American Society of Illustrators Partnership

Setting Up a Collecting Society

Post author:admin
Post published:October 15, 2004
Post category:Collecting Society / Reprography

To: Brad Holland
Date: Fri, Oct 15, 2004, 12:24 PM via e-mail

Dear Brad
I got a message from Stuart Briers of the Association of Illustrators that IPA were interested in collecting photocopying money on behalf of illustrators in the USA, and wanted to know how to set up a collecting society, so here is a brief résumé.

ABOUT DACS [Design & Artists Copyright Society]
As you know DACS is the organisation that does this in the UK. It was started as a licensing service for (mainly) fine artists and their estates, part of a network of such societies throughout the world. Thus it represents not only its own UK artist members, but also the members of the other societies in the network (eg Matisse, Picasso, Calder etc) when their works are reproduced in the UK. This is its primary rights function, and in this role it acts more or less in the same way as an illustrator’s agent would, licensing reproduction for books, magazines, advertising, merchandising etc.

The secondary rights function is its ‘collecting society’ function in that it deals with rights that individual creators could not license themselves—chiefly photocopying, but also cable re-transmission of TV and slide collections. This secondary rights function started when the Association of Illustrators and the Association of Photographers approached DACS and asked it to represent their members for secondary rights – (we knew there was money out there waiting to be collected). DACS then approached a number of other organisations representing the visual community in fine art, photography, journalism, design etc who were willing to enroll their membership with DACS for secondary rights representation. Once this was done DACS could claim to represent a very substantial number of visual creators across the whole spectrum, and it was in business.

How Collecting Societies Work

Collecting societies sell ‘blanket licences’ which allow organisations to photocopy stuff legally. In return, the collecting society offers to indemnify its customer organisations against any claims that the photocopying is a breach of copyright. As part of the deal the collecting society will negotiate some form of sampling of what is copied, on the basis of which it then distributes the proceeds (less commission) to its rightsholders (publishers and/or creators).

In the case of DACS the issuing of blanket licences and gathering of sample data is carried out by a third organisation, the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA). DACS then distributes the money to its creator members. The CLA is jointly owned by ALCS (the authors’ collecting society) and PLS (the publishers’ collecting society), and at first DACS had a struggle to get a look in. Thanks largely to the fall-out from a Copyright Tribunal judgment, it now has a negotiated share of the total take (8.5%) which goes to visual creators, and even a seat on the CLA board. DACS’ share currently amounts to nearly £3m per year.

The Situation in the USA

DACS’ primary rights function is carried out in the US by 2 organisations, ARS and VAGA. As I understand it they are ‘for profit’ organisations whose basic business is running fine art image banks, and unlike DACS would be probably not be interested in starting a secondary rights operation, though there would be no harm in talking to them. (DACS is a ‘not for profit’ organisation with a substantial input from creators in its governance).

The secondary rights function in the USA is carried out by CCC [Copyright Clearance Center]. Unlike CLA, which is jointly owned and run by creators and publishers, CCC is entirely a publisher owned operation, and the money goes to publishers. Whether they pass a share on to their authors, I don’t know.

There is another big difference between the two countries—the ‘permitted acts’. In the UK copying for educational purposes is not a ‘permitted act’, but in the USA it is. This means that whereas CLA collects a lot of money from schools & universities, CCC has only the business (& presumably government) sectors to target. Nevertheless I am told that CCC currently collects about £80m per year [over $100 m]. CCC is a member of the collecting societies’ international organisation IFRRO, and is in a somewhat anomalous position, I understand, because of its ‘publisher only’ status. There is also a trend within IFRRO to acknowledge the significance of the visual repertoire when licensing photocopying. The CCC therefore may be open to persuasion on this point.

How To Set Up A Collecting Society

The first thing to do is to get as many visual creators from all disciplines to join as you can. The best way of doing this is probably through associations rather than individuals. You need mass membership across the full spectrum of visual creators to give you recognition and clout. DACS was in the fortunate position of being able to use funds from cable retransmission of TV programmes quite soon after it had got enough creators together to claim to be representative, and these funds were swallowed up initially in setting up the structure of the secondary rights operation (to put it bluntly, DACS charged a commission of 100%, which is the way almost all collecting societies have funded their start-ups). I don’t know if there is an equivalent source of funding in the USA that you could tap. You will also probably need to find some funding from somewhere to employ at least one person initially to get the whole thing together.

