The year is 1920. The French parliament is about to enact le droit de suite, a desperate measure to prevent the loss of yet another generation of artists to poverty and starvation.

 

The idea was simple enough – every time an artwork resold, the artist (or their heirs) received 5% of the sale price. There were exceptions, time limits, and no doubt enough fine print to guarantee a few starving artists would continue to feed their angst, but the idea was revolutionary. Germany and Italy followed “suite” (no apologies.) The rest of the world was ambivalent.

 

It was a hot day in September 1976 when the California legislature, under a young Jerry Brown, enacted an amendment to the state Civil Code, the Artist's Resale Rights amendment. California’s code, section 986, became the first, and last, attempt to establish a droit de suite in the U.S. It was largely ignored. Thirty-five years later it is largely forgotten.

 

November 2, 2006 - music and film mogul, David Geffen, sells his painting No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock. He pockets a cool $140 million dollars, the most ever paid for a painting at that time. Every year the value of fine art surpasses imagination and the current owner of the work, art brokers, and auction houses are the sole beneficiaries. Let’s work together to reawaken the California Resale Royalty Act and encourage other state governments to implement their own RRA.

 

In the meantime, art creators, whose work sells for more than $1000, should do a regular internet search for their name and/or the name of their artwork. They should visit auction websites (Sotheby’s, Christies, etc.) and monitor their catalogs. They should talk to the galleries that initially sold their work, make sure they know about 986, and ask to be contacted if any of their work sells in the secondary market. California artists, dealers, brokers, architects, auction houses, and gallery owners should read the full text of section 986 to better understand their obligations to clients (both the buyers and the artists they represent.)

 

BW