It’s Not Personal, It’s Business: When Artists Change Galleries

About this Event

Why do artists change galleries? How does that decision impact galleries? What legal disputes can arise when the artist-dealer relationship comes to an end?

The relationship between gallery and artist has long been compared to that of a marriage. Single dealers often nurtured an artist’s career and, in exchange, the artist exclusively sold their work with that dealer. However, this power dynamic has been undergoing significant changes: fewer artists today exclusively work with a single gallery; more and more artists are choosing to go independent; and the modern art market appears to be more influenced by artists than gallerists.

The Center for Art Law hosted a panel discussion with Olivia Taylor and Richard Lehun, discussing the legal and business consequences of an artist leaving a gallery as well as broader market trends.

About the Panelists

Richard Lehun

Richard Lehun is the founder of Stropheus LLC. Richard Lehun is responsible for transactions involving fiduciary duties and conflicts of interest, particularly those relating to artist-gallery relations, artist commissions, art advising, consignor-auction house relations, gallery, museum, auction house, and non-profit ethics. He also works in the area of arts related intellectual property issues including copyright and trademark.

Richard Lehun completed his JD, and then moved directly to the SJD program of McGill Univerity. He gathered practical legal experience with Léger Robic Richard, Montréal’s respected intellectual property practitioners. While a teaching fellow at McGill’s faculty of law, Richard Lehun was cross appointed as a Visiting Researcher at Harvard Law School.

Olivia Taylor

Olivia Taylor is an art law attorney at Withersworldwide. Her practice focuses on the legal needs of the traditional and web3 art world, namely, of collectors, artists, corporations such as art advisors and galleries, museums, and foundations. Her work commonly involves discrete transactions, including art purchases, sales, loans, consignments, and charitable gifts. Through her work on these transactions and a range of other art related legal matters, she engages in areas of the law such as copyright and moral rights law, cultural property law, non-profit law, international law, contract law, estate law, tax law, gift law, corporation law, and finance law.

Olivia earned a JD from UCLA School of Law and was a Submissions Editor for the UCLA Law Entertainment Law Journal. She is also a member of the New York City Bar Association’s Copyright & Literary Property Committee. Her practice is informed by several years of prior work experience in both domestic and international museums, galleries, and an artist foundation.