Picking up a torch last carried by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, lobbying efforts are underway to enact into U.S. federal law a droit de suite right enjoyed in the U.K. and elsewhere, that is, a right for an artist to be compensated upon subsequent sales of his or her work. American law has long resisted the concept of secondary market compensation for artists, and Kennedy’s efforts to write droite de suite into American law failed in the course of the enactment of the Visual Artists Rights Act in 1987. European nations have struggled to quantify the effect of inconsistent droite de suite legislation; some argue that the piecemeal regime has simply pushed sales into countries without it, others note that U.K. art sales have continued to rise.

In the latest development in one of this year’s farthest-reaching art law issues, the Metropolitian Museum of Art announced in August that it will no longer lend its works of art within the Russian Federation so long as the Russian embargo on U.S. loans persists. The Met had planned to loan works by French designer Paul Poiret to the exhibition “Paul Poiret – King of Fashion” at the Kremlin Museum.

We are pleased to have you at the first thread of the Art Law Report, a new blog dedicated to the commentary of Nicholas O'Donnell and the Art & Museum Law Group of Sullivan & Worcester LLP. I spent some time in the art historical world before becoming a civil litigator several years ago, and together with my colleagues hope to give fresh perspective to the many legal questions facing the visual arts from many different angles. I hope that our blog will become a resource for you, whatever your relation to the art or legal field.