Who Gets Paid When the Painting Sells Again

Here is the most common story in the art business, and the least discussed. A young painter sells a canvas out of her studio for two thousand dollars because rent is due. Twenty years later her name means something, and that canvas crosses an auction block for two million.

The collector who bought it makes a fortune. The auction house takes its fee. In the United States, the painter gets nothing.

Much of the world handles this differently. The idea is called the resale right, or droit de suite, and it started in France in 1920. The European Union requires it across its member states. The UK has it. Under these systems, when a work by a living artist, or one who died recently, is resold through the market above a set price, a small percentage goes back to the artist or their heirs.

Musicians and writers take this kind of thing for granted. A song earns every time it is played. A visual artist sells an object once, and the object does all its earning for somebody else.

The American Royalties Too Act, the ART Act, has been introduced in Congress several times. The 2025 version was put forward by Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York with Senators Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. As written, it would:

It is not law. Versions of the bill have been introduced before and have not passed.

California is the only state that ever had a resale royalty. The California Resale Royalty Act took effect on January 1, 1977, and gave artists 5 percent of resales over $1,000 when the seller lived in California or the sale happened there.

It was challenged for years. In 2018, in a case called Close v. Sotheby's, the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the law was preempted by the 1976 federal Copyright Act for any sale after January 1, 1978. In practice, the state law covers only a single year of sales. The lesson the art world drew: if American artists are going to get a resale right, it has to come from Congress.

“The collector takes the risk, and the collector should share in the reward. The question is whether the artist who made the thing gets any of it.”

Supporters say it is basic fairness. The early buyer profits from the artist's later career, which the artist built. Artists of color, who for decades were bought cheaply and are now selling at rising prices, have the most to gain from a rule like this.

Opponents, mostly in the auction business, argue it adds cost and paperwork, that sales would move to countries without the right, and that most of the money would go to artists who are already successful. Defenders answer that the cap and the auction-only scope were designed with exactly those concerns in mind.

There is a private version of the resale right that any artist can use today. Some artists sell work with a written contract that asks the buyer to pay a percentage of any future resale profit back to the artist. It is not easy to enforce, but it puts the principle on paper and it tells a buyer you take your career seriously.

And the simplest support is still the oldest: buy from the artist the first time. Every piece on The Wall that is for sale pays the artist directly.