IFAR: In lieu of an Obituary

July 1, 2025

By Irina Tarsis

On September 27, 2024, International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) notified its mailing list of the plans to close. The email, entitled “Important News from IFAR,” stated that “After 55 years of championing the principles of authenticity and ethical ownership in the art world, the International Foundation for Art Research has made the difficult decision to begin winding down operations.” The message was unsigned. Like thunder in a clear sky, the announcement shocked the art law community, and sparked a flurry of emails and calls: “Impossible!” “Have you heard?!”

The full text of the September 2024 Press Release is available HERE. According to the announcement:

As we prepare to close this chapter, we are focused on ensuring a thoughtful and responsible transition and one that celebrates and preserves IFAR’s legacy. We are mapping out a timeline for when IFAR will conclude its programmatic work and cease operations, which we anticipate will take place in mid-2025. In the meantime, we are committed to serving as a resource to the art community, continuing our new online education programs, and completing research projects that have been submitted to us to date. However, we will no longer publish the IFAR Journal or host IFAR Evenings, as we focus on re-homing our mission-related assets, including the Art Law Database, Catalogues Raisonnés Database, and our Institutional Archive.

Established in 1969, IFAR became a venerable and standard-setting institution, with impeccable reputation, known for its high standard of excellence – across publications, events, and research. Under the decades of Sharon Flescher’s leadership, IFAR accumulated knowledge and talent, collected and created resources, and disseminated valuable and authoritative information. It set a high bar for other nonprofits operating in the United States and beyond, conducting research, shepherding together authoritative scholarship, and ushering experts from all relevant disciplines to provide opinions on ethics, authenticity, and legal standards.

Invitation to speak, write or opine for IFAR was tantamount to a certain and undisputed badge of honor in every professional’s cap. In 2017, this author together with Evelien Campfens contributed an article to the IFAR Journal about cultural heritage on loan from the Crimean Museums following the annexation of the peninsula. Drafting and editing Cri-Me-a-River! was a humbling experience, but also one of the publications this author is particularly proud of having drafted.

In addition to publishing the IFAR Journal, providing opinions on authenticity and provenance, IFAR also created and updated valuable research tools including, such as a bibliography of catalogues raisonne and an Art Law & Cultural Property Database (the Database). These resources were hailed by the luminaries of art law practice and scholarship, including the late Judith Bresler, co-author of Art Law: The Guide for Collectors, Investors, Dealers & Artists, and John Merryman, co-author of Law, Ethics and the Visual Arts. Bresler called IFAR’s Database “an invaluable resource for anyone involved in the art world,” and Merryman said that IFAR’s Art Law & Cultural Property Website was, “an unmatched digital resource for students, attorneys, art professionals, and others interested in American and international art and cultural property law.” See the undated IFAR’s promo about the Database.

Scholarly articles, sold out programs on authenticity and restitution, provenance research and law enforcement, influenced students of all ages and practitioners, collectors, and dealers. In March of 2022, IFAR was one of the first NGO organizations to comment about full scale evasion of Ukraine and the threat to its cultural heritage. Also that spring, IFAR held a webinar about the state of the Ukrainian cultural heritage threatened by the ongoing war unleashed by the Russian Federation and organized resources on the subject. IFAR could do a lot and IFAR cared.

At the end of 2023, after 25 years of service, Dr. Sharon Flescher stepped down as the from the post, passing the baton to Dr. Lindsey Schneider, the fourth and final executive director of IFAR. From the outside, back in December 2023, there were no indicators that IFAR would go dark any time soon; on the contrary the expectation was more than half way to its centennial. The financials reported on the IFAR 990 Form indicate that if the institution was not flush with cash it was comfortable. However, as reported in Art Forum on October 2, 2024, Schneider “performed a six-month assessment of the foundation’s activities and finances and concluded that the operation was no longer feasible.”

According to Jennifer Schipf, on IFAR Board starting September of 2023 and the ultimate chair of the organization stated “The board brought on a new executive director to help us chart the optimal future for IFAR, and, ultimately, her insights and analyses made it clear to us all that the best course of action is to wind down.” It is hard to believe that the optimal future for IFAR was shuttering, it was certainly not the optimal future for the IFAR followers and visitors. Perhaps we all could have done more.

Only five years earlier, according to one of Schipf’s predecessors, Jack Josephson (1930-2022), who chaired IFAR’s Board of Directors for 17 years after his retirement around 2016, said “[IFAR] is very much in business, they have some marvelous websites, catalogue raisonnes, lots of things where people can get solid background on objects they might be contemplating buying or selling, so it’s a great organization.” He was right, IFAR did have substantial influence in matters of stolen art, forgeries and more. IFAR did a lot.

