New York City is the Capital of Art Law!

May 27, 2025

By the Center for Art Law Editorial Team

From May 12-16, the Center for Art Law hosted its inaugural summer school—an intensive five-day program packed with lectures, field trips, and memorable encounters. The week included visits to TEFAF, Sotheby’s, Brooklyn Museum, MSCHF HQ, a gallery crawl crowned with an arrest of an artist, not to mention excellent lectures on copyright law, litigation, AML, provenance research, etc, etc. Perhaps nobody expected this experience to be so much and to offer so much to all the participants, the organizers, the attendees, the guest lecturers.

There is no one thing that makes New York City the capital of art law. It is certainly the convergence of many leading factors: museums and galleries, auction houses and fairs, laws designed to protect artists and museums, courthouses used to hearing matters involving artists’ and collectors’ estates and copyright disputes, active District Attorney’s office, transactional and litigation firms—large, middle, and boutique. Some say there is no such thing as Art Law and others do nothing but practice it as expert witnesses, advisors, advocates.

Having just organized the 2025 annual art law conference in the Christie’s offices in the heart of the Rockefeller Center in April, we cannot thank every single speaker and sponsor, guests and volunteer enough for inspiring and satisfying our curiosity, offering learning and training opportunities and for serving as inspiration to the art lawyers of today and the decades to come.

What we can say with utmost confidence, there is still more art law to discover, to study, to experience, and to share (in and outside of New York City). We cannot wait to do it all over again in FY 2026, starting on June 1. Stay connected with our ongoing work through social media, our website, and monthly newsletters. Onwards with art law!