Twenty years of the Artist’s Resale Right: In conversation with Sir Chris Bryant
This year marks 20 years since the Artist’s Resale Right (ARR) came into force in the UK - a milestone that has delivered more than £144 million back to artists and estates. To mark this anniversary, DACS is reflecting on ARR’s origins, its impact, and the people who helped bring it to fruition.
As part of this, we sat down with Sir Chris Bryant, who played a key role in the parliamentary process that led to ARR becoming law. His perspective - from the early committee hearings, through the political debates, to seeing artists receive their first royalty payments - offers a rare, first‑hand account of how a major and enduring cultural policy was shaped. We’re publishing this interview not only for the 20th anniversary of the right in the UK, but because ARR continues to matter.
The UK is now the largest collector and distributor of resale royalties for visual artists in the world. As more countries - including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea - adopt Artist’s Resale Right and at a time when discussions about fair pay, creative livelihoods and the value of culture are more urgent than ever, revisiting the story behind ARR helps show what thoughtful policy can achieve.
Most importantly, the interview highlights the ongoing relevance of ARR today: how it supports artists’ financial stability, strengthens the art market, and ensures that creativity is valued long after a work first leaves the studio.
How did the Artist’s Resale Right first come onto your radar, and what convinced you it was worth fighting for?
It actually started when I was on the Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee a long, long time ago, back in from 2001 to 2005. We'd heard some awful stories about artists, their galleries, and their representation. And so, we wanted to do an inquiry into that. But we ended up also looking at the Artist's Resale Right because at the time, the EU had droite de suite and they were saying to the UK, you need to have a droit de suite as well.
There was some reluctance from some quarters in the UK, including, I think, potentially from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. So we wanted to give as much support for the idea of having Artist's Resale Right as possible, and having an inquiry enabled that.
Do you remember who was the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee at that point, and how did the inquiry you spearheaded go?
It was Gerald Kaufman. But it was, to be honest, partly my idea and I don't think that the committee had ever done a report on the art market up until then. And so that's why it was important that we did this piece of work. I mean, it was interesting. We
had lots of people in to give evidence. I think it's fair to say that Anthony Browne, Executive Chair of the British Art Market Federation and others were quite opposed.
But we heard from lots of interesting people. And we ended up producing a report, which I think helped turn the government towards not only having an Artist's Resale Right, but it being a bit more generous than the original intention.
Lots of people said it would do terrible damage to the art market in the UK. Well, the art market in the UK has done quite well since we introduced the Artist’s Resale Right. Apart from anything else, I think knowing the provenance and maintaining relationships with living artists and with the estates of artists and so on is actually quite a valuable added commodity for the market.
What do you remember most clearly about the moment when the Artist’s Resale Right came into law? How did you feel?
I felt really chuffed because you know, you don't often get to be involved in a campaign that really pays off so evidently and puts money into a bunch of people's pockets. I think one of the difficulties of the campaign was that some people associated modern art with artists who are not poor and whose works sell for millions of pounds.
But what I think was helpful from our report was that we were able to point out that lots of artists earn nowhere near those kinds of amounts of money, even though their works of art may end up doing quite well in the market. We also had a capped amount on the Artist’s Resale Right, so this wasn't just going to, apologies to some of the UK’s biggest artists here, but it wasn't just going to be more money for them. It would be going to people who might be earning maybe £5,000-£10,000 per a year!
In fact, one of the artists that we had before the Committee was Rebecca Salter. This was long before she became President of the Royal Academy. She was very helpful in terms of making the point about artists who aren't necessarily famous, but nonetheless want to have an investment in the future of their art where it goes on after it's been first sold.
You talked a little bit about the Minster's reaction to the Government backing it, but do you remember anything in particular once the law had been passed?
Yeah, there was a bit of, ‘oh dear, look what the government's done, this is appalling, the sky is going to fall in, and nobody will ever buy a painting at an auction House or gallery ever again.’ But actually, you know, it went remarkably well.
