I feel a bit inspired this morning…. perhaps it is because of my new muse. I stood up on a small soapbox this morning and sent an email to the executive director of the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts asking him why there is no link on the RISCA website in the Resources section under the Artist heading regarding the legal rights of artists working and living in Rhode Island.
Right now in Rhode Island in terms of laws protecting the rights of specifically artists, there is the Rhode Island’s Artists’ Rights Act. This is the state enacting the 1990 federal law, VARA (Visual Artist Rights Act). These state and federal laws protect the moral rights of the artist, which means even if someone buy a work of your art (specifically fine art), they are not at liberty to do whatever they want to it. They can’t turn your beautiful painting into a dartboard and they can’t make alterations to your sculpture without your (the artist’s) permission.
I find it pretty upsetting that RISCA would not have these legal resources available to Rhode Island based artists. Even googling the term “Rhode Island Artist Rights”, there is no website resource within Rhode Island addressing this issue. There are a few legal jargon websites that mention the Rhode Island Artists’ Rights Act, but only within the context of VARA. Starting a one-woman brigade to have these changes made to the RISCA Website is in my future.
This brings up another interesting point/story about the legal rights of artists. About a week or so ago, I was discussing droite de suite with Musey. The story behind the law was told to me by Henry Lydiate during a lecture while at the Sotheby’s Institute. Lydiate is one of the top and first art lawyers in the UK. The story goes a little like this. At an art auction several years after the Franco-Prussian War, a Jean-Francois Millet called the “The Angelus” was on the block. The work sold for a record 800,000 francs. Meanwhile it is said that Millet’s children, who had been left to live in poverty after Millet’s death, sat on the sidewalk outside the auction house begging. They did not receive any aid from the sale of the Millet painting (see below). Many artist families were suffering the same fate after the Franco-Prussian War, especially those artists who had perished during the war. Some people started paying attention to the term “starving artist” and worked to make sure an artist and their family would be provided for even after their work was sold.
“The Angelus” Jean-Francois Millet 1858
Droite de Suite is a law that states that a portion of an artwork’s royalty sale goes to back to the artist or the artist’s estate for a number of years after the artist’s death. Evidence that the value of an artist’s work increases over time and sales was proven by the record 2010 years both Sotheby’s and Christie’s just had. Droite de suite is currently in effect in 59 countries, including the European Union and in the UK. Canada is in the process of trying to get a droite de suite model set up. A version of it also exists in California, but no other US state has created their own California Resale Royalty Act.
Yesterday, Musey posed the question, why shouldn’t Rhode Island also adopt this act? In fact, it is a great idea because in the grand scheme of things, it would barely apply here. There are probably no more than 100 galleries in this entire state and zero art auction houses. Also, most of these Rhody galleries are working in the primary market selling living artists’ inventories. Droite de suite applies mostly to the secondary and tertiary art markets. Even though resale royalties would be happening on such a small scale, it would give Rhode Island the reputation of truly being “the artist’s state.” The other thing is that this law only applies to “fine art”, which unfortunately means that craft artists would not be affected unless the Rhode Island version would be revised to include the resale of works by craft artists.
Update:
Renee, thanks for your email, and welcome to Rhode Island. Where did you move from? I’m sharing your email with Cristina DiChiera, who runs our Artists Programs. We are in the process of revising our website, so thanks for the suggestion. If you have any specific material or information you think we should feature, please feel free to share it with us. Best,
Randy
(excellent =])