It might also be worth talking to writers’ and journalists’ associations to see what their take on the CCC situation is.

I hope this is some help. We at DACS would be happy to give what support we can.

Simon Stern
Association of Illustrators
Design & Artists Copyright Society, UK

Tags: copyright clearance center, DACS, IFRRO, visual art collecting societies

Bruce A. Lehman currently practices law in Washington, D.C. and Sarasota Florida. He advises clients on all aspects of intellectual property law, including prosecution, litigation and policy, both domestically and internationally. Concurrently, Mr. Lehman is the chairman of the International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, based in Washington, D.C. The Institute promotes the creation of modern intellectual property systems and the use of intellectual property rights as a mechanism for investment, technology transfer and the creation of wealth in all countries of the world.

From August 1993 through December 1998 Mr. Lehman served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks. As the Clinton administration’s primary representative for intellectual property rights protection, he was a key player on these issues, both domestically and internationally. At the request of the president, he served concurrently in the fall of 1997 as acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, which fosters and recognizes the work of America’s artistic and creative community.

On February 7, 2006, Mr. Lehman was honored as one of 23 initial inductees to the newly created International IP Hall of fame, a project sponsored by the London-based, Intellectual Property Asset Management magazine. He is one of ten living members of the Hall of Fame which includes historic figures such as Thomas Jefferson and Victor Hugo.

In 1994 the National Law Journal named Mr. Lehman its “Lawyer of the Year.” In 1997 public-policy magazine National Journal named him as one of the 100 most influential men and women in Washington, noting, “In today’s Information Age, the issue of intellectual property rights is no longer an arcane concern, but a vital part of U.S. trade policy. Since taking over his current posts in 1993, Lehman has been the Clinton Administration’s outspoken voice on such matters here and abroad.”

Serving as the leader of the U.S. delegation to WIPO’s December 1996 Diplomatic Conference on Certain Copyright and Neighboring Rights Questions, Mr. Lehman concluded negotiations that resulted in the adoption of two treaties: the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty; by updating international copyright law for the digital age, the treaties aim to facilitate the growth of online digital commerce over the Internet. Mr. Lehman’s guidance on the development of the intellectual property provisions of the Uruguay Round Agreement, now known as TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property), has enabled American creators and inventors to more easily protect their creations from piracy throughout the world.

Mr. Lehman also chaired the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights of the National Information Infrastructure Task Force. In September 1995 the Working Group released Intellectual Property and the National copyright protection of intellectual property in the networked environment of the information superhighway. These recommendations served as the basis for the WIPO treaties and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

For 10 years prior to joining the Clinton administration, Mr. Lehman was a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Swidler & Berlin. There he represented individuals, companies and trade associations in the areas of intellectual property rights. His clients were drawn from the motion picture, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, computer software and broadcasting industries.

Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Lehman worked for nine years in the U.S. House of Representatives as counsel to the Committee on the Judiciary and chief counsel to the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice. He was the Committee’s principal legal adviser in the drafting of the 1976 Copyright Act, the 1980 Computer Software Amendments and the 1982 Amendments to the Patent Laws.

On February 7, 2006, Mr. Lehman was honored as one of 23 initial inductees to the newly created International IP Hall of fame, a project sponsored by the London-based, Intellectual Property Asset Management Magazine.

Mr. Lehman is holds both a B.S. and a J.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Bio: Keith Ferris

Born in 1929, the son of a career Air Force Officer, Keith Ferris grew up with military aviation. He attended Texas A&M majoring in Aeronautical Engineering, George Washington University and Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC. He began his art career as a civilian in Air Force Publications in 1947 and, after five years with St Louis art studio Cassell, Watkins Paul, Ferris became a freelance artist in the New York area in 1956 and a member of the Society of Illustrators in 1960.

His art has served the advertising, editorial, public relations, and historical documentation needs of the aerospace industry, publications, the military services, and air and space museums for 62 years.

His work has been published in advertising, magazines, books, posters, calendars and industry and military publications throughout his career. Over 40 Ferris paintings have been published in fine art print form by The Greenwich Workshop, Inc. and by Keith Ferris Galleries.

