What happens to your art when you're gone? Legacy is part of the professional practice that every artist or surviving relative has to deal with. At the same time, it is a theme that most do not concern themselves with or like to think about. Because: leaving behind an artistic life is comprehensive. How do you arrange this properly? What should you think about and how to start? This manual is intended to get you started. It is a guideline for going through this important issue step by step.
The works of art you make together form your oeuvre. That grows over the years. Context is created around this: about the creative process, sketches, sources of inspiration, clients, exhibitions, buyers, restorations, and so on. Context is also created about your interpretation of being an artist, such as publications, teaching positions, board positions and contact with other artists. This information is important to properly understand your work and artistry, now and in the future. If it is organized and accessible, it is more likely that your work will keep its meaning in the future, and possibly acquire new meanings. This is how your legacy lives on. Organizing your oeuvre and the contextual information in time and making it accessible also makes it a lot easier for the future administrators of your estate to fulfill their duties.
Getting started with your estate also means that you start thinking about its future management. Who is willing and able to take on this task? Family members, friends, a foundation, or a combination thereof? Maybe you're dreading the conversation about this, maybe you're dreading it anyway. Chances are that the people around you are also walking around with these questions. Managing an artist's estate can be quite a responsibility. What does this mean for your partner or children? Do they know how to implement this in the future? And do you know what they think about this? Have you ever talked about it? Does this job fit into their lives? Are there alternatives? An open discussion about this is an important step in preparing your estate. One thing is certain: you never start thinking about your legacy too early.
As an artist you are an important source of information. In this step-by-step plan, the emphasis is on that information that you, or only you, have access to. These can be facts such as years, titles, names of persons, but also your ideas and wishes that you consider important to pass on to others. These can, for example, concern ways of exhibiting or future restorations. You create, as it were, a transfer document with which you enable others to make choices. You determine what is important to you. You can briefly summarize or refer to what may be considered generally known. With the information you record, you give future administrators the opportunity to take care of your work and legacy as best as possible.
An 'ordinary' estate is the total of assets and bank balances (minus debts) of someone who has died. So a snapshot. For artists, part of the estate consists of the material and immaterial things that can be counted as an artist: the works of art, archive material, sketches, preliminary studies, photo and film material, library, computer files, artist materials. Copyright also belongs to the estate of an artist. The artist's legacy is therefore part of the entire estate and has a certain coherence. Sometimes it is difficult to determine what is part of the artist's legacy and what is not. Roughly speaking, you could say that everything that has to do with being an artist belongs to the artist's legacy and that everything else is 'private'.
Not everything can be saved. Not everything needs to be saved. Preparing your legacy requires a certain level of realism and some distance to assess the value and significance of your artistry. Museums are generally very reluctant to take over legacies. And also acquiring some pieces, even as a gift, they will judge very critically. It will then always be work that matches the collection profile of the museum in question and is a valuable addition to the works that are already in the collection.
The model above gives a schematic representation of an artist's legacy. This consists of the following parts:
Home: the private home with personal belongings and often also a place where one's own work and the work of others can be found. Work and private life often overlap here.
Workshop: the workspace(s) of the artist. Here the artistry takes place physically. Usually everything in the studio is connected to being an artist. Also often used as storage.
Archive: The archive is the totality of documents and registrations of artistry. It can consist of various types of materials (paper documents, photographs, videotapes, sketches, etc.) and can be located in different locations.
Brain: everything intangible, immaterial and fleeting that belongs to the artist's knowledge and skills during life. You can also count copyright and personality rights to this.
These four parts are held together by the artist, they are his/her property. After death, ownership passes to the heirs. The smallest circle represents this property. The largest circle represents the context within which the artistry (or legacy) functions. This consists, for example, of: museums, collectors, the art market (gallery or auction system, for example), funds, media and critics, etc.
1. Prepare the necessary
To prepare your legacy is to surrender somewhat to the limbo of existence; arranging everything completely 'watertight' is impossible. Everyone's situation is unique and requires their own interpretation of wishes and possibilities.
What is the same for everyone are laws and regulations regarding inheritance law, copyright and personality law. It is wise to be well informed in this area by a specialist. In the first instance, the civil-law notary is the designated person for this. A civil-law notary can tell you more about the legal course of events in your specific personal situation. Do you have a partner? Children? Your own house? Assets? A notary can advise you on a will and, also importantly, a living will or general power of attorney. In a will you arrange your inheritance, in a living will you arrange who can act in your name if you are unable to do so yourself due to an accident or illness, for example. This prevents your partner or children from having to go to court to obtain permission for this. You can also name an executor in your will. That person will then ensure an efficient and expeditious settlement of the estate. The civil-law notary can also advise you on donations or the advantages or disadvantages of a foundation.
