Art Association Ethics Code Does Not Protect Collectors from Inappropriate Behavior
From all the professional ethics codes that exist in the numerous associations of people participating in the arts, one might guess that the art field is a perfect area of integrity. Perhaps, despite some crimes with regular reports from art consultants, dealers or appraisers. Art consultant Lisa Schiff pleaded guilty in federal court last fall for stealing $6.5 million from clients, while Nevada art appraiser Michael Jon Schofield admitted in court that he had exaggerated the value of several artworks as part of insurance fraud. Currently, South Florida art dealer Leslie Roberts is facing charges of selling fake Andy Warhols (another committed the same crime two years ago). New York dealer Inigo Philbrick sat in prison for stealing $86 million from clients, and once ruled “Queen of Art” Mary Boone had to take himself somehow somehow after two New York art galleries after evading tax evasion in 2019.
To be fair, Lisa Schiff was never a member of the Professional Art Consultants Association, nor was Inigo Philbrick of the American Art Dealers Association (ADAA). However, Mary Boone and Larry Salander and Larry Salander (who pleaded guilty in 2010, both pleaded guilty and stole more than $100 million from clients and investors) and Knoedler & Co. (In 2012, a series of client lawsuits closed in 2012, claiming they purchased $400 million in abstract paintings from Gallery. Boone, Salander and Knoedler are all well-reputed members of the Dealers Association, who quickly threw them away after two gallery owners pleaded guilty, and Knoedler Gallery was shut down.
So, can we praise the Art Consultants Association for not including Lisa Schiff and the Dealers Association because there is no Inigo Philbrick as a member, or just stupid luck? Did Boone, Salander and Knoedler’s crimes really surprise the rest of Adaa?
Membership in certain associations does grant status – presumably with membership requirements, including experience, knowledgeable and ethical. Linda Selvin, executive director of the American Association of Assessors, told Observer that the group’s lawyers regularly send stop letters to appraisers, who “mistake themselves as members without mistakenly thinking they are members.
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She noted that the association has a “hard application process” involving a review of 120 hours of online courses and sample evaluations, as well as professional references and a paper trail that shows a person has been in the field for at least five years.
The association does have a code of ethics and ethics committee that meets only if an unsatisfied client files a complaint with a member. (The group takes action when the complaint is submitted to the association in writing.) Sometimes, the committee, together with its own members, finds that the appraiser has done enough work, but the client is simply not satisfied with the established valuation. At other times, the member will be directed to retake one or more online courses – “We prefer members who are trying to do their jobs,” Selvin said, despite a felony conviction of “only alone.”
Many art galleries in New York and elsewhere have placed signs on the front desk of their stores, declaring that they are members of the association and can assure potential customers that the dealers here are blunt and blunt by the aforementioned associations. Make the American Art Dealers Association have a long code of ethical conduct on its website: Dealers should make sure that what they sell is real and not stolen, that they know any flaws in the artwork, and inform customers about their knowledge on the written sales receipt. The moral treatment of artists and shippers is also stipulated.
Meanwhile, the International Association of Photography Art Dealers’ website states: “AIPAD members have agreed to a code of ethics: members agree to trade with the public, museums, artists and other dealers in honesty and integrity.” On its website, the members of the Fort Worth Art Dealers’ Association “should ensure that high standards of ethical conduct and professional integrity are maintained”, while the San Francisco Art Dealers Association aims to promote the highest standards of connoisseurs, scholarships, and ethical practices in the Gallery community.” Confédération Internationale desnégociants En-ul-ul-uvres d’Art (Cinoa), a Belgium-based association of art and antique dealers, has its own established ethical standards, calling for “high levels of ethical conduct.” The Association of Museums Supervisors and the Association of Museums Curators have codes about the behavior of their members.
