Despite the fact that the worlds of Art and Law have traditionally been presented to us as being distanced from one another, it is true that today, artistic creation, diffusion, conservation and commercialisation is conditioned by the legal system conditions more than ever.

The known aversion and disinterest of artists and other operators within the art market for law in our times, clashes with an overwhelming reality: Legal regulations in Western countries have grown so much, as a consequence of what the professor Yale Grant Gilmore described as: “the orgy in law creation”. Today is not possible for anybody to ignore this, not even the players in the world of art.

It is not possible, but neither is it intelligent, as due to the extent to which art has gained greater economic importance in our society, the attacks on rights and cultural and economical interests suffered by artists, museums, cultural institutions, collectors, the States and society in general are very numerous.

As a consequence of this new reality, the “Art, Market and Law” collection of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation was created in 2011 with the intention of promoting knowledge on legal and economic topics that can be useful to all the bodies and institutions mentioned and that contributes to the protection, conservation, dissemination and prestige of the artistic heritage of all the citizens.

“Nobody knows more than Findlay on the Impressionist, modern and contemporary art market. His new book, “The Value of Art,” is one of the best that has been published on the world of art and explains practically everything there is to know, including how to buy, sell, look at and enjoy art.”

Milton Esterow, ARTnews

Michael Findlay, internationally renowned art dealer, is the manager of Acquavella Galleries in New York, known for its large exhibitions of the master painters of the 19th and 20th Century artists, such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, James Rosenquist and Lucian Freud. Born in Scotland, he began his career in New York in 1964, where he pioneered the legendary SoHo gallery and presented important individual exhibitions of artists unknown at the time, like John Baldessari, Stephen Mueller, Sean Scully and Hannah Wilke. In 1984, he joined Christie's, being responsible for impressionist and modern painting and was later appointed as International Art Manager and member of the Board of Directors until 2000.