You can, of course, do that. But as the artist, you still hold the copyright to that image. If you have an excellent photo of your work, you can also have reproductions printed. You might be able to sell those, unframed, for $25, $50 or $100, depending on the size, quality and what the market will bear.
Is there a copyright on Starry Night? Hand-painted reproductions in oil on canvas by Van Gogh Studio are 100% legal as Van Gogh died more than 70 years ago.
Using a person's image for commercial purposes could expose you to a potential legal action for defamation and for 'passing off'. 'Passing off' means that an infringement of the law would take place if it could be inferred from your artwork that a link existed between you and another person when this was not the case.
The Starry Night painting has been highly esteemed for decades and its value has reached $100 million, following its $50 million sale in 1990. The painting has fetched high prices in the past, with numerous auction house sales reaching millions of dollars.
It has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City since 1941, acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest. Widely regarded as Van Gogh's magnum opus, The Starry Night is one of the most recognizable paintings in Western art.
Are Van Gogh paintings copyrighted? Van Gogh's paintings are not copyrighted now because the artist has been dead for more than 70 years. This means that Van Gogh's paintings are now a part of the public domain.
In 1962, through the Kingdom of the Netherlands, he transferred control of the entire collection (the paintings, drawings and letters) to the Vincent van Gogh Foundation. In return, the State arranged for the Van Gogh Museum to be built, helping to ensure that the collection remains accessible to everyone, forever.
Starry☆Sky (スターリースカイ, Sutārī Sukai) is a series of Japanese otome game visual novels created and developed by the software game company Honeybee.
The Starry Night has never been stolen. It was inherited by Theo van Gogh, Vincent's brother and art dealer, following the artist's death in 1890. After Theo's death, his wife inherited the painting. It was held in private collections until acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 1941.
Portrait of Dr Paul Gachet (1890): $152 Million
Sold in 1990 for a whopping $83 million, Portrait of Dr Paul Gachet, painted in 1890, is the most expensive Van Gogh painting.
“An artist may make a work of art that includes a recognizable likeness of a person without her or his written consent and sell at least a limited number of copies thereof without violating” his or her right of publicity, the court found.
As long as you are not selling them for commercial purposes (e.g. used for advertising a product or service in a brochure, magazine ad, television commercial, etc.), you are free to sell such images. This too is one of the legal issues most people struggle with, since it may seem “unfair”. And yet it is the law.
Who Holds the Copyright? The creator of the photograph, i.e. the photographer, usually holds the copyright to the photo and unless they've expressly given permission for its use, making a painting based on a photo would infringe the photographer's copyright.
Today, some of the world's most revered artworks are in the public domain, freely available for copying and distribution for monetary gain. For example, Vincent Van Gogh, born March 30, 1853, in Zundert, Netherlands, painted The Starry Night in June 1889.
You cannot reproduce a contemporary work of art (one whose author died less than 70 years ago, such as Marcel Duchamp, Picasso or Andy Warhol) to turn it into a digital artwork without consent of the rightholder (copyright licence), because this work is still copyrighted.
The author died in 1890, so this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.
Unlike other bucket-list paintings — at the Louvre in Paris, the Mona Lisa is sequestered behind a wooden banister; at the Uffizi in Florence, Botticelli's “Birth of Venus” sits in a recessed niche — “Starry Night” hangs right on the wall, with no special protection except some nonreflective glass.
Ambivalent about working from his imagination, van Gogh eventually regarded the finished Starry Night as a failure, and Theo frankly indicated that the painting favoured style over substance. The painting was one of van Gogh's late works, as he committed suicide the following year.
Throughout six centuries, the Ghent Altarpiece, also called “The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb,” has been burned, forged, and raided in three different wars. It is, in fact, the world's most stolen artwork— and is considered one of the most influential paintings ever made. What exactly makes the piece so special?
The Starry Night symbolizes Van Gogh's deteriorating mental state. It also symbolizes his connection to nature and his interest in traveling to the stars through death.
In one letter to his brother Theo, he wrote, “But the sight of the stars always makes me dream… Why, I say to myself, should the spots of light in the firmament be less accessible to us than the black spots on the map of France?
Van Gogh died in 1890 so his work is in the public domain and the images can be copied by anyone. However claiming to potential buyers that your paintings were done by Van Gogh is fraudulent.
Portrait of Dr Paul Gachet still holds the record for the most expensive Van Gogh, although it sold as long ago as 1990. At Christie's it fetched $83m, then the highest auction price for a work by any artist. With inflation, it would be equivalent to $180m today.
You can replicate a van Gogh painting to perfection and sell it legally as long as you have not replicated his signature and sold it as genuine.