page_title: Jeff Koons
section_title: Copyright infringement litigation
hierarchical_section_title: Jeff Koons / Copyright infringement litigation
caption_attribution_description: Ballerina .Obra de Jeff Koons en la explanada del Malba
context_page_description: Jeffrey L. Koons is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals – produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces. He lives and works in both New York City and his hometown of York, Pennsylvania. His works have sold for substantial sums, including at least two record auction prices for a work by a living artist, including $91.1 million with fees in May 2019, for his Rabbit, purchased by Robert E. Mnuchin according to a New York Times article.
  On November 12, 2013, Koons' Balloon Dog sold at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York City for US$58.4 million, above its high US$55 million estimate, becoming the most expensive work by a living artist sold at auction. The price topped Koons' previous record of US$33.7 million and the record for the most expensive living artist, held by Gerhard Richter, whose 1968 painting, Domplatz, Mailand, sold for US$37.1 million at Sotheby's on May 14, 2013. Balloon Dog was one of the first of his Balloon Dog works to be fabricated, and had been acquired by Greenwich collector Peter Brant in the late 1990s.
context_section_description: Koons has been sued several times for copyright infringement over his use of pre-existing images, the original works of others, in his work.  In Rogers v. Koons, 960 F.2d 301 (2d Cir. 1992), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a judgment against him for his use of a photograph of puppies as the basis for a sculpture, String of Puppies.
  Koons also lost lawsuits in United Features Syndicate, Inc. v. Koons, 817 F. Supp. 370 (S.D.N.Y. 1993), and Campbell v. Koons, No. 91 Civ. 6055, 1993 WL 97381 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 1, 1993).
  He won one lawsuit, Blanch v. Koons, No. 03 Civ. 8026 (LLS), S.D.N.Y., Nov. 1 2005 (slip op.), affirmed by the Second Circuit in October 2006, brought over his use of a photographic advertisement as source material for legs and feet in a painting, Niagara (2000). The court ruled that Koons had sufficiently transformed the original advertisement so as to qualify as a fair use of the original image.
  In 2018, a French court ruled that his 1988 work Fait d'Hiver, which depicts a pig standing over a woman who is lying on her back, had copied an advertisement for a clothing chain.
  In 2019, a French court ruled that his work 1988 Naked, which depicts a little boy offering flowers to a little girl, both of whom are naked, had infringed on the copyright of a 1975 postcard photograph by French artist Jean-Francois Bauret.
  Koons has also threatened others under copyright, claiming that a bookstore in San Francisco infringed his proprietary rights by selling bookends in the shape of balloon dogs. Koons abandoned that claim after the lawyer representing the bookstore filed a complaint for declaratory relief stating, "As virtually any clown can attest, no one owns the idea of making a balloon dog, and the shape created by twisting a balloon into a dog-like form is part of the public domain".
  A Koons sculpture of a ballerina looks like a copy of the piece Ballerina Lenochka created by the Ukrainian artist Oksana Zhnykrup in 1974.
caption: Ballerina
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