The Problem the Art Market Refuses to Solve

The problem is straightforward. An artist sells a painting for $5,000. The buyer holds it for ten years, during which the artist's reputation grows, their work enters museums, their prices multiply. The buyer then sells the painting at auction for $500,000. The artist receives nothing. The institution that legitimised the work — through exhibitions, publications, critical attention — receives nothing. The auction house takes its commission. The buyer takes the profit. The person who made the object that generated all of this value watches from the room.

The question of whether artists should benefit when their work rises in value on the secondary market has been debated for decades. The legal mechanism that would address it — resale royalties, known in European legal tradition as droit de suite — is common in other art forms and in more than 90 countries worldwide for visual artists. Efforts to establish such rights in the US have largely stalled. theartnewspapertheartnewspaper

The stalling is not accidental. It reflects the interests of the most powerful actors in the American art market — auction houses, major collectors, dealers — who benefit from the current system and have consistently lobbied against any legislative change that would redirect a portion of secondary market proceeds to artists. The argument deployed against resale royalties is the same argument deployed against most measures that redistribute market power: that it would dampen the market, reduce transaction volumes, hurt everyone including artists in the end. This argument has been tested in jurisdictions where resale royalties exist. It has not been borne out.

Why the Deans Are the Right People for This

The Deans are prolific collectors who have long advocated for artists to receive royalties after their work leaves the primary market. Kasseem Dean has discussed the idea of a "Dean Choice" model for an auction house since as early as 2019. theartnewspaper

The credibility of this initiative rests on two things. First, the Deans' track record as collectors. Their collection — known as the Dean Collection — includes works by Nina Chanel Abney, Arthur Jafa, Gordon Parks, Amy Sherald, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Nick Cave, Mickalene Thomas, Barkley Hendricks, Ernie Barnes, Deborah Roberts and Kehinde Wiley. These are not decorative acquisitions. They represent a sustained, serious commitment to Black artists — many of them during periods when those artists were significantly undervalued by the broader market. The Deans were not following the market. They were preceding it.

Second, and more importantly, their position as musicians. "In music, when we write a song, we receive royalties throughout the life of the work, a long-term benefit for us and our families," the couple stated. The inspiration for The Deans' Choice came when they realised that living visual artists did not participate in the resale of their works at auctions or on the secondary market. hypebeasthypebeast

The case that crystallised it came in 2018. The couple saw Kerry James Marshall's 1997 work Past Times sell for $21 million at Sotheby's. Although the event set the record for an African American living artist, Marshall himself did not benefit financially from the sale. hypebeast

Kerry James Marshall is one of the most significant painters working today. His prices at auction reflect a market consensus that has taken decades to arrive at. The work that commanded $21 million was made when Marshall was receiving a fraction of that recognition. The collector who held it benefited from every exhibition, every institution, every critical text that built Marshall's reputation in the intervening years. Marshall did not.

How the Programme Works

Participants can opt in to commit a minimum of 1% of the hammer price or $500 from the consignor, whichever is greater. The auction house will match the percentage of the contribution in the hope that other houses and secondary art market businesses might adopt similar measures. theartnewspaper

The voluntary structure is both the programme's pragmatic strength and its structural limitation. It is voluntary because a mandatory resale royalty in the United States would require federal legislation — legislation that has been blocked repeatedly by market interests. By making it opt-in, Bonhams and the Deans have created something that can begin immediately, without legislative action, and that generates proof of concept data for the broader argument.

"Collectors are increasingly attentive to collecting in a way that reflects their values, and this program gives them a straightforward way to do that," said Bonhams chief executive Seth Johnson. "If others decide to follow suit, that's a win for artists and for the market." theartnewspapertheartnewspaper

The matching commitment from Bonhams is significant. "We want this to cost us because that is a visible measure of success for this initiative, which is the whole point of doing it," Johnson said. An auction house putting its own money into artist royalties, rather than merely facilitating the philanthropic impulses of consignors, is a structural statement — it signals that this is a business model position, not a marketing gesture. theartnewspaper

The programme launches in November 2026, during Bonhams' 20th and 21st Century Art sale in New York.

What This Means for Black Artists Specifically

This initiative does not target Black artists exclusively — it is designed for the secondary market broadly. But its origins, its champions and the specific case that prompted it place it squarely within the conversation about equity in the art market for Black artists.

The art market's relationship with Black artists has followed a consistent pattern: undervaluation during the productive years, extraction of value during the period of rising recognition, and profit flowing predominantly to collectors and institutions while artists and their communities see limited return. The Dean Collection's own trajectory illustrates this: works acquired when Black artists were undervalued are now worth multiples of their acquisition price. The Deans, as collectors, have benefited from this. Their decision to use that position to advocate for the artists whose work they collected is an unusual form of self-implication — an acknowledgement that the system that allowed them to build a great collection at accessible prices was not fully fair to the people who made it possible.

The Giants exhibition of the Dean Collection — currently in its fifth leg at Newfields in Indianapolis through February 2027 — has brought this body of work to audiences across the country. That visibility is real. The Deans' Choice adds a financial dimension to the advocacy: not just collecting Black art and showing it, but working to change the structural conditions under which Black artists operate in the secondary market.

The Limits of Voluntary

The programme should be taken seriously. It should also be examined clearly.

Voluntary resale royalties are better than no resale royalties. They are not the same as a legal right. A consignor who chooses not to opt in faces no consequence. An artist whose work comes up at auction has no guaranteed protection. The programme depends on the moral commitments of individual collectors in a market that has not historically distinguished itself by moral commitment.

The aspiration — that other houses and secondary market businesses might adopt similar measures — points toward the real goal: an industry norm that eventually becomes a legal standard. That journey is long. The American art market's resistance to resale royalties has survived decades of advocacy. A voluntary programme at one auction house, however well-intentioned, does not change the legislative landscape.

What it does is shift the cultural argument. It makes visible, in a concrete and commercial context, that resale royalties are operable — that the market does not collapse when artists receive a share, that collectors can be motivated by values as well as returns, that an auction house can build its brand around fairness as well as prestige. These are the conditions under which legislative change eventually becomes possible.

Conclusion

Robert Rauschenberg shoved Robert Scull because the injustice was physical and immediate — a man walking away from an auction with $85,000 while the artist who made the work stood in the room with nothing. The injustice was legible in that room, in that moment, to anyone paying attention.

The injustice of the secondary market is usually less visible. It happens in transactions the artist may not even know about, in rooms they are not invited to, producing profits they never see. The Deans' Choice makes the injustice visible — by building, into the transaction itself, a mechanism for the artist to participate.

That is not a complete solution. It is a beginning. And in a market that has resisted beginnings for fifty years, a beginning from people with the platform, the credibility and the personal stake that Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys bring to this conversation is worth more than it might appear.

The artist gets paid. Not enough, not yet, not by right. But paid. That is new.