Frida Kahlo and Henri Matisse Enter the Public Domain

Works by Henri Matisse, Frida Kahlo, Robert Capa, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway and Mahatma Gandhi entered the public domain on January 1, 2025, depending on jurisdiction. Under the "life plus 70 years" term used in the UK and parts of Europe and South America, Matisse, Kahlo and Swedish sculptor Carl Eldh are now in the public domain, while in the US, works first published before 1978 are protected for 95 years from publication, so films and books from 1929 are included. The article notes that trademarks and the right to publicity can still restrict uses of Kahlo's name and likeness, as Laura Ricciardi, an art law instructor at SUNY Purchase, explained.