Is it public domain? A work-specific guide to 16 artists

The short answer

An artist is not “public domain” as a person. A particular work can be public domain in a particular country on a particular date. The photograph, scan, restoration, or download used to reproduce that work is a separate decision.

The table below answers one limited question: when did the ordinary author-based term end in Türkiye and the European Union? The final-column links identify a named work and provider record from which review can begin; the link alone does not establish US publication or permission to reuse the file. This is general information, not legal advice.

What the table does and does not show

Türkiye’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism describes the ordinary economic-rights term as the author’s life plus 70 years, calculated from the first day of the year after death. Directive 2006/116/EC, Article 1 gives the same ordinary term in the European Union.

Those rules answer an author-term question. They do not by themselves answer whether an old work was published in the United States, whether a special category applies, whether attribution is correct, or whether a particular file may be downloaded and reused under its provider’s current terms.

Sixteen names, one limited comparison

“Ordinary term ended” means only that the life-plus-70 calculation has run. “Named work/file starting point” identifies the linked object and provider record; it is neither a US publication finding nor a verdict for the artist’s output.

Artist	Death	Ordinary Türkiye/EU term	Named work/file starting point — not a US result
Leonardo da Vinci	1519	from 1 Jan 1590	Ginevra de’ Benci — NGA
Vincent van Gogh	1890	from 1 Jan 1961	The Bedroom — AIC
Georges Seurat	1891	from 1 Jan 1962	A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 — AIC
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec	1901	from 1 Jan 1972	Moulin Rouge: La Goulue — The Met
Paul Cézanne	1906	from 1 Jan 1977	Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct — The Met
Edgar Degas	1917	from 1 Jan 1988	The Dance Class — The Met
Gustav Klimt	1918	from 1 Jan 1989	The Kiss, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Death and Life
Pierre-Auguste Renoir	1919	from 1 Jan 1990	A Girl with a Watering Can — NGA
Amedeo Modigliani	1920	from 1 Jan 1991	Jeanne Hébuterne — The Met
Claude Monet	1926	from 1 Jan 1997	Woman with a Parasol — NGA
Alphonse Mucha	1939	from 1 Jan 2010	Job, 1898 — Library of Congress
Leonetto Cappiello	1942	from 1 Jan 2013	Chocolat Klaus, 1903 — Library of Congress
Ohara Koson	1945	from 1 Jan 2016	Cockatoo with Pomegranate, 1927 — Rijksmuseum
Hiroshi Yoshida	1950	from 1 Jan 2021	No US or exact-file result in this overview
Henri Matisse	1954	from 1 Jan 2025	No US or exact-file result in this overview
Kawase Hasui	1957	not yet; ordinary term runs through 2027	No US or exact-file result in this overview

Why any United States result stays work-specific

The US Copyright Office’s Circular 15A separates works by when and how federal protection was secured. 17 U.S.C. §303 gives a separate transition rule for certain works created before 1978 that had not been published or copyrighted by then. The artist’s death year cannot replace that history.

Publication is also a legal term, not a synonym for “painted,” “sold,” or “shown.” The Copyright Office states that public display by itself does not constitute publication. A dated poster printed and distributed in copies can offer strong publication evidence; a painting known from an exhibition date may still need more.

In 2026, a work proved to have been published by the end of 1930 is outside the longest 95-year publication term described in Circular 15A. That moving cutoff is useful only after the publication fact has been established.

The file is a separate decision

The European Union’s DSM Directive 2019/790, Article 14 addresses non-original reproductions after the visual artwork’s term has expired. In the United States, the Copyright Office’s Compendium, section 909.3(A) says a merely faithful scan or “slavish copy” lacks the authorship required for registration.

Neither source means every download is interchangeable. A creative photograph, restoration, new edition, crop, composite, website contract, access rule, trademark, or moral-rights issue can require a separate check. Save the exact object page, exact file URL or identifier, displayed rights statement, review date, and every local transformation.

Sources and review date

This comparison was reviewed on 22 August 2026. Its baseline sources are the Turkish Ministry page, the EU term directive, the EU DSM directive, US Copyright Office Circular 15A, sections 101 and 303 of Title 17, and the item-level institutional records linked in the table. If a provider replaces a file or changes its terms, re-check that file before a new use.