A bookkeeper, accountant or tax specialist can also advise on your specific situation.
Many artists wonder how the works of art are valued (appraised) upon death and what the influence of the appraisal is on the inheritance tax to be paid. There is no clear answer to this, and most artists do not have their 'trade stock' on their balance sheet. In general, the following applies: if there has been economic activity (sales, commissions) in the period prior to the death, or if there have been good sales in the past, it is obvious that the remaining works of art will have a certain value at the time of death. represent market value. How the works of art are valued also depends on the wishes and intentions with the collection.
You may also want to donate (if alive) or bequeath (if deceased) some of the work that you still own to others or to a foundation. You can discuss the legal and tax consequences of this with your civil-law notary.
Exemptions apply when paying inheritance tax, depending on the relationship with the deceased. Read more.
In exceptional cases you can use the option to pay inheritance tax with art. You can also arrange this before your death with the relevant museum that wants to add one or more of your works of art to the collection. Read more.
Copyrights are valid for 70 years after the death of the creator. These rights pass to the heirs, unless the creator arranges otherwise through a will. For example, you can designate one of the heirs who is authorized to act as a representative on behalf of all heirs.
Unlike copyright, personality rights in principle lapse upon the death of the creator. Personality rights protect your personal relationship with your work. These monitor, among other things, attribution and protection against unwanted changes, mutilation or damage to your work. If you want your heirs to exercise these rights, you must therefore expressly arrange this in a will or codicil. With such a Personality Rights Codicil, heirs can more emphatically oppose infringement of your work. An example of a codicil can be found here.
Resale right has existed in the Netherlands since 2006. The Resale Right is intended to ensure that artists can share in the profits when their work is resold. Every time a professional seller sells your work for more than $3.000, the artist gets a share. How high this part is depends on the price for which the artwork has been resold. Read more.
2. The artworks: making an overview
When organizing your own work with a view to your future legacy, the main questions are 'what works do I own?' and 'where are they?'. This concerns the unsold work that can be found in all kinds of locations, such as at home, in the studio, in storage, on loan or on consignment. After all, this is the part of your body of work that the future administrators will need information about in order to take care of it. In addition, it is important to make an overview of the works that are no longer your property, that have been sold or donated to others.
If you have a picture of the work that is still in your own possession and the work that is owned by third parties, you have a complete overview of your oeuvre. However, you may have kept works of art that you don't really consider completed, or that are mainly for study or reference. It is important to check and indicate this. There may also be works of art that you would rather not keep for 'eternity', which is also important to note. If you have registered your work, you have an idea of the size of your oeuvre. In number, in type of works and in physical size.
You can register your works of art both analogously (card catalog or notebook, for example) and digitally. If you have already made a nice overview of your work over the years, ask yourself whether you are satisfied with it. Did you keep track of it carefully, or are there possible gaps? There is a lot to be said for registering your work digitally. You can do this in Excel or File Maker, for example, or in a program specially developed for this purpose, such as Archive.
If you are going to register, you preferably have the physical work at hand, so that you can measure it, for example. The most important data you record are: Creator's name, Title, Year, Object type (painting, sculpture, photo, etc.), Material, Dimensions, Location (where the work is located). You give each work a unique number and also apply this number to the work (back, bottom). Then you add a photo of the work. This does not have to be high-quality print photography, as long as it is clear what work is involved. You don't have to be complicated about the numbering, the more complex the more errors can creep in. Start at 1 and keep counting. It doesn't have to be chronological either, because especially if you register digitally, you can always search and organize all data later.
You can register your work yourself, but you can also do this together or have someone else do it. You then check the input, for example, or you go through the questions that arise when entering the data.
When you are registering, you can take a good look at the works from all sides. How does it look? If you see damage or signs of decay, you may wonder what's going on? Impact or breakage damage can be the result of transport, improper handling, incorrect packaging or, for example, too little room to move due to overcrowded storage, narrow aisles and tight bends. Moving work always involves a risk. Other damage such as discoloration or mold can be caused by too much daylight or an environment that is too humid.
When registering you may remember all sorts of additional information. Focus on the information that is not known to others. This context can be very valuable, because only you have that knowledge. Very practical information can also be important: can you indicate whether it concerns a completed work, a sketch, etc.? It might be a strange idea to give a qualification to the work, such as 'good', 'sufficient' or 'moderate'. But this can help with selection or classification. Include your considerations for the qualifications so that others can understand your reasoning. You can even choose to destroy work and whether or not to register these works. Do clearly indicate 'destroyed', possibly including the date of destruction.