But among the numerous art dealers and gallery associations across the country, including Bismarck (North Dakota), Boston, Charleston, Denver, Denver, Fort Worth, Houston, Portland, Portland (Oregon), San Francisco, San Francisco, Sugtsdale, Scotland and Seattle – the code of writing ethical conduct. This is not a permit for bad behavior in member galleries, but the fact that these associations do not exist in police members but coordinate their marketing efforts. For example, the Scottsdale Gallery Association, in partnership with the City of Scottsdale, organizes a “Scottsdale Art Walk” every Thursday night, where the golden palette art of special events takes place several times throughout the tourist season. The Seattle Art Dealers Association was founded 35 years ago to “support the gallery guides we have been publishing” to let visitors know where the gallery is and what they are showing. “Publications are more important than the association itself.”
The Seattle Art Dealers Association has no code of ethical conduct, although the organization’s website states that “it was created in May 1990 to uphold high ethical standards among its members and promote cultural and educational activities.” As Kucera puts it, “we have no agreement to resolve the problem, so how to maintain those standards. Kucera quickly acknowledged that Kurt Lidtke, a regional dealer who was “not a member”, was sent to federal prison for four years in 2011 for conspiring with a professional thief to steal art from his former clients.
When the news comes out what Lidtke does, “many of us think, ‘Oh, that explains a lot.’” Dealers may hear things or doubt things but are reluctant to speak or act publicly. “People may be intimidated to raise questions,” Kusella added.
If an organization is unwilling to discipline willful members, it will make no sense to have written or unwritten codes of moral conduct. For example, the owner of Harcourts Modern and “Modern Gallery” in San Francisco declared bankruptcy and fled the country due to improper business practices, but “none of us has any knowledge of these issues,” John Pence, then president of the San Francisco Art Dealers Association, told Observer. “We don’t know the inherent functioning of each other’s businesses.” Similarly, the Middendorf Gallery in Washington, D.C. resigned from its membership in a civil lawsuit with collectors and other dealers, but the association never demanded responsibility for the association. “We haven’t realized what happened before the lawsuit was filed,” said Christopher Addison, the association’s former president.
Like Lawrence Salander and Knoedler galleries, good people can get bad and even require long-term gallery clients to keep the label of dealers they have a relationship with. Kim Maier, executive director of the Association of Professional Arts Consultants, published a code of ethics on his website, told Observer that the code “serves members and their clients by establishing clear professional standards to promote transparency and best practices in art advice. In the APAA board of directors invites the board to invite and accept the organization, all members agree to the Ethrice of Ethrics, which they agree to the authorized committee.
This may be a code of honors, not a code of honors that the association can actively implement, but Mail added: “In rare cases, when we realize that a member’s activities do not match our standards, we ask that person to resign.”
West Noah Secretary General Erika Bochereau told Observers that “concerns about potential moral violations can be carried out through various channels (such as formal complaints from clients, media reports, legal actions or prudent communication by trade professionals) and disciplinary action.” “The results range from formal warnings and mandatory corrective actions to more serious cases, suspension or deportation from member organizations.” In many cases, violations are not merely intentional misconduct, but poor business practices, where organizations require “corrective actions” such as “repairing damaged goods, providing other documents or research to clarify the source or authenticity of items, issuing refunds, or increasing transparency in business practices.”
This boils down to the fact that the clients of art galleries and art consultants have to pay attention to themselves to the legal outline for the purpose of conducting due diligence. Henry and Anne Marie Frigon of Scottsdale, Arizona, formed a positive relationship with Richard H. Love, owner of RH Love Galleries in Chicago, learning art from him since the early 1990s and buying 11 works of American Impressionist paintings from his gallery. Between 1997 and 2002, Friggs decided to sell the works and entrust them regularly to RH Love Galleries. The gallery sold them for less than agreed prices, and the dealer retained the difference between the actual selling price and the amount told to the French. In Frigons’ lawsuit, the Illinois District Court judge found favorable to collectors, concluding that “no reasonable person can foresee the gallery’s conversion of paintings for their own profits.” Fortunately for them, despite its constituting credibility, which was indicted by Frigons during the period when their paintings were sold through love, the gallery was so frightened.
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