ART WORLD DRAMA
A local artist’s discovery that his three-panelled art work had been broken up and sold separately has resulted in a lengthy compensation battle
ACONTROVERSY involving the individual sale of parts of a three-panelled painting has highlighted potential pitfalls in the Gold Coast art scene.
When a local artist consigned a unique three-panel painting for sale to a prominent local art gallery in 2009 he was excited at the prospect of finding a buyer in tough times.
Six years on and the artist in question has only just seen his money after a lengthy battle to try to reclaim the entirety of his work this year.
The three-panel work – or ‘triptych’ – was consigned to a local gallery for $8500 for five years before the artist began to ask serious questions.
Having undertaken various other exhibitions and works with the same art director in the interim, the artist was surprised when four months ago he was returned the centre panel to his three-piece painting.
He then claims he was informed by a gallery staff member the remainder of the work was misplaced.
The artist claims while working at the gallery shortly after, he was told to pick up the remaining two panels from another gallery location.
When he arrived he alleges he was offered two panels of an artwork that did not belong to him.
“When I arrived … the storeroom lady showed me the panels she believed to be the missing panels of my work,” he says.
“When I told her they were not mine she asked me if I wanted them anyway as they had been left in the storeroom and she had no idea whose they were.
“I couldn’t believe she had made me that offer and felt it to be very unprofessional.”
He claims then to have visited the original gallery to inquire about his work regularly over the next two weeks to no avail before threatening to consult Arts Law.
At this point the gallery director phoned the artist and they discussed a possible settlement to the matter and the artist declined a $1350 settlement offered by the director.
Via a solicitor the artist demanded $5750 to cover the two panels that had been lost.
“She sold two of the panels to a collector which aside from the fact that it destroys my copyright, it’s a breach of my moral integrity,” he fumes.
“She’s totally breached my copyright by breaking the painting up.
“Without phoning me she sold the two panels for less than half-price. She just flogged them off to this dealer.”
On August 21 the dealer responded, claiming the artist did not answer calls made to discuss the offers made for the two panels.
The director admitted two panels were sold at $2875 each and subsequently offered a $3450 settlement which takes into account the gallery’s 40 per cent commission for having sold the work.
“This was the GFC and sales of artwork stopped overnight,” she tells
Public Defender.
“We worked hard to negotiate between artists and clients.” After questioning from Public
Defender this month, the director agreed to the artist’s terms — $5750 for the two panels.
The University of Woolongong associate professor Marett Leiboffan, an expert on copyright law as applied to art, said if the director sold two panels of the triptych without consulting the artist, the artist might have had some legal recourse had the matter gone to court.
“Triptychs are meant to go together, they’re not meant to be broken up.
“It’s not a copyright infringement — it’s an infringement of moral rights. They’re about protecting integrity or the author’s reputation and that includes an artist.”
Associate professor Leiboff said an artist’s moral right pertains to the effect had on the author of a work once their piece has been altered against their will.
“The idea is that when you’ve created it, you’ve intended it to look a particular way,” she says.
“You don’t want the work looking not how you wanted it. The proportions of paintings in a triptych are created in such a way to look like a three-parter – not as stand-alone pieces.
“What this is affecting is something called the right of integrity in your work. “This is a version of destruction.” The breach of a ‘moral right’ may not be the only area of law pertaining to a split triptych.
“There’s another area of law called ‘personal property’. Even breaking up a painting is an infringement of your property rights,” she says.
“There are probably a few areas of law that are applying.”
YOU INTEND IT TO LOOK A CERTAIN WAY. WHAT THIS IS AFFECTING IS SOMETHING CALLED THE RIGHT OF INTEGRITY OF YOUR WORK ... THIS IS A VERSION OF DESTRUCTION