Working as an artist: part I
On the evening of October 4 1979, in London, Eduardo Paolozzi (EP), his assistant Marlee Robinson (MR), John Hoyland (JH) and Brian Clarke (BC) met and recorded a discussion with lawyer Henry Lydiate (HL)…
Back to The Future
It was 20 years ago today when Peter Townsend told me he was launching a new visual arts magazine, and invited me to contribute what he hoped might become a regular column dealing with current legal…
Tax tips for artists
4 out of 5 artists are set to pay more tax than they need to each year. People in Britain overspend £7.6 billion in unnecessary tax every year. It’s a scary statistic. So how can artists…
Three Short and Unrelated Matters
Three short and unrelated matters are tackled this month: Contractual Relationships, Public Lending Right and Solicitors’ Advertising. Paper Promises How many contracts have you made today? Bet you travelled on a bus, tube, train, bought…
Stealing Ideas
Random House UK, publisher of The Da Vinci Code, is being sued, at the time of writing, in London’s High Court by two of three authors of a book (also published by Random House UK) from 1982, The Holy Blood and…
Volunteering in the arts
If you are a volunteer, remember, even if you work for nothing, your time is still worth something. Consider your time as a donation to an organisation you work for. It is an investment in your…
Follow up follow up follow up, ’till the fields ring again and again…
Droit de suite, or the legal right for artists to have a share in the profits made from the resale of their work, exists in the majority…
Agency Deals
The lack of gallery premises or adequate showing space has not prevented many actual or would be dealers approaching artists offering agency deals, with a view to promoting and selling the artists' work and their reputations. In recent…
Exhibition Agreements
Most public galleries and many private ones put on exhibitions solely for the purpose of making the work of an artist or group of artists available for public view – selling is only incidental; these are usually ‘one…
Conservation Renovation & Restoration
The three cases detailed in this article all raise the same question, one which has serious legal as well as professional practice implications for commissioners, owners, curators and conservators – as well as for living artists:…
VAT revisited
Since the Chancellor of the Exchequer doubled the VAT rate to fifteen percent, many artists, administrators and gallery proprietors have raised queries about the tax. Most problems have arisen through a lack of knowledge or from a misunderstanding…
Galleries and exhibitions
For a good overview of the gallery / artist relationship and what each party should expect, watch our ArtlawTV film, an interview with Rene Gimpel of Gimpel Fils. How do I get my gallery / dealer to…
Virtual Collections: National Portrait Gallery versus Wikipedia
The digital revolution’s radical transformation of information and communications technology has enabled public and private collections throughout the world to offer instant internet access to images of countless numbers of their artworks: virtual…
The Creative Act 2007
In April 1957 at the American Federation of Arts in Houston, Texas, Marcel Duchamp gave his now celebrated and all too brief talk ‘The Creative Act’: ‘Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of…
‘God help the Minister who meddles with Art’
Thus spoke the Liberal Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. I wonder if he’s turning in his grave? Now we have a Minister for the Arts with a voice in the Cabinet, perhaps the…
Commissions and the responsibilities they bring, part 1
You are an artist. A public body asks you to design an artwork for a public space or place. You are promised payment 'if it all works out'. You are flattered. How…
Beautiful Inside My Head Forever
‘The fine artist came to seem a near miraculous creator of value, transmuting relatively inexpensive materials into fabulously expensive commodities.’ Katy Siegel and Paul Mattick’s comment on the development of today’s art market place, in…
Private Views: Right Problem, Wrong Law
All too often artists and arts professionals look at a controversial image, conclude that the Law, specifically copyright law, must have something to say about it, must provide an answer. In the case of…