Ferris created the 25 foot high by 75 foot wide mural in oil “Fortresses Under Fire” in the World War II Gallery of the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and the 20 foot by 75 foot Evolution of Jet Aviation mural in the museum’s Jet Aviation Gallery.

Keith Ferris is a Life Member of the Society of Illustrators and a recipient of SI’s Dean Cornwell Recognition Award for his 18 years on the SI Board of Directors as Government Services Committee Chairman responsible for the Society’s Air Force Art Program, the Coast Guard Illustration Program and the Coast Guard Bicentennial Art Project. He served for two years as the Society’s Executive Vice President.

Having participated in the United States Air Force Art Program for over 48 years, Ferris knowledge of aviation has been greatly enhanced by having flown more than 300 hours in jet fighter aircraft. He has flown in most all jet aircraft types in the Air Force inventory while documenting the Air Force mission with art. There are 60 major Ferris paintings in the Air Force Art Collection.

Ferris deployed across the Pacific to South East Asia as a civilian back-seater with the first squadron of F-4E Phantoms in 1968 where he participated in missions of the F-4E, the F-105F and the B-52D. He has spent a total of eight weeks over a 25-year period flying with the USAF Fighter Weapons Schools, experiencing the employment of aircraft ranging from the F-100 to the F-15 and F-16. He holds five United States patents for deceptive aircraft paint systems.

Keith Ferris is a founder and past president of the American Society of Aviation Artists. This organization is Dedicated to the Pursuit of Excellence and Public Appreciation of Aerospace Art.

A lifelong student of perspective and spatial relationships, Ferris utilizes the science of perspective projection by descriptive geometry to achieve the three dimensional optical effects evident in his art.

Serving regularly on the faculty of the ASAA sponsored annual Aviation Art Forums, he teaches the basics of aviation art, drawing, painting, composition, light and reflected light so important in aviation art. ASAA Forum subjects also include business practices, contracts and copyright issues. Ferris is dedicated to eliminating misunderstanding or misuse by anyone of the rights of the creator of copyrightable material.

In 1995 Ferris received an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Daniel Webster College in Nashua, NH for his years of documenting aviation history through art. He is a member of the Aviation Week & Space Technology Laureate Hall of Fame in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air & Space Museum and in 2004, Ferris was the recipient of AW&ST’s Laureate Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Ferris is an elected member of the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame.

Keith Ferris is proud to represent the American Society of Aviation Artists on the board of the American Society of Illustrators Partnership.

Bio: Nick Anderson

Nick Anderson joined The Houston Chronicle as editorial cartoonist in February of 2006. Anderson’s philosophy: “An editorial cartoonist, fundamentally, should be anti-establishment. No matter which party is running the government, it is the essence of satire to question authority.” His loose, idiosyncratic style carries with it an unconventional message that has broad appeal.

In 2005, Anderson was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. The judges complimented his “unusual graphic style that produced extraordinarily thoughtful and powerful messages.” He takes great care and effort with those messages. “I think Nick deserved this [award] for a long time,” says Alan Shearer, editorial director of The Washington Post Writers Group, which distributes Anderson’s cartoons.

In fact, Anderson has pioneered a method of coloring his cartoons. Using an advanced computer program, he creates digital paintings characterized by subtle textures and striking images. Because of his innovative use of the program, its manufacturer, Corel Corporation, has designated Anderson a “Painter Master.”

Anderson majored in political science at Ohio State University and was editorial cartoonist for the school’s newspaper, The Lantern. In 1989, he won the Charles M. Schulz Award for best college cartoonist. He interned one summer at The Louisville Courier-Journal, which immediately recognized his talent. After his graduation from OSU, the newspaper created a position for him as an associate editorial cartoonist and illustrator. Anderson was promoted to chief editorial cartoonist in 1995 and was syndicated by the Writers Group a year later. After 15 years with the Courier-Journal, in 2006 Anderson accepted a position at the Houston Chronicle.

Anderson grew up in Toledo, Ohio, in a family that encouraged independent thinking in politics. His father, a scientist, didn’t like the mathematical odds of his son becoming a cartoonist, but at age 15 Anderson started drawing cartoons for his high school newspaper and immediately knew his calling. “I figured the chances of being an editorial cartoonist were pretty slim, but I didn’t want to go to my deathbed without trying,” he said.

