Category: All Articles

Giving your art business the best chance

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Running your own business can be very rewarding but success is not always guaranteed. Businesses are most vulnerable to failure during their early years of trading – statistics vary but one commonly quoted is that half of all small businesses fail within their first couple of years.

Running your own business requires you to be a jack-of-all-trades. Dealing with marketing and finance functions among many other aspects whilst still trying to maintain and grow your business isn’t easy. There are an endless number of traps to fall into. Here are five ways to give your business the best chance… Continue reading →

New gallery hub to open in Kensington

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A new gallery “hub” set to open in South Kensington in 2018 is expected to boost London’s profile in the international art market, the Financial Times reported on 2 March.

Cromwell Place will offer UK-based and international art dealers the opportunity to exhibit and store their artworks in a central London location. Situated in a row of heritage buildings on Cromwell Place, the development will feature 16 ground-floor gallery spaces, room for around 35 dealers to have offices and viewing rooms and a climate-controlled art storage unit in the courtyard.  Continue reading →

The Bribery Act – How does it affect my business?

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If you want to wine and dine a potential client, or treat an existing client to lunch to thank them for their custom, you may not realise that you could potentially be caught by the Bribery Act 2010 if the gift is deemed to be excessive and go well beyond reasonable efforts to promote your business. While only extravagant and disproportionate gifts are likely to cause an issue, it is worthwhile familiarising yourself with the Bribery Act and the types of activities it covers.

In the second of our series of articles for gallery owners and small businesses, we summarise the main provisions of the Bribery Act 2010 and how it might affect you and your business. Continue reading →

Banksy ownership dispute uncovered

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In an episode of Inside Out broadcast tonight on the BBC, the art dealer who attempted to sell Banksy’s ‘Art Buff’ mural at auction, Robin Barton of Bankrobber Gallery, will admit he failed to properly verify who owned the wall on which the mural appeared.

Specialist art lawyers, Becky Shaw of Boodle Hatfield and Tim Maxwell of Charles Russell Speechlys, who act for the Creative Foundation, an arts charity based in Folkestone, successfully obtained a High Court injunction preventing the sale of the mural after it was removed from a building in Folkestone in 2014.  At a hearing on 30 July 2015, Mr Justice Arnold held that the mural did not belong to the tenant of the property on which it was painted, but to the landlord, who assigned it to the Creative Foundation.  Continue reading →

Bills of Sale consultation

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Bills of sale are legal instruments, still used today, that allow individuals to transfer ownership of goods to another while retaining them physically. Historically, bills of sale were most often used as security for loans where the borrower would grant ownership to the lender over, say, a painting which would act as the security but (in contrast to pawn broking or granting a pledge) could keep the painting hanging on their wall. Once the loan was repaid, the ownership of the painting would be reinstated to the borrower. Continue reading →

European Union backs down on cadmium pigment ban

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Artists across the European Union are popping tubes of red, yellow and orange paint in celebration over the defeat of a proposed EU-wide ban on cadmium pigment.

As the Art Newspaper reports, the announcement was made on 28 October 2015 after a lengthy and impassioned campaign by artists and paint makers to save what artist Emily Faludy has described as “sunshine in a tube.” Continue reading →

Who owns street art?

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A Banksy mural that appeared on the back of an amusement arcade triggered a groundbreaking legal dispute, write Tim Maxwell, Becky Shaw and Andrew Bruce.

In a judgment handed down on 11 September in The Creative Foundation v Dreamland Leisure Limited [2015] EWHC 2556 (Ch), the High Court held that a tenant was not entitled to remove a Banksy mural from the wall of its leasehold property and must deliver it up to the claimant. Continue reading →

The Creative Foundation brings Banksy back to Folkestone

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Following popular demand and a lengthy legal battle, the Creative Foundation has successfully managed to secure the return of the Banksy for Folkestone.

The Banksy, ‘Art Buff’, appeared overnight on a wall in the heart of Folkestone’s Creative Quarter during the 2014 Folkestone Triennial, and was stated by the artist to have been given as ‘Part of the Folkestone Triennial. Kind of’. The Folkestone Triennial is a major art event run by the Creative Foundation, a charity which promotes creativity and the arts as part of the regeneration of Folkestone. ‘Art Buff’ quickly became a popular local attraction but, sadly, that was not to last. The tenants of the building, Dreamland Leisure Limited, a company linked to the Godden family, arranged for ‘Art Buff’ to be cut out of the property before the Triennial had ended. The mural was shipped to the US and offered for sale. Continue reading →