Talk:New York City (painting)

binky barnes

in the north american animated television series for children arthur, an anthropomorphic bulldog named binky barnes points out that a painting at a local art museum, which emulates the style of piet mondrian, was displayed sideways. (a summary of the episode can be found here on fandom.) i am refraining from mentioning this in the article as i cannot find a reliable source connecting this to the discovery that new york city i (1941) is exhibited upside-down and do not wish to violate wp:synth. however, i am mentioning it here in case the connection is eventually made in a reliable source. dying (talk) 01:14, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cielquiparle (talk) 21:23, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

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New York City I (1941), upside down

• ... that after one of Piet Mondrian's paintings (shown) was discovered to have been hanging upside down for decades, the museum left it as is? Source: https://archive.today/20221029042826/https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/oct/28/mondrian-painting-has-been-hanging-upside-down-for-75-years
  • Reviewed: Beryl Benacerraf
  • Comment: i expanded the standard dyk image template to use the main page image template directly in order to get the desired transformation. please let me know if this is not allowed, or if the transformation is ignored by your browser.

additional confusing details: note that both the image and the caption have been transformed. furthermore, the full-sized image appears to be of the painting as displayed (upside down), but it was rotated a week ago to display the painting right-side up, and then reverted back to its original orientation some days later. i was fiddling with the dyk code earlier to see if it was possible to display the thumbnail upside down, and presumably created a cache of the thumbnail when the full-sized image was still displaying the painting in its correct orientation. i do not know how to manually clear the cached thumbnail, but have written the caption as if it has already been cleared.

Created by dying (talk). Self-nominated at 23:45, 6 November 2022 (UTC). [updated as cached thumbnail has now been purged. dying (talk) 03:08, 16 November 2022 (UTC)]

• @Dying: New and long enough, QPQ done, Earwig finds no copyvios, hook checks out and is interesting. The image inversion is clever, however according to the Commons page, the painting is not in the public domain in the U.S., which I think makes it ineligible for the Main Page. (I wonder if a case could be made that it is actually commons:Template:PD-shape?) FWIW, the image appears right-way-up to me, with the "thicker" grid at the top. The article itself is within policy, but the first sentence is confusing since the name "New York City I" is apparently being applied to both paintings. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 03:26, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
  • oh, that's interesting, Antony-22. the not-pd-us-uraa template was added after i had created the article, by Hekerui, a commons administrator, to a photo of a painting different than the one shown in the hook. note that the painting shown in the proposed hook is new york city i (1941), an unfinished painting, as seen on commons here, while the photo tagged with the not-pd-us-uraa template shows new york city (1942), a finished painting, also formerly known as new york city i.
    i actually did a bit of research on this before creating the article, and had believed that both new york city i (1941) and new york city (1942) were in the public domain in the united states, even though not all of mondrian's works are. however, as i am not a copyright lawyer and don't have much experience in the area, i could easily have overlooked something, so it may be better to ask why the photo was tagged rather than subject you to my questionable ramblings on copyright law.
    by the way, i finally figured out how to purge the thumbnail! for future reference, i used the button on this page. the html in the dyk hook appears to use one of three thumbnails, with a width of either 137, 206, or 274 pixels, and only the first was problematic, so you may have seen one of the other two.
    anyway, Hekerui, would you mind explaining to me why the not-pd-us-uraa template applies to new york city (1942)? dying (talk) 03:08, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi, being an admin doesn't mean I have the truth but I have checked the policies. For the US I use the Hirtle chart as guidance. First, the work entered the public domain in the EU in 2015 due to the death of the author in 1944. I saw no evidence on the medium page that the painting is in the public domain in the United States, hence the template. Works (not sound recordings) published 95 years ago automatically qualify but this is not the case because this work is from 1941. Per the nice article it was was first exhibited in 1945 or 1946 in the United States. Was it published with a copyright notice or subsequent registration that was or wasn't renewed? As long as this is not known there is doubt that the work is in the public domain. For clarity one could research whether it had a notice when first exhibited or check the Catalog of Copyright Entries to exclude the possibility of copyright registration/registration renewal. You stated you did research, a good source on the copyright status would be welcome. If research shows no notice (or information on notice) or entry/renewal then due dilligence would have been done in my opinion. Hekerui (talk) 19:53, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

