Public Domain Review has released its annual list of the new crop of works entering the public domain, stating, "Due to differing copyright laws around the world, there is no one single public domain -- and here we focus on three of the most prominent. Newly entering the public domain in 2025 will be:
- works by people who died in 1954, for countries with a copyright term of "life plus 70 years" (e.g. UK, Russia, most of EU and South America);
- works by people who died in 1974, for countries with a term of "life plus 50 years" (e.g. New Zealand, and most of Africa and Asia);
- films and books (incl. artworks featured) published in 1929 for the United States.
" Starting, January 1, 2025, you can legally access, adapt, remix, and republish (depending on your jurisdiction) the work of Henri Matisse, Frida Kahlo, and Robert Capa, as well as certain texts by William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, and Ernest Hemingway, among others.
"In the United States, the copyright term surrounding commissioned works is 95 years, so films and books that were published in 1929 are up for grabs. The US also abides by the "life plus 70 years" term for individual works that are copyrighted; therefore, the protection for the work of any author or creator who died in 1954 has now expired."
Frida Kahlo (Wikipedia)
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artefacts of Mexico. Influenced by the country's popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society.
Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist.
She is also known for painting about her experience of chronic pain. Kahlo drew her main inspiration from Mexican folk culture, and painted mostly small self-portraits that mixed elements from pre-Columbian and Catholic beliefs.
Her work as an artist remained relatively unknown until the late 1970s, when her work was rediscovered by art historians and political activists. By the early 1990s, not only had she become a recognized figure in art history, but she was also regarded as an icon for Chicanos, the feminist movement, and the LGBTQ+ community.
Kahlo's work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and Indigenous traditions and by feminists for what is seen as its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.
Henri Matisse (Britannica)
Henri Matisse, (born Dec. 31, 1869, Le Cateau, Picardy, Fr.-- died Nov. 2, 1954, Nice), French painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. He was a law clerk when he became interested in art.
After study with Gustave Moreau at the École des Beaux-Arts, he exhibited four paintings at the Salon and scored a triumph when the government bought his Woman Reading (1895).
Self-confident and venturesome, he experimented with pointillism but eventually abandoned it in favour of the swirls of spontaneous brushwork and riots of colour that became known as Fauvism. Though his subjects were largely domestic and figurative, his works exhibit a distinctive Mediterranean verve.
He also took up sculpture and would produce some 60 pieces during his lifetime. The Armory Show exhibited 13 of his paintings. In 1917 he moved to the French Riviera, where his paintings became less daring but his output remained prodigious.
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