Frida Kahlo was an amazing person. Apart from recovering from polio when she was a child, and surviving a bus accident, she was also an amazing artist. Something new is happening with her paintings though, and it is quite revolutionary.
Frida Kahlo’s paintings are entering the public domain. Now what does that mean exactly? Well, public domain means that a person can use the work without needing to get permission, but they cannot own it, in other words, it belongs to everyone. You might be thinking, “How is it entering the public domain now, and how do things even enter the public domain?” Well those are great questions, and I’m here to answer them.
Why is Frida Kahlo’s work entering the public domain?
It’s not just Frida Kahlo, Matisse and Capa are also examples of people whose work is entering the public domain this year. Some of you might have noticed a pattern in these people: they all passed away in 1954. You might be starting to get it, it has something to do with the deaths of these artists, right? Well there’s a bit more to it than that.
How do works enter the public domain?
Things enter the public domain when their copyright expires. That can happen because an artist passes, or if the work is not subject to copyright protection. You might have even heard some of these books that lost their copyright: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, and A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway are only a fraction of amazing works that have entered the public domain recently.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed learning more about Frida Kahlo’s art!