A reasonable question would be why I have not nominated the medium for deletion: Policy states that US copyright is essential and there is also a precautionary principle. I have actually been preparing a request for comments to clarify this issue because a lot of files on the Commons (much clearer cases than this) are hosted despite lack of evidence of US public domain status. While this is not done I marked the file. Hekerui (talk) 20:01, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

no worries, Hekerui, i don't expect all administrators to always know the truth, though i generally assume that all commons administrators are more experienced with copyright issues than i am, and your response clearly supports that assumption.

the new york times happens to have written an article that focuses on the copyright status of mondrian's works, in which it asserts that the uraa "extends to 95 years copyrights for images 'by foreign artists created and first reproduced and published in another country between 1923 and 1978.'". the article also addresses the specific example of victory boogie woogie, an unfinished painting that, like the unfinished new york city i (1941), mondrian had worked on while he lived in new york city. the article notes that madalena holtzman, trustee of the mondrian/holtzman trust (which deals with the copyrights of mondrian's works), states that victory boogie woogie is not covered by the uraa because it was first reproduced in the united states, so the work is not subject to fees under u.s. copyright laws.

i am not an art historian, so i don't know what would be a definitive source for the history of mondrian's works, but the netherlands institute for art history appears to have a good online database of information regarding the paintings in question. their entries on new york city i (1941), new york city (1942), and victory boogie woogie seem to show that they all have similar histories, so it would be rather unusual if victory boogie woogie was considered public domain in the united states while the other two were not. in addition, hyperallergic, an online art magazine based in new york city, explicitly uses new york city (1942) in its article about public domain day in 2015.

admittedly, i think it would be pretty difficult for me to figure out how to "research whether it had a notice when first exhibited", but i had not even considered looking through the catalog of copyright entries, so i appreciate the suggestion. looking through the online copyright catalog, which includes entries going back to 1978, i was unable to find either new york city i (1941) or new york city (1942), so i am assuming that, if a copyright had ever been registered, it would have expired by now. of course, it is possible that these works had their copyrights renewed and i am simply incompetent at searching the copyright database, but i also found an entry for a "Notice of intent to enforce a copyright restored under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act" apparently filed in 1996 by or on behalf of elizabeth holtzman, mother of madalena holtzman. the provided list of 822 paintings includes neither new york city i (1941) nor new york city (1942), so i assume that the uraa does not apply to either of them.

is this sufficient due diligence? dying (talk) 22:26, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

A good article in the NYT! The conclusion in the article about Uruguay Round Agreements Act is that it US law applies, it is not a non-US works whose copyright was restored. Hyperallergic published the picture either assuming a EU copyright duration expiration applies, which does not make sense for a work from that time and source, or knowing what you found in the copyright database, which is that this work was not included in renewal. I felt free to add a new template on the Commons, linking this discussion on the talk page, because it is sufficient research in my opinion. Hekerui (talk) 20:59, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

thanks, Hekerui! Antony-22, are there any further issues to address? note that i have since added "that" and "(shown)" to the hook, which i somehow missed during my initial nomination. dying (talk) 05:06, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Based on Hekerui's approval of the image copyright status, this is good to go. Again, I recommend using the clever image presentation. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 10:36, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Any chance we could save this for April Fools' Day? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 00:41, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

haha, good idea, theleekycauldron! i'm not in a rush to get this posted, so would be happy to have it featured then. dying (talk) 15:42, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

excellent, moved! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 20:58, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Just a note to say top marks for today's DYK for April Fools' Day, complete with ʇxǝʇ uʍop-ǝpᴉsdn. Wikipedia needs more of you guys! Cnbrb (talk) 16:36, 1 April 2023 (UTC)