Founded in 1987, ARS is a member of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers and as such represents in the United States the intellectual property rights interests of over 122,000 visual artists and estates of visual artists from around the world (painters, sculptors, photographers, architects and others).
[1] The long list of the artists represented by ARS includes such names as Alexander Calder, Jasper Johns, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Joseph Beuys, Pierre Bonnard, Constantin Brâncuși, Marc Chagall, Ching Ho Cheng, Henry Darger, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Le Corbusier, Fernand Léger, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Edvard Munch, Man Ray, Andy Warhol, Richard Bernstein (artist), Salvador Dalí, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Georgia O'Keeffe, Tony Rosenthal also known as Bernard Rosenthal, Will Barnet, Knox Martin, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, among many others.
[2] In addition to estates, ARS represents many living artists, including Damien Hirst, Judy Chicago, Jenny Holzer, Richard Serra, Hans Haacke, Jim Dine, Robert Irwin, Brice Marden, Dorothea Rockburne, Mark Tobey, and Bruce Nauman, among others.
[5] In June 2008, ARS president Theodore Feder, with artist Frank Stella, wrote an Op-Ed for The Art Newspaper decrying a proposed U.S. orphan works law.
"[8] ARS has joined over 60 other art licensing businesses (including the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the Stock Artists Alliance, among others) in opposing both The Orphan Works Act of 2008 and The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008.