For works that are no longer your property, it is useful to record the following information: who is the current owner, how was it sold (from your studio, through a gallery, art dealer or otherwise)? When was it sold and what was the selling price? And also indicate if you have donated work. Do you have address details of the current owner (useful for future questions, loans, etc.)?
Has there ever been a review or article about an artwork you made? Or is it included in a solo or group exhibition? Then it can be useful to mention that as well. If necessary, someone else can look this up for you and write it down. How often a work has been exhibited or appeared in a publication can say something about the importance of the work. Don't make a big deal of this: information that may be assumed to be known, you don't have to look it up again. You can trust that others can find it.
3. Making your archive transparent
Often, when thinking of an artist's legacy, only works of art are considered. But then it is forgotten that works of art arise within a dynamic process of communication, agreements, actions, thoughts and sources of inspiration and often in interaction with others. And in a certain context of place and time. The repercussions of this, material and immaterial, form an important bed of information and meaning of the work of art and artistry. You can think of: documents, sketches, preliminary studies, photo and film material, correspondence, administration, diaries, library, computer files, artist materials, printed matter, etc. If you have kept this information, you have consciously or unconsciously formed an archive. You can read below how to make this archive accessible to others.
As an artist, you probably know exactly what you have kept, and where. And over the years you have applied your own way of organizing. Maybe there's a considered logic behind that, but maybe it's also been an organic growth process. Or a combination of both. You don't have to mess everything up right away when you start organizing your archive. Rather not even, because the cohesion and structure that you have applied as an artist also provides information and meaning in itself. You can, however, render future users or researchers a great service by guiding them through your archive and adding important information such as dates, names of persons, locations or events.
But before you get there, you first make an overview of what you have saved and where it is: a placement list. You also make a map.
You do this by answering the following questions:
– Where (in which places) is my archive material located?
– What kind of material is it?
In many cases, most archive material is in a specific place, for example in your studio or in a study at home. Sometimes it is spread over multiple locations and multiple spaces.
Start by checking for yourself where your archive material is located. Make a list of this: which location(s), which room(s).
For each location, make a sketchy map of the room(s) where archive material is located. You then indicate where the material is stored in this room(s). Give these storage places a number and a description for each room. Do this clockwise from a certain point. Then indicate what kind of material is in those cupboards or boxes. It may be useful to briefly describe the storage location.
For example:
1.1 Chest of drawers with 6 drawers, mainly loose sketches, posters and a few sheets of proofs (graphics)
1.2 Bookcase with art books (about 150 pieces)
1.3 Boxes (5 pieces) with administration (1990-2005)
1.4 Photos exhibition Gallery XYZ
If you provide the placement list with some extra explanation, you already provide a lot of guidance and insight to others. You can provide the most important information (metadata) on the basis of the four Ws:
– When (dating)
– Who (or with whom)
– What (reason, work of art, manifestation, exhibition, assignment)
– Where (location, name of exhibition space, etc.)
As for the example with the chest of drawers (1.1), you could group the loose sketches in a cover of acid-free paper. On this you write in pencil information that goes with it, such as the year (use 'approximately' or 'from – to' if you are not sure) and why you made the sketches.
You can put the photos of example 1.4 in an envelope of acid-free paper and write the names of the people in it, the date and the occasion.
Remove paperclips and staples, they don't belong in an archive. You can also remove plastic inserts and replace them with acid-free covers.
Repeat steps 4.1 and 4.2 for all other rooms containing archive material.
Storage materials
Use as much professional and certified material as possible to store your archive. The Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (formerly ICN) has issued certifications for this, so you can be sure that your documents and photos will be stored properly and safely for the long term (provided the storage conditions are also good, of course). Read more.
A separate international certification applies to the storage of photographic material: PAT (ISO 18916). Sometimes you have to buy this kind of storage material in larger quantities. Then see if you can share an order with others. Order storage material for photos.
Your digital archive can consist of a considerable amount of files on all kinds of 'carriers': computers, laptops, hard drives, USB sticks, smartphones and 'in the cloud'. What applies to the analogue archive also applies to the digital archive. Make an overview of all carriers containing information and describe their content. If you have old computers or other data carriers (floppy disks, for example) that contain valuable information, ask for help in securing them. This can include, among other things LIMA in Amsterdam, specialized in media art.
Write down your passwords so that they can be accessed by yourself and others in the future. It may be a very good idea to copy all files to a separate hard disk and store them somewhere else.
