Artists Rights Society (ARS) is the preeminent copyright, licensing, and monitoring organization for visual artists in the United States. Founded in 1987, ARS represents the intellectual property rights interests of over 50,000 visual artists and estates of visual artists from around the world (painters, sculptors, photographers, architects and others).

ARS’ membership derives from two sources. First, ARS represents American artists who become its direct adherents and it represents foreign artists who are members of affiliated arts organizations abroad. A complete list of ARS’ American members is to be found in the “Artists Represented” section of this site; it includes such names as Milton Avery, Alexander Calder, Sam Francis, Arshile Gorky, Red Grooms, Robert Indiana, Sol LeWitt, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Barnett Newman, Bruce Nauman, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, Susan Rothenberg, Mark Rothko, Richard Serra, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Frank Lloyd Wright, and many others.

ARS is also a member of CISAC (Confédération Internationale des Sociétés d’Auteurs et Compositeurs), the Paris-based, umbrella organization which oversees the activities of international copyright collecting societies in all media. As part of this international network of rights organizations, ARS maintains relationships with like-minded “sister societies” abroad. Through reciprocal agreements ARS represents the artist repertories of its foreign sister societies in the U.S., and they in turn represent ARS’ American repertory in their territories.

Links to CISAC and ARS’ sister societies may be found in the “Affiliated Organizations” section of this site, and a complete, current listing of all artists represented by ARS, both American and foreign, can be found under the “Artists Represented” section. A roster of most frequently sought artists may also be found in that same section. It includes such names as Georges Braque, Joseph Beuys, Pierre Bonnard, Constantin Brancusi, Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Vassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Le Corbusier, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Rene Magritte, Joan Miró, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, and many others.