Despite the announced closure, in May 2025, IFAR offered a series of workshops on provenance research, led by Lisa Duffy-Zeballos, Ph.D., Art Research Director, IFAR (for 17 years) and Theresa Kutasz-Christensen, Ph.D., Independent Art Research Consultant, who joined IFAR team in April of 2024. The Observer article featured this May program and made no reference to the imminent closure, and some optimists dared to hope that the promised closure would be delayed or cancelled altogether. Daniel Grant, who wrote for The Observer, quoted “Duffy-Zeballos as lamenting lack of “master’s degree programs focused on provenance research… in the United States.” He added “Looking to fill the gap, IFAR, a 55-year-old nonprofit that supports arts institutions with information on fakes, forgeries, frauds and authentication, launched a seven-class online course called, simply, Introduction to Provenance Research. The latest session, taught by Duffy-Zeballos with art historian Theresa Kutasz Christensen, kicked off yesterday (May 6).” Grant also quoted Schneider “It’s a kind of learning by doing… We designed our course to be skills-based rather than a theoretically based program focused on why provenance is important.” This ‘latest’ session apparently became IFAR’s last.

True to their word, IFAR must have wrapped operations by mid-2025 as planned, and as of June 24, its site is stripped of all the substantive content but for a corporate farewell:

“After over 50 years of service to the art community, the International Foundation for Art Research has brought its work to a close. We are proud of our pioneering commitment to advancing scholarship and best practices for the ethical stewardship of art objects, and remain grateful for the longstanding support of our partners and patrons.”

Ethical stewardship and authenticity. Looking at the current IFAR page, there is much incredulity. How can this be real or right?! The September 2024 announcement promised “re-homing [IFAR] mission-related assets.” As of this writing, it is unclear how the ‘re-homing’ went and which parts of IFAR’s legacy ended up where.

What triggered the dismantling of an institution that had long served a beacon for members of its and our community? Lack of funding? Delayed succession? Lack of conviction? New form of intelligence? Yes, there are new authentication services offered, some with the assistance of AI. Still, in an age of fast news and proliferation of AI generated answers, the stolid substantial work of IFAR will be missed, and it is unclear whether other nonprofits serving legal and creative communities can fill the void.

What’s next? Governed by New York Not-For-Profit Corporation Law, if nothing else, voluntary dissolution of not-for profit corporations incorporated in New York with assets, such as IFAR, must be dissolved in accordance with the state law. According to the guidance helpfully provided by the Office of the New York State Attorney General Charities Bureau, the board must submit a plan for approval of the Attorney General and, if approved, within 270 days after the date on which the Attorney General or the Court approved the Plan, the corporation must carry out the Plan, pay its liabilities, distribute its assets and wind up its business in accordance with the Plan.

To date, it appears that no Certificate of Dissolution has been issued to IFAR. And while the site no longer offers access the IFAR archives and databases, the archives and files survive. In addition to the physical property, financial assets and liabilities, IFAR also retains intellectual property including trademarks in its name “IFAR” and “Stolen Art Alert.” Both, standard character marks, were renewed in 2021 for ten years. Who, if anybody will host the IFAR Evenings?

How have various aspects of IFAR been distributed and where? Perhaps to law schools, museums, or libraries? The mission of IFAR still deserves to be fulfilled as its assets must find new repositories to ensure the continued public benefit of the treasure trove that is/was IFAR. Perhaps the Attorney General will not accept the application for dissolution. Looking back, looking forward, the current state of IFAR’s site recalls the metamorphosis of the Knoedler Gallery website in 2011, that read:

Knoedler & Company closed for regular business
on November 30, 2011. Our staff remain available to assist you.
If you need further information, please call 212 794-0550.

Knoedler, the oldest gallery in the US, was busy answering subpoenas and juggling irate collectors with forgeries on their hands.

IFAR and its affiliates played an active role in setting the Knoedler Saga straight. IFAR’s last chapter is not written yet. For now, and in all honesty, most of IFAR digital resources can still be accessed through the Wayback Machine.

About the Author:

Irina Tarsis, Esq., is the Founder and Managing Director of the Center for Art Law.

Select Sources:

• International Foundation for Art Research, Ifar.org.
• Harrison Jacobs, “Longtime Art Authentication Nonprofit IFAR to Shut Down After 55 Years,” ARTNews (Sept. 27, 2024), available at https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/art-authentication-nonprofit-ifar-to-shut-down-1234718928/
• Campfens, Evelien and Irina Tarsis, “Cri-Me-a-River! Crimean Gold in the Crosshairs of Geopolitics,” IFAR, Vol. 18 (Summer 2017).
• The News Desk, “Art Authenticator IFAR to Cease Operations,” Art Forum (Oct. 2, 2024), available at https://www.artforum.com/news/art-authenticator-ifar-to-cease-operation-560581/
• Grant, Daniel, “Lost, Looted, Disputed: Why Provenance Is Still the Art World’s Blind Spot,” The Observer (May 7, 2025), available at https://observer.com/2025/05/ifar-how-to-learn-provenance-research-training-art-market/
• The Ancient Egyptian Heritage and Archaeology Fund, Egyptologist Jack Josephson Discusses His Career, Chairman of IFAR Board (17 years), available https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFJoKQgAsFU
• NYS Department of Taxation and Finance, “Voluntary dissolution of New York State not-for-profit corporations,” available https://www.tax.ny.gov/bus/doingbus/vol_dissolution.htm

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