{"id":4767,"date":"2025-04-28T18:18:58","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T18:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/28\/how-fine-artists-are-cashing-in-on-licensing-deals-with-big-brands\/"},"modified":"2025-04-28T18:19:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T18:19:01","slug":"how-fine-artists-are-cashing-in-on-licensing-deals-with-big-brands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/28\/how-fine-artists-are-cashing-in-on-licensing-deals-with-big-brands\/","title":{"rendered":"How Fine Artists Are Cashing In on Licensing Deals With Big Brands"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jeff Koons with his BMW Art Car in 2010. Photo by FRED DUFOUR \/ AFP) (Photo by FRED DUFOUR\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The art world has a love-hate relationship with the commercial arts\u2014the fields of advertising and product design, particularly. Fine artists and street artists both have brought lawsuits against numerous retailers, including Alaska Airlines, American Eagle Outfitters, Coach, Epic Records, Fiat, General Motors, H&M, McDonald\u2019s, Mercedes-Benz, Moschino, Puma North America, Roberto Cavalli, Starbucks and The North Face, for making unauthorized use of copyrighted imagery. Settlements usually are the outcome.<\/p>\n

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However, many fine artists have welcomed the opportunity to license their images to advertisers and product manufacturers. Back in 2018, painter Kehinde Wiley<\/a> signed an agreement with Hollywood-based Brillstein Entertainment Partners for representation in film, TV and endorsements. The deal involved Wiley working closely with Brillstein to identify directing opportunities, option books and produce and develop his own material, as well as collaborate with other screenwriters and creators, in addition to licensing his works.<\/p>\n

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Wiley is not alone in this type of entrepreneurial endeavor. Jeff Koons<\/a>, Vik Muniz<\/a>, Julian Schnabel<\/a> and Kara Walker<\/a> have all licensed images to the giftware company Bernardaud, while automobile manufacturer BMW has a line of thirty-five Art Cars<\/a> decorated with designs by a range of artists, including David Hockney<\/a>, Jenny Holzer<\/a>, Julie Mehretu<\/a>, A.R. Penck<\/a> and Andy Warhol<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Licensing is often free money for artists who do not need to create anything new but simply allow existing images to be used on jewelry<\/a> and jigsaw puzzles, booze and bars<\/a>, tablecloths and t-shirts. Kara Walker\u2019s images of mammies and pickaninnies on otherwise white ceramic pitchers may, as Bernardaud promotes them, address \u201cslavery and racial discrimination in the antebellum South\u201d while also raising \u201cawareness to the intrinsic bigotry that still exists throughout the United States\u201d\u2014although the connection might strike some as jarring.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need a good rapport with the person or company licensing your work,\u201d New York painter Tom Christopher<\/a> told Observer. He has licensed images for one product or another for 30-plus years, including Absolut vodka labels, iPhone and iPad covers, snowboards, sneakers, dress ties and, most recently, the faces of Ikepod wristwatches<\/a>. \u201cYou don\u2019t want your images used on something ridiculous or something that would embarrass you.\u201d<\/p>\n

His deal with Christian-Louis Col<\/a>, the owner of Ikepod, is 10 percent of the sales price of the watches, which individually sell for between $1,400 and $2,500. \u201cThey\u2019ve been sending me checks for the past two years,\u201d Christopher said. In the course of a year, he earns between $10,000 and $20,000 in licensing royalties.<\/p>\n

