Three works from the Harvard Art Museum: How I Introduced Art Law to Educate Visitors

By Hannah Gadway

Art law is intriguing for those already invested in the realm of law, but can also be an educational tool that can help general museum visitors understand how museums function and the significance of certain pieces in art history. In this article, I will walk through how I specifically used my “Art and Law” Student Guide tour at the Harvard Art Museums to teach about how the law is used to protect art, artists, and art collectors.

Please note that I was part of the Student Guide program at the Harvard Art Museums, which is an interdisciplinary program that focuses on the individual perspectives of Harvard College students.^[1] This overview of my tour is meant to reflect my individual interests, not a prescribed set of highlights.

The law has a significant impact on the art world, as it interacts with issues such as taxation, theft, contracts, insurance, and more. The following is a look at three pieces at the Harvard Art Museums to explore art law, and, through their stories, showed how the law is used to protect art, artists, and art collectors. Doing so allowed me to educate visitors about basic aspects of art law, strengthen their museum literacy, and showcase how certain artworks fit into the broader narrative of art history. Let’s walk through the pieces on my tour and how art law allowed me to teach about each artwork.