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Ronald D. Spencer

Ronald D. Spencer

Counsel

Wall Street Office
2 Wall Street
New York, NY 10005
spencer@clm.com
phone: 212-238-8737
fax: 212-732-3232 download v-card

Practice Areas

Art Law, Trusts & Estates, Personal Tax Planning for Individuals, Tax Exempt Organizations

Practice Description

Art Law, including the legal aspects of art authentication and advising, buyers, sellers, and owners on due diligence with respect to provenance and attribution of works of art. He has helped several authentication committees and boards of experts successfully defend against claims involving their decisions on authenticity, and has advised collectors on the authenticity of their works of art. He has also helped establish numerous art foundations.

Education

  • A.B., 1961 Brown University (cum laude)
  • LL.B., 1964 Yale Law School
  • 1965 London School of Economics
  • 1966 University of Paris School of Law

Admissions

1966 New York

Affiliations

  • The Association of the Bar of the City of New York (member: Committee on Philanthropic Organizations 1982-1985 and Committee on Art Law, 1998-2003)
  • Fund for Park Avenue (President)
  • Park Avenue Malls Planting Project (Chairman)
  • Park Avenue Malls, New York City (Sculpture Committee)

Publications

"Untouched by Nazi Hands, but Still ...," The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2008 (co-authored)

The Expert Versus the Object: Judging Fakes and False Attributions in the Visual Arts, Oxford University Press, New York: 2004 (editor and contributing writer).

“Salomonic Connoisseurship” (concerning authenticity questions), The Art Newspaper, February 2000.

“Art Collections and Authenticity,” Trust & Estates Magazine, February 2005

Feature Articles

"Policing Provenance- Every Significant Art Collection May Contain Dubious Masterpieces Art Expert Ronald Spencer Contends," Worth Magazine, January 2005; "Wrong! But a Nice Fake Is a Valued Object in a University Art Museum," Harvard Magazine, October 2004; "The Expert Versus the Object: Judging Fakes in the Visual Arts," New York Law Journal, September 2004; "What's So Funny About Contemporary Art? Authenticating Andy," Art News, September 2004; "Is It Authentic?," Art on Paper, July 2004.

Contributions

Has written on art law matters for The Art Newspaper and the IFAR (International Foundation for Art Research) Journal and has lectured on art law at Yale, Harvard and New York University Law Schools; The Smithsonian Institution; The American Association of Museums; The Appraisers Association of America; and The Pollock-Krasner Study Center. He was invited to participate in the Pierpont Morgan Library's Annual Director's Roundtable on authenticating old master drawings (November 2005).

Representative Clients

Foundations:

The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the largest American private foundation devoted solely to aiding needy and worthy visual artists
The (Alexander) Archipenko Foundation
The Pierre and Maria-Gaetena Matisse Foundation
The Romare Bearden Foundation
The Dedalus (formerly Motherwell) Foundation
The Tee & Charles Addams Foundation
Alex Katz Foundation
Authentication Boards:

The Pollock-Krasner Authentication Board
The Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project
Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board
The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation
Richard Diebenkorn Catalogue Raisonné Project
Artists and their Estates:

The estate of the artist, Sam Francis, for art law matters.
Several prominent modern painters
Two highly regarded contemporary sculptors, helping to establish private foundations to aid sculpture and other visual arts
Owners, Buyers & Sellers of Art:

Numerous private owners of art, as well as institutions owning art
Public & private buyers and sellers, as well as several respected New York art galleries