DACS annual review reveals that a record number of 38,000 artists and artists’ estates were paid more than £15 million in royalties last year The Design and Artists Copyright Society distributed the royalties via the Artist’s Resale Right (ARR), Payback (Collective Licensing) and Dutch Public Lending Right, Copyright Licensing and Artimage.
The figures include 1,800 artists and estates receiving £10m in ARR, plus £400,000 in unpaid resale royalties being uncovered. In addition, £1,700,000 in license fees was paid to 2,000 artists and estates in 2017.
Gilane Tawadros, chief executive of DACS, said: “In a year of political, social and economic uncertainty, our mission to support visual artists and artists’ estates, as they face many new challenges, has become ever more important.”
Last year also marked the 15th anniversary of DACS running Payback, with the organisation having distributed £50m in that time.
Artist Permindar Kaur explained how useful it has been. She said: “As a sculptor, the royalties I receive from Payback are hugely important, as they go straight into paying for essential material costs like metals and fabrics. It’s small royalties like these, generated from works that now hang in museums, that help sustain my practice.”
Fellow artist Emma Bennett added: “I heard about DACS by word-of-mouth and I’m so glad I did. It’s so rare to find an organisation that is actually standing up for artists’ rights and doing something to support artists. The royalties from services like Copyright Licensing are really useful as they go straight back into my studio rent and materials.”
London’s National Portrait Gallery’s steep decline in visitors due to counting error A spokeswoman for the NPG has said that the dramatic fall in visitor figures since early last year was in fact the result of counting errors by Ipsos Retail Performance which “significantly undercounted visitors through the main entrance”, reports The Art Newspaper.
The company’s figures stated that the gallery had 2.1 million visitors in 2015/16, 1.9 million in 2016/17 and 1.1 million in 2017/18. During the first three months of 2018/19 (April to June), the number was down 28% on the same period the previous year.
Although visitor figures have indeed been dropping, the gallery states that due to faulty equipment the numbers have in fact been drastically undercounted for over a year and the decline is much smaller. The extent of the miscounting was starkly revealed in July when it was found that the manual count for the current BP Portrait Award show at the gallery (until 23 September 2018) was higher than the automatic count for the whole gallery during the same period.
Creative Industries Federation warns arts organisations to prepare for ‘catastrophic’ no-deal Brexit The creative industry has been warned it is facing higher costs when trading goods and services, being denied access to European Union funding, and is at risk of losing employees through a no-deal Brexit.
The Creative Industries Federation has distributed a new guide to its members explaining what might happen if the UK and EU governments fail to agree terms for withdrawal or an extension to the Brexit negotiations by the deadline of March 2019.
As Arts Professional reports, the guide advises arts organisations to carry out an audit of their direct dependency on the EU, including assessing how many employees are EU citizens, and whether any services and products they regularly use are from EU countries.
Creative Industries Federation chief executive Alan Bishop said: “Now is the time for these organisations to begin preparing for the impact a no-deal will have on their access to EU talent, funding and trade in the single market.
“This will require time and resources and poses a huge challenge for a sector where the average size of a company is 3.3 people. Given that we represent the UK’s fastest growing sector, ensuring the best possible deal for the creative industries is absolutely central to the health of the UK economy as a whole.”
One of the key issues a no-deal Brexit will cause is that free movement of EU creatives into the UK would stop after 29 March 2019. The federation notes that although there are a range of alternative visa options, “none offer the same freedom and flexibility as EU nationals enjoy now”.
Henry Moore sketch found amongst collection of Nazi-looted art The watercolour was identified amongst a hoard of more than 1,500 works, many of which were inherited by German art dealer Cornelius Gurlitt from his father, Hildebrand Gurlitt, who was an art dealer for the Nazis. A number of the works, including those by high-profile names such as Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso and Otto Dix, were taken from various museums and collectors when the artists were condemned by the Nazis as ‘degenerate’.
However, Moore’s work is believed to have been bought by Hildebrand before the war started, rather than being stolen. It is also thought to be the only one in the collection by a UK artist, with an estimated worth of around £70,000.
The extent of the collection was only discovered after a search of Cornelius’ various houses was conducted whilst he was being investigated for tax evasion. After he died of heart failure during the investigation, there have been subsequent attempts to identify the original owners and return the stolen works.
The BBC programme Fake or Fortune? discovered the truth behind the work’s original purchase, freeing it up to be exhibited. It is currently on show along with other works from the collection at a museum in Bonn, with a full explanation of the history of the collection.
2,000-year-old city of Palmyra to be restored after destruction by the Islamic State The UNESCO world heritage site, which is located in Homs, a city in western Syria, was occupied by Isis in May 2015 and December 2016. During this time, Isis publicly beheaded 82-year-old Khaled al-Assad, who was the Syrian archaeologist and head of antiquities at the site.
Once the city had been recovered by Syrian armed forces, they discovered the extent of the damage to its buildings, including the destruction of the iconic Temple of Bel, Temple of Baalshamin, and the Arch of Triumph. However, following a £2 billion restoration project, Palmyra is expected to reopen in the summer of 2019.
Image:
1. DACS annual review 2017 cover
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