In addition to the Pulitzer, Anderson earned the Sigma Delta Chi award in 2000, the 1999 Fischetti Award, and first-place honors for editorial cartooning in the Best of Gannett Awards in 1996, 1997 and 1999. Anderson’s cartoons have been published in Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune and other papers.

In his spare time, Anderson enjoys mountain biking, cycling, water skiing and rollerblading. In 1988 he cycled across the country from Oregon to Massachusetts. He lives in Houston with his wife, Cecilia Baylon, and his sons, Colton and Travis, whose names Anderson hides in each of his cartoons.

Bio: CF Payne

C.F. Payne is a freelance illustrator based in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a 1976 BFA graduate of Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio. He further studied under the tutelage of Alan Cober, Mark English, Bernie Fuchs, Fred Otnes and Bob Heindel at the Illustrators Workshop in Tarrytown, New York. After brief studio stints in Akron, Ohio and Chicago, in 1980 he began his freelance career in Dallas, Texas. Over the last 27 plus years concentrating on the editorial market, he has worked with numerous publications. Time Magazine, Esquire, Reader’s Digest, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Boys Life, Forbes and Mad Magazine name only a few.

In the past few years he has received national recognition from Communication Arts, Step-by-Step, the Society of Publication Designers, the Society of Illustrators of New York and Los Angeles, Print Magazine and How Magazine. His work has received both Gold and Silver awards form both the Society of Illustrators of New York and Los Angeles and has received the Hamilton King Award for the Society of Illustrators of New York. His work has been exhibited in numerous college and art school galleries, among them the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA and a one-man show at the Cincinnati Art Museum in Cincinnati, OH.

C.F. Payne has juried numerous shows both locally and nationally and has lectured extensively. He has taught at the college level for more than 20 years and currently is the Chair of the Illustration Department at Columbus College of Art and Design.

In 1996 C. F. Payne was the president of the Art Directors Club of Cincinnati and the Chairman of the 38th Society of Illustrators Annual Competition. He has served as chairman of the Museum Committee of the Society of Illustrators of New York. In 1999 Mr. Payne was part of the Founding Board for the first national Illustrators Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico and currently serves on the Board of the Illustrators Partnership of America, a non-profit organization developed to educate illustrators about business, copyright and licensing issues.

Recently C.F. Payne has entered into the children’s book market with True Heart, Brave Harriet and Mighty Jackie written by Marissa Moss, and The Remarkable Farkle McBride and Micawber written by actor John Lithgow. He has also illustrated the children’s books Shoeless Joe and Black Betsy and The Shot Heard ‘round the World by Phil Bildner, plus Earnest Thayer’s baseball classic Casey at the Bat. He is currently work on another children’s book and continues to work in the editorial market.

In 1999 Mr. Payne worked on a mural project for Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. The mural is 14 feet at its highest point and is about 95 feet wide. The mural features many play writers and actors whose works have been featured at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.

C.F. Payne currently resides in Cincinnati, Ohio with his wife Paula and children.

Bio: Frank Costantino

Frank Costantino, has practiced architectural illustration for fifty years, and collaborated with preeminent architectural, design, and development firms throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. He is a recipient of the world’s most prestigious award for architectural illustration – the Hugh Ferriss Memorial Prize – as well as many other awards from the American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI). A recipient of the Arthur Ross Award from the Institute of Classical Art and Architecture in New York, he shares the distinction with one colleague as the only illustrators in the world to receive both the Ferriss and the Ross Awards.

His diverse output of illustrations has been exhibited nationally and internationally, most notably at The Art Institute of Chicago, New York’s Urban Center, the Octagon Museum in Washington, D.C., in many venues of home-town Boston, as well as in Toronto, Tokyo, Seoul, Brisbane, Sydney, Berlin, and Lisbon. Since 1987, his drawings or paintings have been accepted into ASAI’s annual juried exhibitions, and artworks from his career have been published in more than sixty books or catalogues. Representative drawings for Chicago projects are included in the permanent collection of The Art Institute of Chicago. Selected works have been reserved for the Library Of Congress Drawings Collection, the Skirball Museum in LA, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Tchoban Museum in Berlin; and are also held in private collections.

