Is Edvard Munch Public Domain? Including The Scream

Munch’s established works are beyond ordinary life-plus-70 copyright in the EU, UK, and Türkiye. In the United States, the documented Scream lithograph is public domain, but the selected colour state of The Girls on the Bridge still needs publication evidence.

Edvard Munch died in 1944, so the ordinary life-plus-70 period ended in 2014. The museums release all twelve selected image files under CC0. That file permission and the publication history of the artwork are separate checks.

The short answer

Eleven examples come from the Art Institute of Chicago and one from the Cleveland Museum of Art. They include lithographs, woodcuts, an aquatint, and other prints made in editions. Each is identified by its museum accession number and linked to an image with a public-domain or CC0 Open Access label.

The selection is not a twelve-work U.S. clearance. Its open colour-state question is identified below, so you can distinguish the documented answer from the remaining limit.

Munch frequently revisited themes across paintings, drawings, pastels, prints, colour variants, and later impressions. A familiar title is a useful starting point, but it does not tell you which object you have found or which image you can reuse.

Copyright in the EU, UK, and Türkiye

The EU term directive, UK government guidance, and Article 27 of Türkiye’s Law No. 5846 provide ordinary life-plus-70 terms for artistic works. With Munch’s death in 1944, his established work is beyond those economic-rights terms.

Market checked	Ordinary rule applied	Result for Munch’s established work
European Union	author’s life plus 70 years	public domain from 1 January 2015
United Kingdom	70 years after the creator’s death	public domain
Türkiye	life plus 70 years for economic rights	public domain

The conclusion does not remove attribution, cultural-property, trademark, privacy, access, contract, or creative-restoration questions.

Why the U.S. answer is specific to these prints

Copyright Office Circular 15A ties many older U.S. terms to publication. Applying its maximum 95-year term in 2026 gives a boundary of publication before 1931. Gustav Schiefler’s 1907 catalogue documents eleven underlying designs in this selection, including The Scream, The Sick Child, and Evening, Melancholy. It does not establish the printing date of every later sheet. Merely printing an old published design again does not restart its copyright; a materially different creative addition needs its own analysis.

The remaining example needs more care. AIC’s record for The Girls on the Bridge, accession 1962.85, identifies Woll 628 III/III: a blue woodcut with lithographic yellow, green, orange, and blue. Its catalogue note says the impression described as Schiefler 488b has only yellow and red stones. The museum’s 1918 date does not resolve that difference. Until the selected colour state’s publication history is established, this guide leaves its U.S. reuse question open. The file’s CC0 label is not a substitute for that evidence.

Munch also made unique works. 17 U.S.C. §303 treats old unpublished works separately, including a possible term through 2047 for qualifying works first published between 1978 and 2002. An unissued drawing cannot borrow the publication date of a related print merely because both share a motif.

Is The Scream public domain?

Yes for the documented black lithographic design represented by AIC accession 1963.282, and the selected AIC image carries a CC0 Public Domain Designation. This 1895 lithographic version is public domain in the checked markets. It was created after the best-known 1893 painted composition; the museum record identifies the particular impression shown here.

That result does not automatically answer for the 1893 National Museum painting, the Munch Museum painting, either pastel, a different lithographic impression, a colour version, an auction photograph, or a modern poster. Those are separate objects and files.

Before downloading an image, compare the medium and accession number as carefully as the title. The black lithograph’s lines and printed lettering distinguish this object from the painted and pastel versions; its museum record identifies the particular impression.

A title is not a version

Munch used recurring titles such as The Kiss, Vampire, and The Sick Child. A catalogue record must identify medium, date, state or edition, impression, institution, and accession. Even two prints from the same matrix can have different inks, papers, hand-colouring, inscriptions, or file providers.

The distinction is visible in the examples below. AIC dates The Kiss IV to 1902, The Vampire II to 1895/1902, and The Girls on the Bridge to 1918. These catalogue dates identify the works; they do not establish when every physical sheet or colour variant was issued. None can be substituted for a painting with a related title.

Check the museum image’s terms

The artwork term and the digital file are different questions. AIC permits reuse of files carrying its CC0 designation; Cleveland releases eligible Open Access images under CC0. The UK IPO similarly warns users to check rights in the digital image, not only in the depicted work.

The images shown here were resized and converted to WebP without cropping. Their source links let you return to the museums’ originals. A screenshot, editorial photograph, or third-party restoration may have a different source and different terms, even when it shows the same work.

Twelve prints to explore

The twelve illustrated records below connect each print to its museum page and image terms. Look at how a recurring figure or setting changes with medium and colour. For reuse, those differences matter: you should be able to point to the particular version shown in your reproduction.

This selection is a starting point for working with documented images, rather than a complete survey of Munch’s art. All twelve file records are retained, including The Girls on the Bridge with its unresolved U.S. colour-state question.

A practical Munch reuse checklist

1. Name the exact version, medium, date, institution, and accession.
2. For a print, record state, colourway, issue, and physical impression where available.
3. Do not transfer a publication date from a print to a related painting or drawing.
4. Save the exact source-file URL and provider rights label.
5. Document crop, colour, restoration, compositing, and format changes.
6. Check the copyright term in every country where you plan to use it.
7. Check attribution, moral rights, trademark, cultural-property, access, and endorsement separately.

Keep exploring

The museum links lead to the selected works and their available images. GeMarkt does not currently offer a Munch collection or download room.

For the wider artistic context, read Post-Impressionisms. Public domain is not a free-for-all explains why a reusable image still needs a careful source and caption.