours in September 2019 during the Brussels Gallery Weekend. Organised and curated by A Performance Affair (APA), a recently established not for profit share entity,…