Legal battles signal confusion and the risks of unauthorized use<\/h3>\n

The financial benefits of licensing sometimes lead to disputes with artists\u2019 families, foundations and estates. One of the sons of Pablo Picasso<\/a>, Claude, who was also the court-appointed executor of Picasso\u2019s estate, licensed the Picasso trademark (including the artist\u2019s name and signature) for use in connection with a line of French automobiles by Citro\u00ebn. That led to a lawsuit brought by Marina Picasso<\/a>, the artist\u2019s granddaughter, who announced that she \u201ccannot tolerate that the name of my grandfather and my father be used to sell something as banal as a car.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Citroen C3 Picasso officially debuted in 2009. Photo credit should read SAMUEL KUBANI\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mara de Anda Romeo Pinedo, a great-niece of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo<\/a>, brought a temporary injunction against a Panamanian-based licensing agency that represented the artist\u2019s heirs for permitting the artist\u2019s name and image to be used on alcoholic drinks, dolls and other products. The principal offending product was a Mattel-produced Frida Kahlo doll as part of its \u201cInspiring Women\u201d series. \u201cIt should have been a much more Mexican doll,\u201d she asserted, \u201cdressed in more Mexican clothing, with Mexican jewelry.\u201d The Frida Kahlo Corporation filed its own lawsuit<\/a> against Pinedo for offering Frida Kahlo merch for sale with trademarks identical to its own.<\/p>\n

Money just isn\u2019t always enough of a motivating factor. In 2023, the lawyer representing the Joan Mitchell Foundation sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Paris headquarters of Louis Vuitton alleging the fashion brand had used the artist\u2019s paintings in handbag advertisements after her nonprofit organization repeatedly declined to give its approval.<\/p>\n

In 2018, British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor<\/a> reached an out-of-court settlement with the National Rifle Association after it included a brief image of his 2006 work Cloud Gate<\/i>, which is located in downtown Chicago, in a television ad that criticized gun control measures<\/a>. The result was that the image of Cloud Gate<\/i> was removed from further airings of the ad.<\/p>\n

A court ruling in 1997 sided with artist Faith Ringgold<\/a> when a reproduction of her story quilt Church Picnic<\/i> was used as scenery in an episode of an early 1990s Home Box Office situation comedy called \u201cROC\u201d off and on for a period of 26 seconds. HBO claimed that its use of the artist\u2019s image was incidental, but an appellate court ruled that it constituted copyright infringement.<\/p>\n

There are scores of companies that work with artists to license images to products. \u201cLicensing art images is the fastest growing area in the licensing industry<\/a>,\u201d Charles Riotto<\/a>, executive director of the New York-based Licensing Industry Merchandisers Association, told Observer. Back in the 1990s, at LIMA\u2019s annual trade show, which takes place in June, there were just a handful of licensing agents who handled artwork. By 2000, there were approximately 100 art-oriented agents, and currently there are more than 200. \u201cLicensees\u2014manufacturers\u2014like the idea of licensing a design because it\u2019s safer and less expensive than celebrities. A design won\u2019t end up in the newspapers for getting arrested after a fight in a bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Manolo Valdes\u2019 artwork for Bernardaud in 2022. Photo by Noam Galai\/Getty Images for Opera Gallery<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Marty Segelbaum<\/a>, president and founder of MHS Licensing, told Observer that his arrangements with the thirty or so artists he represents only involve the limited use of images and that the artists retain the copyright as well as the originals. \u201cWe don\u2019t deal with originals, and we\u2019re happy if the artists can sell them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Licensing represents an additional revenue stream for artists<\/a>, since the cost of their originals limits the number of people who can afford to purchase their images. The likelihood that a large number of collectors will move up the ladder from coffee mugs to paintings and limited edition prints, regardless of how widely the products spread the artists\u2019 \u201cbrand,\u201d is small. Segelbaum said that \u201cit used to be thought that having your work spread around on prints and products would dilute the value of originals, but actually people who buy the painting may buy the coffee mug with the same image because it\u2019s a fun thing to have more often than someone who buys a mug going out and buying the painting.\u201d<\/p>\n

A generation ago, he said that many artists whose work he thought would be appropriate for manufacturers\u2019 products were worried that licensing meant selling out or making themselves seem overly commercial. However, in the past 25 years and especially since the 2008 recession, there has been a shift in that sort of thinking. \u201cNow artists say, \u2018I can make money doing what?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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