Members of this practice area:
Art Law Practice
The Art Law Practice Group is engaged in high-profile work in the art law field. We advise clients on all legal matters related to the acquisition, retention and disposition (by sale, gift or devise) of fine art and rights to works of fine art. Our clients include artists and their estates, collectors, art dealers, art experts and foundations that hold art or are otherwise active in the art world.
Buying And Selling Art
We advise buyers and sellers, at public and private sales, on title and authenticity questions as well as the substance and form of the agreements by which ownership is transferred, including contractual warranties and condition reports. We also advise consignors at public auction with respect to provisions of the auction house consignment agreement, and we advise buyers at public auction concerning their proposed purchase and after-purchase rights vis-à-vis the auction house and the consignor.
Recently we presented a full-day conference on “The Business of Art Collecting” attended by more than 100 collectors, art dealers and other art market professionals. Panels of experts, including a remarkable group of art luminaries, discussed art as an investment, how to measure art investment returns, buying and selling art, and forgery and ownership issues. Lawyers from the firm’s Trusts & Estates Practice Group addressed art as an estate planning challenge.
The Expert versus the Object: Judging Fakes and False Attributions in the Visual Arts, edited by Ronald D. Spencer (also a contributing writer), was published by Oxford University Press in March 2004. This book explains how the authenticity of a work of art is decided by experts and then the fate of that decision if it comes to court.
Litigation
The Art Law Practice Group represents buyers and sellers in litigated and non-litigated disputes over authenticity, ownership and value of works of fine art and use and infringement of copyrighted works. We also defend experts and others against claims relating to their art authentication and attribution decisions.
CL&M’s Mr. Spencer contributed an essay to Who Owns the Past? Cultural Policy, Cultural Property and the Law (Rutgers University Press, 2005) an examination of the effect of the new cultural nationalism and rapidly closing national borders on the ability of art museums and private collectors to own art from countries such as Italy and China.
In November 2005, The Pierpont Morgan Library invited Mr. Spencer to participate in its 26th annual Director’s Roundtable entitled “Master Strokes or Lines of Deception? The Subtle Art of Authenticating Drawings and Detecting False Attributions and Fakes.”
Gift And Estate Planning
The firm provides sophisticated tax advice to owners on the role of their art collections as part of an estate plan, and on the income and estate tax aspects of lifetime gifts of art to museums, charities and private individuals (including important valuation issues). We have advised artists and collectors on establishing art foundations that will serve the client’s estate plan and cultural interests and sometimes hold art as well.
Our extensive contacts in the art market enable us to secure the best specialized non-legal advice for clients in the areas of valuation, conservation and collection formation and management.
Representative Clients
Foundations: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; The Pollock-Krasner Foundation; the (Alexander) Archipenko Foundation; the Pierre and Maria-Gaetena Matisse Foundation; the Romare Bearden Foundation; the Dedalus (formerly Motherwell) Foundation; and the Alex Katz Foundation.
Authentication Boards: Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board; The Pollock-Krasner Authentication Board; The Jacob Lawrence Catalogue Raisonné Project; The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation; and Richard Diebenkorn Catalogue Raisonné Project.
Artists and Their Estates: The estate of Sam Francis, for art law matters; several prominent modern painters; and two highly regarded contemporary sculptors, whom we have helped to establish foundations to aid sculpture and other visual arts.
Owners, Buyers and Sellers of Art: Numerous private owners of art, as well as institutions owning art; and public and private buyers and sellers, as well as several respected New York art galleries.
Professional Activities
The head of the Art Law Practice Group, Mr. Spencer, has written widely on art law matters and has lectured on art law at Yale, Harvard and New York University Law Schools, The Smithsonian Institution, The American Association of Museums and The Appraisers Association of America.