Robert Rauschenberg is Dead

One of the several things I heard about Robert Rauschenberg was his storied penchant for attending opening receptions quite drunk, embracing patrons while wearing a porcupine quill jacket, and his temper tantrum when Robert Scull sold one of his paintings at an enormous profit. Enormous profit to Scull, but not to Rauschenberg.

""I've been working my tail off just for you to make that profit", Robert Rauschenberg said angrily to Robert Scull. Scull, a wealthy collector, had just sold Rauschenberg's painting "Thaw" at auction at Sotheby Parke Bernet for $85,000, and Scull had declined to give Rauschenberg any share of the proceeds. This was a painting that Scull had bought some 15 years earlier from Rauschenberg, at that time a struggling young artist, for only $900." Quoted from an article by entertainment and arts lawyer, Nicholas A. Carlin, entitled RAUSCHENBERG'S ANGST: THE CALIFORNIA RESALE ROYALTY LAW AND HOW IT AFFECTS DEALERS AND COLLECTORS, written for Art West 1995.

Rauschenberg agitated for some years on this point, but only California responded with a droit de suite law. Droit de suite is French for "right to follow," a law passed in the 20's when it was realized that the heirs of the artist Millet lived in poverty even though one of his paintings had sold at an enormous increase. Most protests against enacting such a law on a wider basis in the U.S. are based on the projected difficulties of administration.

What if there was something like ASCAP for visual artists? The process seems to work to distribute royalties to musicians.