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Apologies that this is a bit long, but I need to supply the relevant information to give the fullest picture.
I am researching for a book about an artist who died in 1968 aged 86 – so his work is, I understand, still in copyright, although copyright and Artist’s Rights would have been the last thing he or his widow would have thought about. It appears he may have died intestate (I can find no probate records), or he may have left a simple ‘will’ leaving his few possessions to his widow. They had no offspring and were a devoted and secluded pair. Either way, his widow inherited, or simply took over everything, and carried on till she died in 1981, aged 89. They were old friends of my father’s, and I also knew them as a young man. When the widow died, she did leave a simple one-page will in which the named executors were my father and a solicitor friend. The net probate value was £31,992.39 (they owned a small cottage but little else). The relevant bequests made were:
I am working on my book with three of the five offspring of the artist’s niece beneficiary, and I will need permission to be granted to reproduce images of his work; however, I am not entirely sure if they do in fact own the copyright in view of the simplistic wording of the widow’s will. My queries would be (and I may well have missed other issues):
I am researching for a book about an artist who died in 1968 aged 86 – so his work is, I understand, still in copyright, although copyright and Artist’s Rights would have been the last thing he or his widow would have thought about. It appears he may have died intestate (I can find no probate records), or he may have left a simple ‘will’ leaving his few possessions to his widow. They had no offspring and were a devoted and secluded pair. Either way, his widow inherited, or simply took over everything, and carried on till she died in 1981, aged 89. They were old friends of my father’s, and I also knew them as a young man. When the widow died, she did leave a simple one-page will in which the named executors were my father and a solicitor friend. The net probate value was £31,992.39 (they owned a small cottage but little else). The relevant bequests made were:
- One named painting by her husband to my father
- Five named paintings by her husband (mainly depicting herself) to a [named] niece [her only brother’s eldest child out of five]
- ‘All the remainder of my pictures and my swing magnifying lamp’ to her late husband’s [named] niece [his younger sister’s daughter [who had other offspring too, I believe. The artist also had a younger brother, who had ca. five children, but little further information is known]
- ‘All the rest of my estate both real and personal whatsoever and wheresoever to my niece [the same as named previously above] for her own use and benefit absolutely’
I am working on my book with three of the five offspring of the artist’s niece beneficiary, and I will need permission to be granted to reproduce images of his work; however, I am not entirely sure if they do in fact own the copyright in view of the simplistic wording of the widow’s will. My queries would be (and I may well have missed other issues):
- Does the will in fact pass the copyright in her husband’s work to the widow’s niece, along with ‘the rest of my estate’?
- Does the passing of the artist’s assets in their entirety (in the first instance) to his widow bypass the rest of their generation in respect of any subsequent ‘claim’ to his estate (i.e. his younger brother and sister themselves, or those siblings’ other descendants apart from the named niece in the widow’s will)?
- I have absolutely no doubt that the intention of both the artist and his widow was for the remainder of his work to be retained within his own family – as it has been – and that anything else would be deemed completely wrong. I personally believe that the widow made this clear by leaving all the unspecified remainder of his paintings to the living relative closest (in affinity terms) to them at the time of her death – but my personal view, and indeed those of the artist’s niece’s children, presumably carry little actual weight in law.
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