His commissions for a stellar and consistent clientele – including AIA Gold Medalists Cesar Pelli, Moshe Safdie, I.M. Pei, Peter Bohlin, Joseph Esherick, Benjamin Thompson, and Jose Luis Sert, among many other notable national and Boston firms – span a diverse range of global projects, including skyscrapers, office buildings, museums, concert halls and aquariums, among others. He has also designed five post cards for the US Postal Service’s Historic Preservation series, and been commissioned by private and civic institutions for unique watercolor artworks.

As one of the founders of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators (ASAI), he helped establish an international network of delineators throughout the US, Canada, England, Europe, Japan, Australia, Korea, and other countries. On behalf of the Society and with his co-founders, Mr. Costantino received Institute Honors from the American Institute of Architects in 1995. He has also received Honorary AIA Fellowship (FAIA) sponsored by the Boston Society of Architects (BSA). Frank is an Honorary Life Member of the Japan Architectural Renderers Association (JARA), Tokyo, a Fellow of Society of Architectural Illustrators (FSAI), Great Britain, and Honorary Member of New York’s Society of Illustrators (SI).

Mr. Costantino is also a Founding Director and Vice-President of the American Society of Illustrators Partnership (ASIP), a consortium of national illustration groups that advocate for the collective rights, royalties and business issues for thousands of US artists from varied illustration disciplines and professional practices.

He has taught at the Boston Architectural College (BAC), the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt), as well as guest-lectured at numerous institutions and conferences across the United States, North America and overseas. As a member of the Advisory Council to the School of Architecture at Lawrence Technological University in Michigan, he assisted in the development of the country’s first degree-granting program in architectural illustration.

During the decades of his busy practice, he also conducted – under BSA auspices – seminars in illustration to architects and artists; and also offered courses in architectural watercolor for all levels of experience, with workshops and field sketching programs at locations around the country. As a Signature Member of both the New England Watercolor Society and an elected member of the Salmagundi Club of New York, two of America’s oldest such societies, as well as other regional and local associations, his fine art watercolors have been accepted into national shows and featured in many publications, with numerous works in private collections.

Mr. Costantino is a regular contributor to professional publications about the business practices of his profession, including essays on the subjects of perspective methods and media techniques. He has also reviewed and edited books, articles, and essays for various authors. He continues to assist, in various capacities, in the many affairs of ASAI, including its highly acclaimed annual exhibitions and catalogues, Architecture In Perspective. In recognition of his continuing contributions to ASAI from its founding in 1986, the Society awarded its first Lifetime Achievement Award to Frank for his dedicated commitment to its many activities, and his profession. Mr. Costantino is regarded as one of the world’s most respected practitioners in, and vigorous proponents for, the field of architectural illustration.

Bio: Brad Holland

Brad Holland is one of the most influential illustrators of the 20th Century. The New York Times, in nominating him for a Pulitzer Prize, wrote that his work goes “beyond the moment to illuminate a general condition universal in space and time. The images are sometimes brutal, but the feeling is almost always compassionate.” The Washington Post has called him “an undisputed star of American Illustration,” and the editors of RSVP, the artists’ directory, voted him “the one artist, who in our opinion, has had the single greatest impact on the illustration field during the last twenty five years.” Writing in Print magazine, critic Steven Heller has written, “as [Jackson] Pollock redefined plastic art, Holland has radically changed the perception of illustration.”

Holland’s work has been exhibited in the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris; the U.S. Library of Congress; the Museum of American Illustration; the Mikkeli Art Museum in Mikkeli, Finland; the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Clermont-Ferrand, France. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress, the National Portrait Gallery as well as corporate and private collections. Holland’s work has appeared in nearly every major U.S. and many international publications, and feature films. He has received the gold medals of the New York Art Director’s Club, the Society of Publication Designers, the Society of Illustrators, and the Society’s prestigious Hamilton King Award. Holland is a member of the Society of Illustrators’ Hall of Fame and the Alliance Graphique Internationale.

Holland’s writings have appeared in diverse publications. The German magazine Jitter published Express Yourself, It’s Later Than You Think, a satire of the art business (first published in the Atlantic Monthly); Holland’s essay Shape and Content was published as the introduction to Illustration Now! (Taschen Books); Communication Arts published License to Infringe and First Things About Secondary Rights appeared in the Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts.

