Bromley Art Society Bringing Artists Together since 1947

I was viewing pictures at a recent BAS exhibition, when I came across a painting that looked rather familiar. Upon checking, I found that the painting was a copy of a painting in a “how to paint” book. This incident prompted me to ponder the rules that should be applied to exhibiting and should be a condition of entry.

The following suggestions are purely a personal choice, which I put forward for consideration.

1. All work should be the artist’s own and original. Copies of other artists’ paintings are not acceptable, with or without attribution.
2. Prints of original work should be clearly identified as such and limited to a stated number.
3. All work should be for sale.
4. Minimum price for exhibited works to be £50. ( £20 for browser items)
5. All work to be framed.( Except works for browser rack)
6. Work should not have been previously exhibited at a BAS show within the last two years. There may be exceptions but they can be publicised with entry forms.

Members may have other suggestions but I don’t think we should over-regulate and certainly there should be no control over subject or medium, nor any censorship.

A recent lecture given to BAS was on the subject of copyright and the speaker highlighted the principal points of the legislation. Copying another person’s work may well breach the Copyright Act but, that aside, our exhibition visitors and customers (if we are lucky enough to sell work) expect to see original works and not copies of the work of another.

We artists also hold the copyright of our work. It is not necessary to take any positive steps, such as registration, to benefit from copyright legislation but the speaker did suggest that work is marked with the international copyright symbol © and signed and dated.

John Taphouse