Irina Tarsis
November 14, 2017
Irina Tarsis, Esq., is the Founder and Managing Director of the Center for Art Law. Originally from Kyiv, Ukraine, she is an American attorney and educator with training in art history, business, and law. Ms. Tarsis earned her Master’s degree in Art History from Harvard University and her J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, and is admitted to the New York State Bar.
What began as a blog in 2008 has grown into a world-recognized platform for art law education and research. By 2012, the Center was offering internships to law students and publishing scholarship by guest researchers. Under Ms. Tarsis’s leadership, the Center incorporated as a nonprofit in December 2017 and now serves a global community through online and in person programming in the United States and Europe.
Ms. Tarsis has taught at institutions including LUISS University in Rome (since 2023), Sotheby’s Institute of Art (2021), FIT/CUNY (2021), Teachers College at Columbia University (2020), and her alma mater, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (2012, 2017-2018). She has also served as faculty for the European Shoah Legacy Institute’s Provenance Research Training Workshops in Vilnius, Athens, and Rome (2013-2014).
An active member of multiple bar associations and art law committees in the U.S. and Europe, Ms. Tarsis contributes regularly to scholarship through publications and lectures on topics including artists’ resale royalty rights, provenance research due diligence, and fair use in the visual arts. Her work has appeared in The Art Law Review, the IFAR Journal, Entertainment, Arts and Sports Law Journal, Cultural Heritage & Arts Review, Library and The Cultural Record, the ArtWatch UK Journal, and Art Antiquity and Law.
