Since its first edition in 1979, Law, Ethics and the Visual Arts
established itself as the leading art law text among law professors, students,
and practitioners. This new and newly illustrated, fifth edition, revised in
collaboration with Stephen K. Urice, incorporates recent changes in
treaty, statutory, and case law. It includes discussion of recent developments
from the resurgence of iconoclasm to military conflicts' depredations on
cultural property. As in earlier editions, the authors present legal issues in
their historical contexts.

The broad range of topics addressed in the 5th edition, makes the text
especially adaptable for use in multiple classroom settings. These topics
include:

• 
  U.S. museums' return of works of art and antiquities to claimants such as
  Holocaust survivors and foreign nations
  


• 
  Artist's rights such as copyright and moral rights
  


• 
  International movement of art and antiquities
  


• 
  Fakes and forgeries in the art market
  


• 
  The inner workings of art auctions
  


• 
  Plundering and destruction of works of art in times of war and military
  conflict
  


• 
  Censorship of obscene or politically challenging works of art
  


• 
  And many more
  

In this edition, documents previously presented in a separate documentary
appendix have been integrated into the text to provide immediate access to
important treaties and other materials.

Whether you need to understand something as provocative as who owns the past,
or something as mundane as whether a museum can sell a work of art to fix the
roof, Law, Ethics and the Visual Arts provides the information you
need. It combines unassailable scholarship with a deeply humanistic approach,
recognizing that law and art each andquot;impose a measure of order on the disorder
of experience without stifling the underlying diversity, spontaneity, and
disarrayandquot; (Paul Freund).