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Ashton Hawkins is an American lawyer best known for his patronage of the arts. He joined the Metropolitan Museum in 1968 as Assistant Secretary of the Board of Trustees. He became Secretary of the Board and Counsel to the Museum in 1969, and assumed the post of Executive Vice President and Counsel to the Trustees in 1987.
Throughout his career, Hawkins has been instrumental in developing the field of art law. Beginning in the late 1960’s, he was part of the group that drafted the UNESCO Treaty on International Movement of Works of Art and in subsequent years, he worked with former New York Senator Daniel Patrick Monyihan and colleagues in the art community to draft the legislation that was enacted in 1983, bringing this UNESCO treaty into effect in the United States. Hawkins has served as a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, the New York University Law School, Columbia Law School, and Cardozo Law School, and for years has been a lecturer and advisor on art law and related issues. For three separate terms, he was a member of the art committee of the Association of the Bar.
He began his career in the law with the firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in 1962. From 1965-68 he served as an Assistant Attorney General of the State of New York in the Estates, Trusts & Charities Bureau under Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz.
Source-The Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.metmuseum.org/Press_Room/full_release.asp?prid={8B125814-031B-11D5-93EE-00902786BF44}
