Jori Finkel reports in the LA Times on a class-action lawsuit surrounding the resale rights of artists whose work is sold in California or the seller lives in California:
New York painter Chuck Close, L.A. artist Laddie John Dill and the estate of L.A. sculptor Robert Graham […] are lead plaintiffs in a pair of class-action lawsuits filed Tuesday against the New York operations of Sotheby’s and Christie’s, alleging that the auction houses violated the California Resale Royalty Act. […]
Eric M. George of Browne George Ross LLP in L.A. filed the pair of complaints Tuesday in federal court, charging the auction houses with “failure to comply” with the law by not withholding this royalty for the artists and by routinely going out of their way “to conceal the fact of a seller’s California residency.”
Close, Dill and Graham’s estate are plaintiffs named on both suits. The foundation of L.A. painter Sam Francis, who died in 1994, also appears as a plaintiff in the suit against Christie’s. […] The California Arts Council maintains information about the law on its website, as well as a list of artists that it is seeking for payment. Some artists like Ed Ruscha are known to be scrupulous about collecting their 5% of resales.
Artists sue Christie’s and Sotheby’s for ‘resale royalties’ (Los Angeles Times)
