Kasseem Dean and Alicia Keys Team Up with Bonhams for Initiative That Gives Artists a Cut of Secondary-Market Sales

When Kasseem Dean (better known as Swizz Beatz) and Alicia Keys saw Kerry James Marshall’s painting Past Times (1997) sell at Sotheby’s in 2018 for $21 million, making what the house quickly labeled “a record for a living African American artist,” they despaired that Marshall himself didn’t see any of the upside from the sale. “We thought being a part of a milestone like that would be so advantageous to the artist who created the work,” they wrote to ARTnews. “But it wasn’t.” 

They committed to establishing a program to help living artists benefit from secondary-market sales. After seven years, they finally found a like-minded collaborator in Bonhams. “They were eager to partner with us on a game-changing idea,” said the Deans. “It was a big decision for them as a company.”

Today Bonhams formally announces “‘The Deans’ Choice with Bonhams” for its auctions in the US. The program launches this November with their 20th and 21st century art auctions. It lets the consignors of artworks by living artists choose to commit a percentage of their sale proceeds to the creator, and Bonhams offers a matching percentage from the buyer’s premium. To participate in the program, artists must opt in via the Deans’ Choice landing page on Bonhams website.

“There should be a mechanism whereby an artist can participate in the fruits of their labor during their lifetime,” said CEO Seth Johnson, who committed to the initiative and tasked his US team with making it happen. The project involved numerous departments, including a significant effort by legal, spearheaded by general counsel Patricia Pernes. 

Bonhams is calling this an “elective sale royalty.” The minimum opt-in amount for consignors is 1 percent of the hammer price by lot or $500, whichever is greater. Then Bonhams will match the consignor’s rate, calculated on the buyer’s premium. For example, if the consignor designates a royalty rate of 7 percent of the hammer price, then Bonhams will match 7 percent of the buyer’s premium for the lot. 

A good case study is 33-year-old Jadé Fadojutimi’s painting Ribbon of Thought (2020), which hammered down at Bonhams 20th and 21st century art evening sale this past May at $220,000, or $279,900 with fees. Under the new program, if the consignor had opted in at a rate of 5 percent, the artist would have gotten $11,000 from the consignor and $2,950 from Bonhams.

Artist Allison Zuckerman, who has experienced firsthand what it’s like to have one of her artworks sell at auction and become an outspoken advocate for resale agreements, calls the initiative “groundbreaking.” “It begins to establish an important new norm,” she said, of “recognizing artists’ enduring connection to the works they create and their place in those works’ ongoing journeys.” 

“In music, when we write a song, we receive royalties for the song,” the Deans said. “It lasts our whole life, and it’s even something we can leave to our children.” They continued, “Music and art are brother and sister, so why are the rules different when it comes to ongoing compensation in the art space? This was a question we wanted to find an answer to, and that was the beginning of the idea of The Deans’ Choice.”

Artists are among the few members of the creative community in the US who do not receive residual payments for the later resale of their works. This distinguishes the US from some 80 countries, including all member states of the EU, which have enacted national resale royalties for the benefit of artists. 

This international system, known as the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, provides for artists’ rights to endure for the lifetime of the artist, plus 70 years postmortem. When a work by a living artist sells at auction in the EU, for example, royalties are tiered: 4% up to €50,000, 3% between €50,000.01 and €200,000, and so on, and capped at €12,500. 

Lawmakers in the US have repeatedly introduced the American Royalties Too (ART) Act—most recently updated in 2025 as H.R.4017 by Representative Jerrold Nadler—to mandate a 5 percent royalty (capped up to $50,000) on secondary market sales over $5,000, but it has not yet passed into law.

Theodore Feder, founder and president of Artists Rights Society, which represents over 200,000 visual artists worldwide, congratulated Bonhams for “taking a vital first step in inaugurating a system of artists’ resale royalties,” as he wrote in a statement to ARTnews. He added, “Bonhams’s initiative, however important as a first step and for which ARS is grateful, goes but part way into remedying this situation in the U.S. As proposed, the resale royalty only applies if the seller gives his or her consent thereto. It should apply to all eligible work and should not be restricted to the lifetime of the artist.”

Both Bonhams and the Deans hope this initiative is the first step in wider adoption of resale royalties for visual artists. “We’re hoping living artists getting compensated from resale becomes the industry norm,” wrote the Deans.