This is an open letter to artists around the world.
Hello! My name is Ronnie Walker. I am the founder and President of a newly-established non-profit organization called the Art Legacy Institute. Our mandate is to help you, the artist, safeguard your work and preserve your legacy.
Before I get into specifics, let me tell you a few things about myself. Today – Saturday, December 14, 2024 – marks the last day of my 28-year career as a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In 2004, I was selected to the FBI Rapid Deployment Art Crime Team, more commonly known as the Art Crime Team (ACT).
For the past twenty years, I have dedicated myself to the ACT’s mission: recovering stolen art and collectibles, retrieving looted artifacts, and preventing fake art from infiltrating the marketplace.
During my tenure as part of the ACT, I benefited greatly from the support and education provided by members of academia, historians, gallerists, tribes, museums, auction houses, domestic and international law enforcement partners and, of course, artists.
Due to the nature of my work, I was also afforded the unique opportunity to spend hundreds of hours face-to-face with an integral component of the art crime world – the criminals themselves. This experience provided invaluable insights into the mindset and practices of thieves, looters, fraudsters and forgers, and motivated me to spend the next chapter of my life helping artists protect their work and livelihood. Hence, the creation of the Art Legacy Institute.
The phenomenon of art crime, including forgery, is as old as art itself, but several factors – the ascent of online commerce, technological advances, and the ever-increasing value of contemporary art – have given rise to a double-edged sword for artists.
On one hand, the work of contemporary artists receives previously unimaginable exposure and is available in a vastly expanded marketplace. On the other hand, fraudsters are now able, as never before, to victimize living artists by creating and flooding the market with sophisticated forgeries. As a result, when an artist passes on, family members are often ill-equipped to protect the legacy of their loved one.
The Art Legacy Institute was formed for the singular purpose of helping you, the artist, protect your work and your legacy. To that end, we are actively working toward developing tools which will allow you to 1) document your artwork and 2) definitively establish the provenance of the various pieces which constitute that body of work. Our firm belief is that the strongest possible provenance is one that begins with the artist.
In 2025, we will continue our work to develop and fine-tune these tools. In addition, we will seek out and enlist the support of art lovers who share our passion for your work and recognize its importance. Furthermore, we will be meeting with groups of artists to field test our tools, ensure their effectiveness and create necessary protocols for their use. The sooner we can get those tools into your hands, the better.
Feel free to contact us if you would like to receive updates about our progress. Please check back here from time to time or follow our Instagram - @artlegacyinstitute_org - for updates.
Lastly, thank you for your work. Collectively, you make the world a better place in which to live.
Yours truly,
Ronnie Walker