In recent years Brad Holland has emerged as the seminal voice illuminating the complex and shifting business landscape for illustrators and their diminishing control over their copyrights and businesses. He is one of the founders of the Illustrators’ Partnership of America (IPA), the first organization in the history of American visual authorship to seek to implement a rational collective rights clearance administration for illustrators’ copyrights.

In 1999, IPA’s founders created the first National Illustrators’ Conference, proposed the creation of a visual arts collecting society, founded the IPA, and initiated a Reprographics Coalition to unite 12 American illustration organizations to establish accountability for illustrators’ royalties. In 2002, Brad Holland and IPA Board member Cynthia Turner were invited to represent creators at The 100th American Assembly: “Art, Technology, and Intellectual Property” at Arden House in Harriman, New York. Their subsequent report first alerted illustrators to the goals of the Free Culture movement.

In 2005, Holland and Turner warned that the U.S. Copyright Office Orphan Works Study might portend a radical change in U.S. copyright law. Forty-two organizations and 1,600 individual artists signed Holland and Turner’s submission to the Copyright Office, urging the government to maintain existing copyright protections. Holland and Turner also proposed a visual art collecting society to the Copyright Office as a hedge against orphaned work.

Brad Holland participated in the Copyright Office Orphan Works Roundtables, the webcast Washington College of Law Orphan Works Debate, and testified against the Orphan Works Act before both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate Intellectual Property subcommittees. Holland gave interviews with National Public Radio, Chicago Tribune, National Law Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education and Bureau of National Affairs. Holland’s weekly mass e-mail “Orphan Works Updates,” were widely posted on the websites of creators’ organizations. IPA’s Press Release, “Amendment May Orphan Creative Artists,” was distributed by the Associated Press and published by Forbes.com, PR Newswire, United Business Media, the Internet Herald and television station websites. The Progress & Freedom Foundation Center for Study of Digital Property selected the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page to link to its Copyright Resource Index.

Brad serves as Co-Chair of American Society of Illustrators Partnership, the formalized non-profit incorporation by member organizations of the Illustrators’ Partnership Reprographics Coalition.

Bio: Cynthia Turner

Cynthia Turner is a certified medical illustrator and a Fellow of the Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI). She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Colorado State University, 1979, and a Master of Arts in Biomedical Illustration from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, 1982.

Cynthia has been self-employed with her partner, Edmond Alexander, since 1987 as Alexander & Turner Medical Illustration Studio. She creates original illustrations describing pathophysiological cascades, drug actions and devices for pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms and their agencies. Her work focuses on the visual needs of pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms and their agencies for investor and advertising markets, including large scale illustrations for medical conference exhibitions and event and print collateral. She is known for creating striking visuals with clarity of message and a dramatic use of color.

Cynthia is the recipient of the Association of Medical Illustrators’ 2014 Brödel Award for Excellence in Education “for outstanding educational contributions to the profession of medical illustration” and the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award for “extraordinary lifelong contributions to the advancements of medical illustration and scientific knowledge have set the highest standards of our profession and served as an inspiration to others in the field.”

Cynthia was the Artist-in-Residence for Varian Surgical Sciences for eight years, producing over twenty 3′ x 4’ limited edition prints for Varian’s Take a Closer Look campaign, highlighting their role in advancing radiation medicine for cancer treatment of previously inoperable early stage lung, breast, prostate, brain and liver cancers.

Cynthia’s work was selected for inclusion in the juried Art of Medicine exhibition, New York, NY and the juried Dream Anatomy exhibition at the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD. Johnson & Johnson honored her with a one-man show of The Medical Art of Cynthia Turner. She exhibited at the University de Andres Bello Art Gallery and the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, Chile and those works were later included in the permanent collection of the Universidad Andres Bello Medical School. Recently, Cynthia’s work was selected for inclusion in Lüerzer’s International Archive 2021 Edition of the 200 Best Digital Illustrators in the world.

She has worked to preserve the integrity of copyright for all visual artists, and to found a copyright society to protect the secondary rights of illustrators across all genres and specialties. Working with Brad Holland, she has represented the interests of American and international illustrators at the American Assembly, on Capitol Hill, at the U.S. Copyright Office and at the annual general meetings of the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations.

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