Copyright Aid

Hello,
I hope this is not too specific a question. I am wanting to reproduce some dog illustrations by two ladies from around the 1930's one being KF Barker (pardon the pun!) and Diana Thorne are they under copyright ? If anyone can help me about this I would be very grateful. Many thanks James

Hi Woodman,
What you need to do is establish the date of death (assuming both these artists have in fact died) and if the date of death is before 1939 then the works wil have been out of copyright since 1 Jan 1989 or earlier. However if the date of death was after 1938 then you need to add 70 years to the end of the year of death to discover when the works will come out of copyright protection.
If searching on the internet or elsewhere fails to reveal when these artists died, you could try contacting the Design and Artists Copyright Society, who maintain a database of a number of artists and whether their work is in copyright. Much will depend on how well known these artists were. If the works are still in copyright, DACS can explain what licensing options are available.
I hope this helps.