The Library
Below is a list of books and journals that the Center for Art Law compiles in our quest to keep track of the art law publications and relevant scholarship.
If you are working on a new title, or your book is already out, and you would like to have it included in the Repository, please send us information about it (Title, Author/Editor(s), Date of Publication; ISBN, short summary, link to your publisher/distributor).
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Elephants & Squirrels
“A Sri Lankan artist and the chief of the indigenous Wanniyala-Aetto demand the return of ancestral remains and artifacts from Swiss museums – confronting the country with its hidden colonial past.”
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Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild]
“Trapped in museum archives, Ancestors bend time and space to find their way home. History, spirituality, and the law collide as tribal repatriation specialists fight to return and rebury Indigenous human remains, offering a revealing look at the still-pervasive worldviews that justified collecting them in the first place.
Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild] documents the emotional and vital work of MACPRA (Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance). This alliance, made up of repatriation specialists representing all Michigan tribes, fights to bring their Ancestors and funerary objects home from settler colonial institutions like museums, libraries, and archives.
Adam and Zack Khalil’s monumental and formally daring film follows the pressing struggle to rebury Indigenous human remains that have been held in sterile storage, laying bare the history of Indigenous collections and the battle to recognize and enforce the laws intended to facilitate their repatriation to the communities they were originally stolen from. Using an essayistic approach alongside vérité portraits, the film celebrates the courageous individuals who carry out this hard and emotionally draining labor of return. — AP”
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The Professional Photographer’s Legal Handbook
“In this accessible and entertaining book, expert Nancy E. Wolff explains copyright, trademark, contracts, and privacy. Real-world examples of cases, laws, and news items torn from today’s headlines illustrate the most urgent legal situations faced by photographers: requirements, limits, and enforcement of copyright and trademark; fair use and public domain; First Amendment considerations; the law of privacy and publicity; and many more issues. Detailed information on drafting contracts and licensing agreements is included. The imprimatur of the Picture Archive Council of America assures readers that the information is comprehensive and up to the minute. The Professional Photographer’s Legal Handbook is an essential tool for everyone who works in photography and everyone who wants to.”
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Ruling Culture: Art Police, Tomb Robbers, and the Rise of Cultural Power in Italy
“Through much of its history, Italy was Europe’s heart of the arts, an artistic playground for foreign elites and powers who bought, sold, and sometimes plundered countless artworks and antiquities. This loss of artifacts looted by other nations once put Italy at an economic and political disadvantage compared with northern European states. Now, more than any other country, Italy asserts control over its cultural heritage through a famously effective art-crime squad that has been the inspiration of novels, movies, and tv shows. In its efforts to bring their cultural artifacts home, Italy has entered into legal battles against some of the world’s major museums, including the Getty, New York’s Metropolitan Museum, and the Louvre. It has turned heritage into patrimony capital—a powerful and controversial convergence of art, money, and politics.
In 2006, the then-president of Italy declared his country to be “the world’s greatest cultural power.” With Ruling Culture, Fiona Greenland traces how Italy came to wield such extensive legal authority, global power, and cultural influence—from the nineteenth century unification of Italy and the passage of novel heritage laws, to current battles with the international art market. Today, Italy’s belief in its cultural superiority is evident through interactions between citizens, material culture, and the state—crystallized in the Art Squad, the highly visible military-police art protection unit. Greenland reveals the contemporary actors in this tale, taking a close look at the Art Squad and state archaeologists on one side and unauthorized excavators, thieves, and smugglers on the other. Drawing on years in Italy interviewing key figures and following leads, Greenland presents a multifaceted story of art crime, cultural diplomacy, and struggles between international powers.”
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Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World
“Roger Atwood knows more about the market for ancient objects than almost anyone. He knows where priceless antiquities are buried, who is digging them up, and who is fencing and buying them. In this fascinating book, Atwood takes readers on a journey through Iraq, Peru, Hong Kong, and across America, showing how the worldwide antiquities trade is destroying what’s left of the ancient sites before archaeologists can reach them, and thus erasing their historical significance. And it is getting worse. The discovery of the legendary Royal Tombs of Sipan in Peru started an epidemic. Grave robbers scouring the courntryside for tombs–and finding them. Atwood recounts the incredible story of the biggest piece of gold ever found in the Americas, a 2,000-year-old, three-pound masterpiece that cost one looter his life, sent two smugglers to jail, and wrecked lives from Panama to Pennsylvainia. Packed with true stories, this book not only reveals what has been found, but at what cost to both human life and history.”
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Books Reviews
Book Review: “Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of…
Book Review: “All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud and Fine Art” (2024)
Book Review: Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger (2012) by Ken Perenyi
Book Review: “Art & Crime” (2022) by Stefan Koldenhoff & Tobias Timm, eng. ed.
Book Review: “Museum Administration: Law and Practice” by Walter Lehmann (2022)
Book Review: “Posthumous Art, Law and the Art Market,” Sharon Hecker and Peter J. Karol, eds.…
Book Review: The Art Collecting Legal Handbook, Bruno W. Boesch And Massimo Sterpi, eds. (3rd ed.,…
Book Review: “Lost Art: The Art Loss Register Casebook Vol I” (2021) by Anja Shortland
Book Review: “The Whole Picture: The Colonial Story of the Art in Our Museums & Why…
Art Law Journals
Book Review: “Females in the Frame: Women, Art, and Crime” (2019) by Penelope Jackson
Book Review: “A Philosophy Guide to Street Art and the Law” (2018)
Book Review: “Hitler’s Last Hostages” (2019)
Book Review: “Art and Modern Copyright” (2018)
Book Review: “Females in the Frame: Women, Art, and Crime” (2019)
Book Review: “Art Law and the Business of Art” (2019)
Book Review: “Artist, Authorship & Legacy: A Reader” (2018)
Book Review: “The Bouvier Affair: A True Story” (2019)
Book Review: Joan Kee, “Models of Integrity” (2019)
Book Review: “A Tragic Fate: Law and Ethics in the Battle over Nazi-Looted Art”(2017)
Book Review: “Art Law: A Concise Guide for Artists, Curators, and Art Educators”(2016)
Book Review: “Art and Business: Transactions in Art & Cultural Property” (2016)
Book Review: “Possession: The Curious History of Private Collectors from Antiquity to the Present” (2016)
Book Review: “Fair and just solutions?” (2015)
Book Review: “Visual Arts and the Law: A Handbook for Professionals” (2013)
Book Review: Elizabeth T. Russell’s “Arts Law Conversations”
All Things Come in Threes: Hope reviews Three Recent Publications on Art Forgery
Pitching an idea to e-Textbook Publishers: Trademarks through NY Restaurants
Art Theft – A Sexy Crime?
