Copyright Case Between Deborah Roberts and Richard Beavers Gallery ‘Amicably Resolved’

The more than two-year-long legal dispute in which collage artist Deborah Roberts had sued artist Lynthia Edwards and Richard Beavers Gallery for alleged copyright infringement has been “amicably resolved,” according to a joint statement from all parties.

“We acknowledge that Deborah Roberts has brought a unique and important voice to the medium of collage,” Beavers and Edwards said in the statement. “Many young and emerging artists have been inspired by Deborah and her work and have benefited from the support she has provided and the door she has opened.”

Per a joint stipulation filed on April 11 with the United States District Court for the Eastern District Of New York, all of the pending claims regarding the case, which includes the original suit and a countersuit, have been dismissed with prejudice, meaning that it cannot be reopened.

As part of the legal resolution, Richard Beavers Gallery has pledged to make a monetary contribution for an undisclosed sum to the Studio Museum of Harlem. The statement cites Roberts as a “long-time supporter of the Studio Museum and has long admired its commitment to innovation and cultural dialogue.” The statement added that Beavers’ visits to the Studio Museum as a child with his mother “were a formative experience,” and inspired his career “providing a platform for emerging artists of color.”

The legal saga began in 2022, when Roberts, a Texas-based artist whose collage-style portraits of Black children have earned immense commercial and critical success, sued dealer Richard Beavers, his namesake gallery, and Edwards for “willful copyright infringement,” in addition to unfair competition and market dilution. Around six months later, in February 2023, Beavers and Edwards filed a motion for the court to dismiss the case. Edwards, who also works in collage, claimed that Roberts was “punching down on an emerging artist in order to stifle market competition and eliminate a competitive threat.”

“This case is about an artist at the height of her career punching down on an emerging artist in order to stifle market competition and eliminate a competitive threat,” the dismissal request read. “But the fact that both artists use the collage style or feature children in their artworks does not support a copyright infringement claim. The use of photo-based collage has deep roots in the work of Black American artists, and there is a long line of artists before Roberts who have worked in this same general style.”

A judge ultimately determined that of the 16 works presented as evidence in the case, nine did not amount to copyright infringement, however the remaining seven bare such a degree of similarity that a “total concept and feel of each collage is sufficiently similar to defeat a motion to dismiss.” The case was allowed to proceed.

Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall noted in her memorandum and order that she found merit in Roberts’s argument, saying that “the confusing similarity between the Roberts Collages and the [Richard Beavers] Gallery Collages have already caused, and will continue to cause, irreparable loss of reputation and goodwill to [Roberts] because customers will cease to distinguish between the [respective collages] and might falsely ascribe the ‘poor quality’” of the Edwards artworks to her own.

In her original lawsuit, Roberts introduced the issue of the “trade dress,” or the impression of quality of a commercial image, and alleged that Beavers’s and Edwards’d use of “trade dress misrepresents the nature and characteristics of” Edwards’s collages and would consequently weaken her market.

The argument did not seem to factor into the judge’s decision, nor did the precedents the artist’s team provided. “These cases are unhelpful to her,” DeArcy Hall wrote in the footnotes. Rather, she cited her individual analysis of the contested works, which she included in the summary, writing, “Each collage features a young black girl. Although the backgrounds and attire differ, the poses of the girl in each collage are nearly identical.”

She also noted that that Beavers had invited Roberts in 2020 to sell her collages at his gallery and said that “so many of my clients have you on their wish list of artists whose work they would like to acquire for their collections.’” The summary continued that after Roberts declined to show with his gallery, Beavers “arranged” for Edwards to “discontinue her previous artistic practice so that she could create and sell collages” in a style like Roberts.

At the time, Maaren Shah, a partner at the law firm jointly representing Edwards and Beavers, told ARTnews that Roberts’s complaint was simply “about more established artists and galleries misusing their power to suppress new creation and growth. We filed these counterclaims to protect our clients’ rights to create and sell art that is no less worthy than the art that came before it.”