Greetings,

From Banksy's unmasking to a political showdown over Picasso's Guernica, Issue 25 of Canvas spans the full landscape of art, law, and the market. Professor Rachel A.J. Pownall draws on over a century of auction data to examine how inequality shapes art market pricing, while on the blog, a conversation about the FBI's largest cultural property recovery raises hard questions about whose dignity this field is built to protect.

In law and policy, President Trump signed the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2025 into law, permanently extending protections for claimants of Nazi-looted art. Also in the news, a new U.S. copyright option makes registration dramatically cheaper for visual artists, Greece introduces its first art forgery law, and Heritage Auctions topped $2 billion in 2025 sales. This issue's featured artist is Anastasia Victor, whose large-scale installations and parametric designs blur the line between architecture, technology, and art.

Before you dive in, mark your calendars for what's ahead:

📅 Rewriting Reality—Navigating the Legal Landscape of AR and VR in Art
Monday, May 4, 2026. Learn more and register here>

📅 Fifth Annual Berkeley Art, Law, and Finance Symposium at SFMOMA
Wednesday, June 4, 2026. Learn more and register here>

📅 Inaugural Berkeley Art, Law, and Finance Intensive Seminar
Monday, Nov 30 through Thursday, Dec 3, 2026. Learn more and register here>

Let's dive in!

Delia Violante

Founding Director of the Berkeley Art, Law, and Finance Project

Berkeley Center for Law and Business

Anastasia Victor - Discow, 2022 - Aluminium, Steel, Vinyl, Perspex, 42' x 8' x 25' 
(Image credit: John Ashenden)

ACADEMIC CORNER

Art Prices, Disparities, and Cultural Leadership

RACHEL A.J. POWNALL | MAASTRICHT UNIVERSITY

Professor Rachel A.J. Pownall draws on over a century of auction sales data (1909–2024) to examine how income and wealth inequality shape art market pricing, fueling both booms and fragility. The paper also offers a framework for cultural leaders seeking to address these disparities as part of a broader arts management strategy. Read more>

FRESH OFF THE BLOG

Whose Graves, Whose Dignity

DELIA VIOLANTE | BERKELEY ART, LAW, AND FINANCE PROJECT

When FBI agents entered Don Miller's Indiana home, they expected some pottery. They found the remains of nearly 500 people. A conversation with Tim Carpenter (FBI Art Crime Team) and Sharon Cohen Levin (Sullivan & Cromwell) about cultural property crime, NAGPRA's gaps, and the art market's vulnerability to money laundering. Read more>

LAW AND POLICY

Holocaust Art Recovery Act Signed into Law

JDSUPRA

On April 13, 2026, President Trump signed the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2025, permanently extending the 2016 law governing the recovery of Nazi-looted art by removing filing deadlines and broadening court jurisdiction. Read more>

GR2D Registration Option

U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE

Starting February 17, 2026, the U.S. Copyright Office allows visual artists to register 2–20 published two-dimensional artworks in one application via the eCO portal, provided all works were published in the same calendar year. Read more>

Greece Targets Art Forgery

THE ART NEWSPAPER

Greece has introduced its first law specifically addressing art forgery, replacing reliance on broader fraud statutes. The legislation creates an expert registry, an art-focused unit within the culture ministry, and penalties of up to ten years' imprisonment. Read more>

Art & Illicit Finance

LAW[.]COM

A recent heist of Cézanne, Matisse, and Renoir works from an Italian museum has renewed calls for anti-money laundering oversight of the U.S. art market — the world's largest, yet largely unregulated against illicit finance. Read more>

MARKET AND FINANCE

Banksy Unmasked

REUTERS

Reuters identifies Banksy as Robin Gunningham (now David Jones). With nearly $250M in secondary market sales tied to his mystique, the revelation could shake collector confidence and art values. Read more>

Richter's Market Stress Test

WALL STREET JOURNAL

Christie's will offer Gerhard Richter paintings from gallerist Marian Goodman's $65 million estate, testing whether younger collectors will pay peak-era premiums for the 94-year-old artist whose auction results have been volatile in recent years. Read more>

Report Alert: Collectibles Boom

ARTNET - THE INTELLIGENCE REPORT

Heritage Auctions hit $2B+ in 2025 sales, with comics, trading cards, and fantasy art driving growth. EVP Joe Maddalena sees manga and anime as the next big categories. Read more>

A Guggenheim in Transition

THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Guggenheim is restructuring its leadership to tackle financial sustainability and global expansion. With an endowment far behind peers, the museum needs a new direction in New York as it prepares to open its long-delayed Abu Dhabi outpost. Read more>

CULTURE AND HERITAGE

Guernica Loan Dispute

ARTNET

Spain's Basque government and Madrid are clashing over a proposed loan of Picasso's Guernica to the Guggenheim Bilbao. The Reina Sofia says the painting is too fragile to move; Basque leaders call the refusal political. Read more>

Mexico's Kahlo Fight

THE NEW YORK TIMES

A deal to move the Gelman Collection — including major Frida Kahlo works — to Spain has sparked public outcry, highlighting tensions between cultural heritage laws and the reality that regulations can't compel collectors to keep art on public view. Read more>

Holocaust Museum Content Changes

POLITICO

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum removed educational resources on American racism and renamed a "Fragility of Democracy" workshop. Two former employees say the changes were preemptive responses to the political climate. The museum says no changes were requested by the Trump administration. Read more>

The Art of Political Protest

WALL STREET JOURNAL

A WSJ opinion piece examines the handmade signs at No Kings rallies, exploring the tension between grassroots creative expression and questions about how protest movements are organized and coordinated. Read more>

MEET THE ARTIST

Discow and the Digital Sublime 

ANASTASIA VICTOR

Anastasia Victor is a San Francisco–based artist and designer working at the intersection of emerging technology, immersive environments, and spatial experience. Trained as an architect at UC Berkeley, she develops projects spanning large-scale installation, XR, and public art, exhibited at institutions including Gray Area, Exploratorium, Stanford, and Burning Man. She also works as a Product Design Lead at Meta and serves on the Board of Directors for the Gray Area Foundation. The artwork featured above, Discow, is a large-scale installation that reinterprets the architectural "duck" through parametric design — pushing a system associated with optimization and symmetry toward something expressive, excessive, and deliberately irrational. Learn more about Anastasia>

Please note that some articles listed may be subject to a paywall.

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