Rights and image use

Every image carries more than one layer of rights, and all of them have to be cleared before it can be published.

1. The artwork copyright. The painting itself belongs to the artist or his estate. Under Malaysian law, copyright in an artistic work runs for the life of the author plus fifty years, so his paintings are protected.
2. The image or institution rights. The photograph or digital file of a work is usually held by the institution, gallery, auction house, or photographer that made it. The Art Gallery Penang, the Penang State Museum, and Bank Negara Malaysia all state all rights reserved on their reproductions, so a catalogue screenshot or a web thumbnail is not publishable.
3. The publication layer, for magazine scans. A scan such as the Reader's Digest feature of August 1981 adds a third layer: the magazine's own layout and article text, and, for the opening page, the separate rights of the portrait photographer.

No full-resolution image is shown until its row in the per-image rights log carries a clearance date. Until then, each work appears as a clearly labelled archival reference plate with its caption and rights status. This is deliberate, not a gap: the archive is publishable now and will show the real images the moment permission is logged.

Every reproduction carries a caption in this form:

Title, year, medium, height x width cm. Collection.

For example: Penang Scene, 1970, oil paint, 91 x 147 cm. Collection of Bank Negara Malaysia Museum and Art Gallery.