Photographer wins copyright battle in lawsuit against Andy Warhol Foundation

It's a David vs. Goliath battle.

On Friday March 26, photographer Lynn Goldsmith emerged as the winner of the appeal against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

A legal fight started in 2017, when the latter accused the pop art pope of having used one of his photographs for a series of works on the singer Prince.

The foundation responded with the attack by suing Lynn Goldsmith to "

protect the work and legacy

" of the artist.

Read also: Andy Warhol, a paper tiger

This new decision thus overturns the first verdict pronounced in favor of Andy Warhol, in 2019, by the court of the Southern District of New York.

The US Court of Appeal ruled: “

We find that the district court erred in its assessment and that the works in question are not considered fair dealing in law.

"And to add:"

We also conclude that [the works] are substantially similar to the photography of the goldsmith in law

", reports the

Associatif Press

.

As such, Lynn Goldsmith said she was very grateful for the result, the result of a four-year struggle.

“

I fought in this lawsuit to protect not only my own rights, but also the rights of all photographers and visual artists to make a living by licensing their creative work,

” she said.

"

Prince Series

"

In December 1981, the photographer and rock musician captured the angelic portrait of Prince.

A snapshot that

Vanity Fair

magazine

had bought for $ 400 a few years later, asking the American painter to rework the photo for an article in honor of the singer, entitled "

Purple Fame

".

As usual, Andy Warhol had mistreated the shot, saturating it, contrasting it, coloring it red and purple.

A few years later, he created a series of 16 other works, containing twelve screen-printed paintings, two screen prints on paper and two drawings, called

Prince Series

, based on the original photograph.

A project that Lynn Goldsmith claims to have discovered in 2016, almost 30 years later, on the occasion of Prince's death and the publication of a special issue by the publishing house of

Vanity Fair

, Condé Nast, presenting the image of Warhol and giving the photographer no credit.

To read also: Andy Warhol: twenty original works sold for less than 1000 euros

Foundation lawyer Luke Nikas defended himself: “

Although Warhol often used photographs taken by others as inspiration for his portraits, Warhol's works were entirely new creations.

"And to add:

" As it would be obvious to any reasonable observer, that each portrait of the Prince series of Warhol has fundamentally transformed the visual aesthetic

", specifying that his clients would challenge this second verdict.

For his part, defense lawyer Barry Werbin was pleased, explaining that

“the decision helped to assert the rights of photographers, who risk seeing their works diverted for commercial purposes by famous artists under the guise of fair use

”.