To return to the campaign itself, what arguments were made against ARR? How did you counter them? I get the sense from you that you were so strong-willed about it that you almost didn't need to make too many counter arguments because the committee and the members were all behind it?
The committee was all very behind it, we all were. I remember Frank Doran (MP), who's no longer with us, collected art himself and was very committed to artists and the inquiry. In the end, we knew the government was going to have to back ARR. The question instead was whether it was going to do it very reluctantly or enthusiastically, and also whether the thresholds set for ARR would be generous enough to make a difference. I think the initial proposal was less generous than what they ended up with, and which I think was partly down to the committee report and its findings.
How do you think ARR and spearheading the parliamentary campaign affected your understanding of artists' working lives and the kind of long-term financial security that artists have?
Well, funny enough, I'm closest to Rebecca Salter, because her father was the vicar who looked after me when my family life was a bit rubbish in my teenage years. Now, whilst I have collected some artworks, mostly photography. ARR and the campaign is something that I feel quietly really very proud about having been involved in. I remember artists that I would bump into and they would say, ‘oh, I had my first cheque from ARR’. And they were completely overjoyed because they had kind of presumed that nobody would ever provide something like an ongoing royalty payment because often, artists are one of last group of creators that anybody looks after. People go, ‘oh, they'll be fine painting in their attic. That's the kind of thing they like doing’.
And in fact, when I was the Arts Minister last year (2025) and we went to the British School of Rome which is partly funded by the UK government. There is a Bridget Riley on the ceiling and there was an artist there and who told me that ‘every artist has to learn how to make a living out of their art as well as do the art itself’. Sometimes they learn how to do printmaking or how to do multiples, or use cheaper materials, or whatever it may be. But then one of the things that just makes it a little bit easier is ARR’. In fact, another of the artists at the British School of Rome said that ARR now pays for all his art supplies every year.
So, 20 years on - are there any lessons from the ARR campaign that you feel that are relevant to a cultural policy today?
I think first of all, we learnt that the parliamentary process works or can work if you use it well. I think one of the things that was impressive about the ARR campaign, that DACS had one of the leading voices in, was that nobody was over egging the pudding so to speak. There was no kind of ranting and raving. It was just kind of quiet, serious diplomacy. And I think that works best in the parliamentary process.
For example, I don't remember being, fiercely lobbied by lots of famous artists. And that was probably a good thing as well, because it was it was people for whom it was a living, not just celebrities.
In every generation, there'll be a new challenge for the arts. One of them at the moment is about AI, and we need to get that right as well.
The UK is now the largest collector and distributor of resale royalties for visual works in the world, over £200 million has been collected in ARR over 20 years and distributed back to artists and their heirs with a host of countries bringing in ARR, most recently New Zealand and Australia, and in 2027 South Korea. Given this legacy and its success, what do you think the UK can do to support artists and estates in the future?
As Minister for Trade, I'm conscious that the UK is a force for good in other countries – Canada is also now trying to introduce ARR. And, we've said previously in our trade discussions that when Canada brings in ARR this should contain reciprocal arrangements, so in the future, Canadian artists can benefit from the UK ARR and vice-versa.
And I remember one of my favourite photographers is Edward Bertinski. And just after the general election, I brought, I had him and his wife to dinner here in the House of Commons. And he would say, ‘oh, it's terrible in Canada, we don't have an ARR’. Anyway, now hopefully soon they will have one too.
We obviously have to maintain the ARR. I mean, I have no idea what other political parties and what their views might be, but this government is fully supportive.
The more we persuade other countries to take up similar policies, the better. I mean, I think we also need to make sure that we are training the future generations of artists. And that's about valuing art in schools, creative education generally in schools, not slagging off arts courses and so on. Because, you know, one of the things that the UK is absolutely supreme at is the creative industries. And we're the second biggest art market in the world. We need to maintain that status. You know, that's not least because I think that's about, you don't just have that because people buy Matisse's in London, you have it because there's a whole structure in the UK and for the art market and it relies on new art as much is old art.
