Chuck Close, Self-Portrait II, 2011, oil on canvas
In May of this year, headlines trumpeted that the contemporary art auctions in New York hit a new record of over $1.2 billion in sales for the major auction houses. There’s no doubt that a fair number of sellers of these marquee artworks were California residents. And that means that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions in those proceeds, were due to the artists under a little-known (and now challenged) California law. Even though these sales by California sellers were made in New York, the artists would have been entitled to a 5% royalty on the sales price under the California Resale Royalty Act (CRRA).