Is Félix Vallotton Public Domain? A Print Guide

Yes for the twelve historical Vallotton print designs checked here, in the EU, UK, Türkiye, and United States. AIC provides the selected museum files under CC0. This answer covers those published designs and files—not every later alteration or image found online.

Félix Vallotton died in 1925. His established work is beyond the ordinary economic-rights terms in those life-plus-70 markets. The U.S. result rests on the documented nineteenth-century publication of the designs. That is not a claim that every physical sheet shown here was printed in the same year.

The short answer

All twelve examples come from the Art Institute of Chicago. They include woodcuts from Intimacies and other projects, plus two zincographs, prints made using a zinc surface. Each sheet has its own accession number and museum page. AIC gives the selected image files its CC0 Public Domain Designation.

Use those museum records to identify the image you want, then read the publication and reuse note. A later sheet can reproduce an already public-domain design without creating a new copyright in it. A recut with new creative changes, a modern interpretation, or a photograph from another provider needs its own check.

Copyright in the EU, UK, and Türkiye

The EU term directive, UK government guidance, and Article 27 of Türkiye’s Law No. 5846 use ordinary life-plus-70 terms. Vallotton’s 1925 death places his established work beyond those periods.

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

This does not resolve moral rights, object ownership, access restrictions, trademarks, or creative modern restoration.

What the early publications establish

Applying the U.S. Copyright Office’s maximum 95-year published-work term to 2026 places works published before 1931 beyond that term. This requires a publication event, such as an issued portfolio or a dated reproduction—not just a museum’s creation date.

For The Alarm, the Bibliothèque nationale de France’s print record supplies the missing link: publication catalogued as [1895], an edition of approximately 100 impressions, and catalogue number Vallotton–Goerg 166. The brackets mark a supplied catalogue date. AIC 1947.462 carries the same catalogue number. BnF separately describes posthumous printings. This supports early publication of the design without assigning AIC’s sheet to an edition that its record does not identify.

The other eleven designs have three identifiable publication anchors:

Selected designs	Publication evidence
Laziness, The Coffin Bearers, The Funeral, Print Fanciers	Reproductions in Meier-Graefe’s illustrated Vallotton catalogue, published in 1898
Five O’Clock, Money, The Other’s Health, The Lie, Getting Ready for a Visit	The Vallotton Foundation / SIK-ISEA identifies publication of Intimacies by La Revue blanche in November 1898
The Shower, Box Office	The same institutional catalogue records Louis Joly’s Paris intense portfolio in 1894; these are zincographs, not similarly titled woodcuts

These sources establish historical designs, not a universal printing date for the selected sheets. No materially altered recut, cancellation, or new contributor has been identified in these twelve records. That bounded finding supports this guide’s answer; it is not permission to substitute another edition without checking it.

Section 303 keeps unpublished material on another path. A private preparatory drawing cannot borrow the date of a related published woodcut. Conversely, printing an unchanged, already-published design again does not restart its copyright term. Look for a materially different design or a new creative contribution before treating a later edition as a new work.

What are a block, edition, and impression?

The block or matrix carries the cut design. An edition is the organised printing and distribution of sheets. An impression is one physical pull. A cancellation mark or recut can alter what later impressions show. Paper, ink, colour, inscriptions, and publisher can also differ.

Vallotton’s strong black shapes can make reproductions look deceptively interchangeable. Compare the museum accession number as well as the title. Five O’Clock, Money, The Other’s Health, The Lie, and Getting Ready for a Visit are individual Intimacies sheets, each with its own object history and image.

Is The Alarm public domain?

Yes for the historical design, with its 1895 publication documented by BnF, and for the selected AIC file under its CC0 terms. AIC identifies accession 1947.462 as a black woodcut on cream wove paper. Neither the paper description nor the 1895 design date proves exactly when this individual sheet was pulled; that remaining catalogue detail is not itself a new copyright in the unchanged design.

GeMarkt resized the source to 1280 pixels and converted it to WebP without cropping. A photograph in an exhibition catalogue, another impression, or a modern vector tracing is a different asset.

Check the museum image’s terms

The historical print and its modern image are separate questions. The UK IPO’s digital-image notice recommends checking the file as well as the depicted work. AIC’s Open Access policy supplies permission for the selected museum downloads linked here.

Download from the museum page and keep the rights statement with the file. If the link is missing or an image comes from an unidentified source, a visually similar search result cannot supply the missing permission.

Twelve prints to explore

The twelve illustrated records below connect the selected images to their museum pages. Compare the individual Intimacies sheets with The Alarm: in each, the balance of black and white carries much of the image. A tight crop or a traced outline can change those relationships, so describe any substantial alteration when reusing a print.

The cards’ CC0 statements describe AIC’s image files, not a blanket conclusion for every country. The notes identify the publication evidence for the underlying designs. A different painting, a materially changed edition, or a creative reworking needs its own history.

A practical Vallotton reuse checklist

1. Record the exact title, medium, date, institution, and accession.
2. Identify the block or matrix, edition, publisher, and physical impression where known.
3. Keep the design’s publication date separate from the date of the sheet; a later unchanged printing does not reset the design’s term.
4. Save the image’s download link and the provider’s current rights statement.
5. Document crop, colour, restoration, tracing, compositing, and format changes.
6. Check the copyright term in every country where you plan to use it.
7. Check attribution, moral rights, trademarks, access, contract, and endorsement separately.

Keep exploring

The museum links provide a starting point for finding the selected images. GeMarkt does not currently offer a Vallotton collection or download room.

For more on print culture around these works, read Posters and Art Nouveau. How to cite art and images explains how to credit the particular edition and file you reproduce.