Adding a famous person's portrait to portfolio

I've heard it is a good idea to include a famous person's portrait in my portfolio. I certainly cannot paint one from memory, the only way I could do it would be from a photograph. What copyright issues would I run into painting a portrait from someone's photograph? (Although I do photography, the opportunity to take this kind of picture doesn't present itself everyday).

Dj

I am responding to my own post. I just read the other posts on the subject and now have the answer. (I think) It appears doing this from a someone else's photograph is plagarism. I expected this, although I'm not sure how it is legally handled if you do not offer the portrait for sale. I do believe it could be of benefit to have one in a portfolio as no matter how many portraits I have done, if my prospective customer doesn't know any of the people, they don't really know how well the portrait resembles the real person. With a celeb, they know how they look and could get (in my opinion) a better idea of skill level. (Just my thoughts on the subject).

Thanks,
Dj

[Karin Wells]

Just a thought, but what if you went way back in time and painted, say, George Washington? There wouldn't be any copyright problems, everyone (thinks they) know what he looks like...

And, who knows, some history buff might buy it...

What a great idea! I hadn't thought of that. I can think of several people similar in popularity to George Washington that would suffice also.
And I am not at all opposed to selling a painting.

Thanks!
Dj

[Lon Haverly]

In thirty years of professional drawing, I have drawn hundreds of stars for customers from magazines, etc. I have never been sued. (Perhaps the portraits were so bad that they were not recognizable! Hah!) I would not hesitate to use a movie star's likeness in a portfolio, copyright or no.

Thank you for that information! (I don't believe that they weren't recognized!) I would love to paint a portrait of Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge. There were so many great shots in the film. I just haven't figured out how to get the film to sit still long enough to get it done! Pauses only last so long. Not sure of copyrights in this scenario, since it would actually be from the film and not a photograph, and I bought the movie. It would be 'sorta' orginal. I suppose the copyright at the beginning of the movie would cover even that kind of duplication, but as you pointed out, would anyone really go to the trouble if you only do it for a portfolio.

I have been asked to do the pictures for a children's book that has a castle in it and I'm faced with the same problem. I don't have a picture of a castle; there aren't any in my area, and they couldn't be reproduced even if there were any. How do you handle this? I've seen lots of portraits with recognizable buildings in background, surely the portrait artists are going to every building to get permission to paint them. What are the rules here? As a photographer, I've always been confused by the rules, supposedly if I photograph anyone, I need permission from that person, and yet famous people are photographed all the time without their permission. Is this the rule that says, anything that is done in public is OK to reproduce? Sorry for all the questions, just want to keep it legal.

Dj

[Cynthia Daniel]

Devon,

I can't give you legal advice on copyrights, but there a a number of high quality stock image sites on the web where you can get images. An example is the search I did at Eyewire.com on castles in the category of photography:

http://www.eyewire.com/cgi-bin/WebOb...=6&search.y=10

These images use rights can be purchased for a nominal fee. The final version you receive is much larger than what is shown on the page. I've always gone with the low resolution version and it's been more than enough.

There are many others, but Eyewire.com and the two below are some of the best.

PhotoDisc.com

GettyImages.com

Be sure to look for royalty free images. Those that are royalty images carry an ongoing charge.

Thank You! I have used royalty free pics in the past, but for web site development and for some reason had not thought of using them for anything else. Great idea!

And thank you for the websites!
Dj