Artist – Dealer Relationships: Reading the Fine Print (w/artist Eric Aho and attorney Dean Nicyper)

Eric Aho was born in Melrose, Massachusetts in 1966 and grew up in rural New Hampshire. He studied printmaking at London’s Central School of Art and Design, and received his BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. Aho completed his graduate work at the Lahti Art Institute in Finland supported by a Fulbright Fellowship in 1991–92 and an American-Scandinavian Foundation grant in 1993. Exhibited and collected widely, his works are included in the permanent collections of the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH; Denver Art Museum, CO; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Neuberger Museum of Art, SUNY Purchase; and the New Britain Museum of American Art, CT among others. Aho lives and works in Saxtons River, Vermont. DC Moore Gallery in New York represents his work.

Dean Nicyper heads the Withers Bergman Dispute Resolution Group in the Unities States. For the past two decades, Mr. Nicyper’s practice has focused on commercial disputes with a significant focus on art disputes. Among his various clients, Mr. Nicyper has successfully represented one of the two largest art auction houses for more than 20 years in dozens of lawsuits covering a broad range of art law-related issues, such as the authenticity of works of art, art fraud, auction law, consignment obligations as well as rights and obligations of parties in loan transactions where works of art have been pledged as collateral. He also has represented artists and their families and foundations, art dealers and agents, art collectors, and art appraisers in many art-related disputes. He represented claimants in all of the major US art fraud matters over the past 20 years and was lead counsel in the initial cases uncovering two of the largest art fraud scandals in the past 20 years. He also spearheaded legislation that is now incorporated in the New York State Arts & Cultural Affairs Law. Mr. Nicyper has appeared on Court TV and Good Morning America, has given many presentations and published several articles concerning art law. He served as the Chair of the Art Law Committee of the Association of the Bar for the City of New York from 2013 to 2016.