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Lot Essay
Ira Lowe, the pioneering Washington lawyer whose work helped to establish and codify the nascent field of art law, was a man whose appetite of art was not just professional-it was instinctual. His natural affinity with the new and the avant-garde led him to the form close friendships with some of the most important artists of his generation, including David Smith, Louise Bourgeois, Mark di Suvero and Kenneth Noland. His careful stewardship of their estates resulted in their legacies continuing well into the future and during the course of his sixty year career he not only became a champion for many artists, writers, musicians and poets whose activities came under the scrutiny of an increasingly suspicious Washington political elite but he also supported new artists who were capturing the turbulent times of the 1960s.
But it was in his role as the executor of the David Smith estate, along with critic Clement Greenberg and artist Robert Motherwell, that Lowe made perhaps his most enduring contribution to the artistic community. The Inland Revenue Service assessed the artist's estate as having a fair market value of $5.4million dollars, a value which would have landed the estate with a huge tax liability. But Lowe argued that selling all these works at the same time would flood the market and drastically reduce the value of the estate. The IRS eventually agreed with this ground-breaking argument and ultimately placed a value of $2.7million on the estate. This so-called 'blockage discount' became an important precedent and has affected the subsequent estates of artists including Georgia O'Keeffe amongst many others.
Mr. Lowe was a distinctive figure amongst the usually conservative world of Washington lawyers. With his bushy beard and penchant for wide brimmed hats, he looked more like his counter-culture clients than fellow members of the legal profession. Although he owned a Jaguar car, he would often arrive at court on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and using Freedom of Information Act requests he helped Allen Ginsberg, Jane Fonda and Joan Baez obtain the files held on them by the FBI, CIA and the State Department. He also managed to get a marijuana possession charge against John Steinbeck expunged from the writer's record.
His political sympathies led him to become active in the community of human rights lawyers. At the invitation of Fidel Castro's government he served as the American Bar Association representative in Havana and he travelled to Chile in 1974 as an international observers of the trials of more than 60 Chilean officers accused of treason by the new Pinochet regime.
But it was in the presence of the artist that Lowe felt most at home. He befriended many of the most innovative and respected artists of his day. He worked with influential collectors, including Joseph Hirshhorn, and assisted many emerging artists at the beginning of their careers, often working on a pro-bono basis or accepting works of art in lieu of payment for artists who could not yet afford his services. His reputation as one of the most principled and tenacious lawyers in the business led to many admirers, one of whom described him as "a pinprick of light in terribly, terribly dark times" (M. Garbus, quoted by A. Bernstein, 'Lawyer a champion of artists, poets, achtivists,' Washington Post, June 21, 2012).
But it was in his role as the executor of the David Smith estate, along with critic Clement Greenberg and artist Robert Motherwell, that Lowe made perhaps his most enduring contribution to the artistic community. The Inland Revenue Service assessed the artist's estate as having a fair market value of $5.4million dollars, a value which would have landed the estate with a huge tax liability. But Lowe argued that selling all these works at the same time would flood the market and drastically reduce the value of the estate. The IRS eventually agreed with this ground-breaking argument and ultimately placed a value of $2.7million on the estate. This so-called 'blockage discount' became an important precedent and has affected the subsequent estates of artists including Georgia O'Keeffe amongst many others.
Mr. Lowe was a distinctive figure amongst the usually conservative world of Washington lawyers. With his bushy beard and penchant for wide brimmed hats, he looked more like his counter-culture clients than fellow members of the legal profession. Although he owned a Jaguar car, he would often arrive at court on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and using Freedom of Information Act requests he helped Allen Ginsberg, Jane Fonda and Joan Baez obtain the files held on them by the FBI, CIA and the State Department. He also managed to get a marijuana possession charge against John Steinbeck expunged from the writer's record.
His political sympathies led him to become active in the community of human rights lawyers. At the invitation of Fidel Castro's government he served as the American Bar Association representative in Havana and he travelled to Chile in 1974 as an international observers of the trials of more than 60 Chilean officers accused of treason by the new Pinochet regime.
But it was in the presence of the artist that Lowe felt most at home. He befriended many of the most innovative and respected artists of his day. He worked with influential collectors, including Joseph Hirshhorn, and assisted many emerging artists at the beginning of their careers, often working on a pro-bono basis or accepting works of art in lieu of payment for artists who could not yet afford his services. His reputation as one of the most principled and tenacious lawyers in the business led to many admirers, one of whom described him as "a pinprick of light in terribly, terribly dark times" (M. Garbus, quoted by A. Bernstein, 'Lawyer a champion of artists, poets, achtivists,' Washington Post, June 21, 2012).