The Supreme Court of the United States issued earlier this year its long-awaited ruling in the dispute between the photographer Lynn Goldsmith and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (AWFVA) on 18 May. The Court ruled that the Foundation’s delivery to Condé Nast in 2016 of an Andy Warhol silkscreen from 1984 based on a photograph taken by Goldsmith of the musician Prince in 1981 did not qualify for the defence of fair use under the US Copyright Act’s provision that allows for that, 17 USC section 107.
Released on Aug 22, 2023
An overview of periods of limitation application to artworks transactions in France, Hungary, Italy and New York
Released on Aug 3, 2023
Under Italian law buyers of artwork that have proven to be fake or misattributed have three remedies available, which are subject to very different time limits (from one to ten years) and may determine very different results in favour of a successful plaintiff.
Released on Aug 3, 2023
We often hear in the news about paintings whose attribution has changed as a result of new information or renewed scholarship with respect to an artist’s work. An artwork’s attribution may even change multiple times in the span of decades – with the attribution going back and forth.
Released on Aug 3, 2023
Under Hungarian contract law, the buyer of an artwork that turns out to be misattributed can void the contract of alternatively can pursue a claim for breach of contract.
Released on Aug 3, 2023
The statutes of limitations applicable to different actors in the art market lack harmonisation. While both sellers and buyers are subject to the standard statute of limitations, auction houses and their experts benefit from a shorter five-year statute of limitations from the date of the auction.
Released on Aug 3, 2023
A recent decision cautions that art buyers who fail to conduct minimal diligence in the face of red flags may be foreclosed from claiming fraud over the misattribution of purchased artwork. In Greenway II LLC v Wildenstein & Co Inc, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a summary order affirming the lower court’s decision to dismiss a buyer’s fraud claim over a painting’s authenticity as time-barred, where the buyer received appraisal reports disclosing that the painting had not been authenticated but failed to investigate until years later.
Released on Aug 3, 2023
According to the new legislation, New York museums that display artworks once stolen during the Nazi era in Europe are now required to label these works acknowledging that information. This article discusses this legislation.
Released on Nov 7, 2022
The protection of cultural property is crucial to the preservation of civilisations’ historical experiences. An articulation of this ethos in conjunction with the development of principles, such as military necessity, assist in understanding how and why the rules governing the protection of cultural property in times of armed conflict may be regarded as part of international humanitarian law.
Released on Oct 10, 2022
National institutions whose powers of restitution are bound by statute face increasing pressure to seek and utilise legislative loopholes to return contested objects, while high-profile figures have questioned whether existing legislation is still fit for purpose. Though such changes are not immediately anticipated, the incoming Charities Act 2022 will give museum trustees greater powers to make ex gratia returns of objects.
Released on Oct 10, 2022
On 31 March 2022, the Judicial Court of Nanterre in France issued a decision according to which ‘in the absence of disproportionate infringement’, the right to inform is more important than the copyright.
Released on Oct 10, 2022
Art law: Restrictions on the export of cultural property and artwork – December 2020 – A report by the IBA Art, Cultural Institutions and Heritage Law Committee
Released on Dec 1, 2020
The strange case of life insurance policies: if the beneficiary’s privacy clashes with heirs’ rights
This article summarises two decisions of the Austrian Supreme Court dealing with formal requirements for transferring works of art into a private trust under Austrian law.
Everyone is an artist.
Where international conventions and European laws often fail in achieving restitution, good practices adopted by states in diplomatic and bilateral relations are reaching this goal in many cases.
Art: private passion or private client asset?
Ivana Zivanovic
Olivier Le Goff
Art: private passion or private client asset?
Ivana Zivanovic
Olivier Le Goff