Claude Tousignant's Accélérateur chromatique 90, estimated at $50,000 to $70,000 in the Sotheby's fall auction.
As Canada’s fall auction activity reaches its apex, key artists and artist organizations are speaking up about the need for an Artist’s Resale Right in Canada—a proposed measure that would see artists receive a small percentage of secondary-market sales of their works.
Auction houses and art dealers are also joining the conversation, noting that they would like any legislation developed to be fair to all concerned.
In a release issued this week by Canadian Artists’ Representation (CARFAC), which is advocating for the adoption of an Artist’s Resale Right in Canada, Toronto artist Michael Snow states, “The idea of the Artist’s Resale Right is a good one… People should be sympathetic to this.” Snow’s 1960 painting Two is to be auctioned by Joyner Waddington’s on Monday, where it is estimated to sell for between $35,000 and $45,000.
Last fall, CARFAC notes, two of Snow’s pieces sold at auction for a total of $175,500. If Canada had an Artist’s Resale Right of 5 per cent, Snow would have received $8,775.
Montreal artist Claude Tousignant is also quoted in the CARFAC release as saying, “An artist who works for several years will certainly see his work increase in value… Why not profit from that?”
Tousignant’s Accélérateur chromatique 90 is estimated to sell for between $50,000 and $70,000 at Sotheby’s auction on Tuesday.
The Artist’s Resale Right idea in Canada also received a boost from the goverment of Nunavut this year.
In March, the Nunatsiaq News reported that Nunavut’s economic development minister Peter Taptuna stated in legislature, “We add our voice to support artists’ resale right and encourage Canada to address this critical piece of legislation… It is time for Canada to recognize the right of Nunavut’s artists to benefit from the resale of their work.”
The outlet has also reported on a recent study stating that “Nunavut artists stand to benefit the most from the adoption of resale rights.”
Melissa Gruber, advocacy and communications director for CARFAC, said in a phone interview that a recent meeting in Toronto allowed her to “get feedback from the auction houses and art dealers about our proposal.”
The initiation of such meetings is a new development, since auction house directors and private dealers are the parties that have expressed the most public objection to the Artist’s Resale Right in Canada.
“We think artists do need support in society, but it [the Artist’s Resale Right] is not the right way to support the artists,” says Robert Heffel, vice-president, Heffel Fine Art Auction House. “Because it will, in the end, hurt the art market a little bit—it could hurt the primary market and the secondary market.”
“There’s other incentives the government could give the arts to support artists,” Heffel notes, pointing to the Art Bank program, in which the Canada Council purchases works by Canadian artists, or arts grants and tax incentives.
“For me, personally, I don’t think it’s the right process,” Heffel concluded.
Other auction house representatives have stressed the need for any right to be fair and transparent, arguing that the risk collectors take in purchasing a work needs to be recognized.
“Collectors love art and they love the people who make art—many of them are there right from the beginning,” Linda Rodeck states in the CARFAC press release. “The appearance of fairness is important and my clients want to ensure the Artist’s Resale Right would be fair to them as well.”
“Waddington’s priority is maintaining a fair, transparent and growing market place that benefits all participants,” said Joyner Waddington’s president Duncan McLean.
Some auction houses and dealers have also raised the question of what would happen under an Artist’s Resale Right if, at a later sale or auction, a given artwork declines, rather than augments, in financial value.
Gruber said that CARFAC had initially hoped to add the Artist’s Resale Right to Copyright Bill C-11, passed by the federal government earlier this year. Due a technical issue, she said, it was not possible to add the right to the bill before it was passed. But she and other CARFAC staff are continuing to meet and liase with MPs around the possibility of introducing the right as part of a private member’s bill or through other means.
More discussion about the Artist’s Resale Right, Gruber said, is due to happen at the CARFAC national conference next spring in Vancouver.
The Artist’s Resale Right has been adopted in some 60 countries and jurisdictions, including the European Union. Its conditions can vary from district to district; Gruber says that CARFAC is proposing that in Canada it would apply to public sales of works through auctions and art dealers, and that it wouldn’t apply to sales under $1,000.
