Reproduction Rights for Fine Art

You paid $10,000 in 1989, for an original painting at a gallery in Santa Cruz, California. Now it's 1999 and your friend wants to use a reproduction of your art in an advertisement of their landscape business in a garden magazine. She asks you if she may do so and you respond,: "Sure. It's a beautiful painting." This is no problem under California law? True or False?

False. Under California Civil Code 982, when a person buys a work of fine art, the reproduction rights remain with the artist or the artist's heirs, legatees, (persons taking under a will) or personal representative until it passes into the public domain unless there is an express written agreement otherwise. When you make prints of your artwork and/or use reproductions of it, you are infringing on the artist's rights and the artist has a right to be compensated. If you anticipate such a use, it is best to request the reproductions at the time you purchase the artwork. Usually, artists will grant such rights unless they have intentions to make prints for their own purposes.

Fine art and right of reproduction defined...

Fine art is defined as any work of visual art, including but not limited to, a drawing, (including an etching, lithograph, offset print silk screen, or a work of graphic art of like nature), crafts (including crafts in clay, textile, fiber, wood, metal, plastic, and like materials, or mixed media (including a collage, assemblage, or any combination of the foregoing art media). Right of reproduction is defined as including but not limited to, the following: reproduction of works of fine art as prints suitable for framing; facsimile casts of sculpture; reproductions used for greeting cards; reproductions in general books and magazine not devoted primarily to art, and in newspapers in other than art or news sections, when such reproductions in books, magazine and newspapers are used for purposes similar to those of material for which the publishers customarily pay; art films, television, except from stations operated for educational purposes, or on programs for educational purposes from all stations; and posters, billboards, films or television.

The exceptions listed above where the artist's right to reproduction is NOT infringed are consistent with the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law where a person has the right to use an image for educational and critical purposes.

When you said, "Sure" to your landscape friend, you gave away a right to reproduce that you did not have. However, it is the responsibility of the landscape friend to ascertain that you did actually have the reproduction rights and it is she who will have to compensate the artist unless you have deliberately misled your friend in some way as to your ownership of the right to reproduce. Remember, however, that laws vary from state to state. Check your local state law regarding its right of reproduction.

Want to Research Prints or Find Posters and Slides?

Do you have a print that you want to learn more about? Since artists often use printmaking media to create "multiples," how can you tell whether what you own is an original print or a reproduction copy? It can be difficult to answer these questions without taking the item to a museum print curator, auction house or certified art appraiser. The condition of a print will also be an important factor in determining its market value. To begin your research, look for a catalogue raisonné (a complete listing of the artist's works), if one has been published for that artist.

Traditionally, printing has been defined as the transferring of ink from a prepared printing surface (a wood block, metal plate or stone carrying the image) to a piece of paper or other similar material. Techniques include three basic types—the ink is on the raised parts of the printing surface (relief), in lowered grooves (intaglio) or on the surface itself (planographic). Common relief techniques include woodcuts and linocuts. Intaglio processes include etchings and engravings. Planographic processes include lithography and serigraphy. Each technique maintains the character of the marks made by the artist during the creative process. Other techniques include monotypes and digital prints or combinations of more than one technique.

Prints exist in multiples. Each impression is considered to be an original. The total number of prints (or impressions) made of one image is an "edition." The number may appear on the print with the individual print number as a fraction, such as 5/25, meaning this particular print is the fifth of twenty-five produced.

Reproductions are often incorrectly referred to as prints. Items advertised as fine-art prints or limited edition prints are sometimes photomechanical reproductions of paintings or drawings. Such reproductions use the same commercial printing processes used in producing magazine illustrations. The artist's involvement is not required. Reproductions have the virtue of being less expensive than originals, but they are not considered original artworks.

The Post Impressionism Art Movement

As the name implies, the Post Impressionism art movement followed on from Impressionism. As well as being a logical extension of that earlier movement, it was in many ways a rejection of Impressionism's impersonality and strict concern with the effects of light and colour. The Post Impressionism art movement was more interested in a very personal and spiritual form of self expression.

The link and debt to Impressionism, though, is very clear. The short strokes of brilliantly coloured paint and the move away from traditional subject matter cleared the way for the Post Impressionist artists to take modern art a stage further and lay the foundations for many modern art movements of the next century.

The term Post Impressionism was first coined by the English art critic Roger Fry, in reference to the work of some of the leading exponents of the Post Impressionism Art Movement, such as Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gaugin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

The Post Impressionism art movement was not a tight community of artists like Impressionism had been, but was made up of artists often working in isolation in regions that held their particular interest. Cezanne worked alone in the South of France in Aix-en-Provence, Van Gogh painted his surroundings in Arles and Paul Gaugin moved to Tahiti, where he developed his exotic and colourful images of the Tahitians.