If there are specific materials you work with, it can be useful to keep them, or record them through photos or descriptions. This may be important in the future for restorations or choices about storage conditions. Sketches, models or models are important if they contain additional information about the final work of art. It also plays a role in whether this work of art is included in an important collection (museum, company or private collection). Please contact the owner of the work of art to find out if he or she is interested in the preliminary study. If not, it may suffice to take pictures of it, but it is not necessary to keep the model or model in the long run. That saves storage space. Sometimes sketches on paper have such a visual quality that they can be kept in the paper archive or sold as separate works. As an artist, make a (strict) selection of these yourself.
A library provides information about the sources of inspiration, interests and development of an artist. The way the books are arranged in the shelf can also be important. The easiest way to capture this is to take pictures of the bookcase. For example, first take an overview photo of the entire cabinet, and then detail details per bookshelf, so that the back texts with title and author are legible. Usually the books are not transferred to an archive after the death of an artist. Do check the books for notes, assignments, or other inserted archival material (newspaper clippings, etc.) before you throw them away.
While you're at it, this is also a good time to take a closer look at your biography and update it if necessary. Do the same with the overview of publications and exhibitions. For the exhibitions, make a distinction between solo and group exhibitions. State where and when the exhibition took place and with which works you exhibited.
4. Organizing and selecting your artworks
Now that you've gone through and cleaned up your archive, created a placement list, and updated your biography, you may have a more complete picture of your artistry. Periods that you were no longer busy with on a daily basis have passed the review again. You may see new connections and meanings. This may make you think about your oeuvre as a whole and the works that you still own.
This part of the step-by-step plan is about making a well-considered selection of your work. You visualize the size, distribution, quality and market of your work. This way you form an idea of the possibilities with your estate. This is a process that takes some time. You can involve others who think along with you, against whom you can test your thoughts and considerations and who may also take notes. In this way it is also possible to trace later why you made certain choices.
Determine scope
– How many works does your total oeuvre consist of? Specify by type of work (sculpture, painting, installation, video work, photography, etc.)
– How many works do you still own? Specify as in the previous question.
– What is needed to store these works?
Determine spread
– In what periods can my work be divided?
– How do I feel that my work is represented in public collections (museum collections, corporate collections, provincial and municipal collections)?
– How do I find that my work is represented in private collections (collectors, individuals)?
– How much of my work is abroad?
Determine quality
– What are my best works and where are they located?
– What are the best works I still have?
Determine market
– How would you describe the demand for your work over the years?
– Do you sell recent work / do you still work on commission?
– Will your work be resold in art dealers or at (online) auctions?
With the answers to the above questions you will now classify the works that you still own into categories. Preferably do this together with others. For example, by arranging a few sessions in your studio with a small group of people involved, people who know your work well.
It concerns the following 4 categories: A, B, C, D. When registering your works of art, indicate to which category a work belongs.
A. The best work that is of museum quality and/or that you want to keep in your own possession
B. Good work for which there is a professional market (via gallery, art dealer, auction)
C. Work in circulation or of a more general nature for the semi-professional market, for example via Kunstveiling.nl or Catawiki.nl
D. Unmarketable / Destroy
You can already tell from these categories that there is a selection idea behind them. The goal is to make your estate manageable. You then make a plan of action for each category that is aimed at giving a destination to your works of art.
It may also be worth considering asking your family, close friends, or studio assistants if they would like to receive a gift. You may be doing someone a big favor with it. You decide for yourself from which category you make such a donation.
5. Storage, Management and Preservation
A room that is too humid gives rise to mold or corrosion, a room that is too dry is not good for wooden objects. Placing a temperature and humidity meter (climate logger) can provide insight into the conditions in your studio or storage. Also be alert to silverfish and paperfish that can damage paper and textiles.
In general, it is recommended to store your work and archive in a dry and slightly heated room. Optimal is 18 degrees and 50-55% RH (Relative humidity). Keep this area clean and separate from the 'dirty' area where you work. Use clean packing materials and acid-free boxes, envelopes, and envelopes for paper and photos. Color photos, slides, films and inkjet prints are best stored as cold as possible.
Professional art transporters often also offer custom storage and additional services such as art handling and photography.
6. Think too
studio – What are the rental conditions after death? Make a folder with rental contract, telephone number, key/spare key.
Gallery – What are the conditions for works that you have on consignment with a gallery? Turn this into a file with appointments and lists of works that are in your gallery(s).
computer – Create a document with the most important passwords.
social media – Create a document with the passwords and wishes regarding your social media accounts.
Website - Do you have a website? Is this up to date? Are the contact details still correct? Who manages the website/login details? Do you use web hosting, if so, through which company?
Address file – Update the addresses of your most important (professional) contacts.
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