This past April, visitors to the AIPAD Photography Show in New York encountered an unexpected reimagining of one of the most celebrated photographs in American history.
Photographs by Ansel Adams, including his iconic Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941), were exhibited and offered for sale in colourized form. Created using artificial intelligence and presented by veteran gallerist James Danziger, the works reportedly sold for between $6,000 and $10,000 USD each.
To understand the controversy, one must begin with a visual analysis.
First captured by Adams in 1941, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico depicts a small New Mexican village beneath a dramatic sky and distant mountain range. The photograph is quintessentially Adams: stark, atmospheric, and rendered in deep blacks, luminous whites, and an extraordinary range of greys. A bright moon hangs above the landscape while sunlight catches the crosses of a cemetery below. The image is both monumental and restrained, transforming the ordinary into something mythical.
The AI-colourized version represents a marked departure from the original. Shades of blue fill the sky, warm oranges, and yellows appear along the horizon, and the buildings and surrounding landscape acquire colour, texture, and visual detail absent from the monochrome original. Whether this piece is viewed as an act of restoration or alteration, it certainty conveys a different emotion from Adams’ original black-and-white photograph.
The reaction to the latter work was immediate and polarizing. Critics described the project as a distortion of Adams’ artistic vision and an affront to the integrity of the original work. Others viewed it as a legitimate exercise in technological experimentation, one capable of introducing Adams’ work to new audiences.
Yet the most interesting question raised by the controversy is not whether artificial intelligence should be used to colourize historic photographs. It is who gets to speak for an artist after the artist is gone.
Adams died in 1984. More than forty years later, however, his voice continues to be heard through the actions of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust (the“Trust”), which is administered by members of his family and charged with preserving and promoting his artistic legacy. The Trust has publicly opposed unauthorized uses of Adams’ work and remains an active participant in shaping how his oeuvre is presented to the public.
This is where artist estates diverge from ordinary estates.
Most estates are administered, distributed, and eventually fade into history. Artist estates are different. They may continue for decades, sometimes generations, managing intellectual property rights, authenticating works, supervising exhibitions, controlling reproductions, and making decisions that influence how future audiences understand the artist’s life and work. In many respects, an artist’s estate does not merely inherit assets. It inherits identity.
“Legacy Management.”
In a traditional estate administration, the estate is “wound up”. Assets are collected, debts and taxes are paid, and the residue is distributed amongst beneficiaries. Once the estate is administered, the estate largely disappears from view.
Conversely, artists do not necessarily die when they shed their mortal coil. They continue to live through their work. Paintings remain on museum walls, songs continue to be streamed, negatives are developed into photographs, and new generations encounter the artist long after their death. As a result, artist estates often assume a different character from ordinary estates. Their responsibilities extend beyond the familiar tasks of collecting assets, paying liabilities, and distributing inheritances. The administration of an artist’s estate may not have a definitive end date. Instead, they are frequently required to act as stewards of a continuing artistic legacy.
The scale of these responsibilities has led many artist estates to evolve into sophisticated institutions in their own right. Foundations, trusts, and dedicated legacy-management organizations have emerged around the estates of legends such as Picasso, Sinatra, Hendrix, Warhol, Prince, Basquiat, and Marilyn Monroe. While each adopts a different governance model and pursues different objectives, they are united by a common mission: preserving an artistic legacy that continues long after the artist’s death.
The powers exercised by artist estates are correspondingly broad. They may develop catalogue raisonnés, authenticate works, enter licensing agreements, organize exhibitions, preserve collections, support scholarship, and shape public narratives surrounding the artist and their work. Yet these powers are ultimately tools, rather than ends in themselves.
Increasingly, artist estates function as custodians of reputation, authenticity, and artistic intent long after the traditional administration of the estate has concluded. Their role is not merely to manage assets, but to act as interpreters, guardians, and occasionally arbiters of the artist’s place in history.
An Immortal Conflict
The significance of this role becomes most apparent when disputes arise. Some of the most consequential controversies in the art world are, at their core, disputes about legacy: who controls it, who may reinterpret it, and who has the authority to speak on behalf of an artist who can no longer speak for themselves. The estates of Mark Rothko, Robert Indiana, and Francis Bacon each illustrate a different dimension of that role.
Rothkowitz, Estate of Marcus Yakovlevich
Few disputes better illustrate the unique challenges of administering an artist’s estate than the litigation surrounding the estate of Mark Rothko.
Rothko, the renowned Abstract Expressionist celebrated for his colour field paintings, died in 1970. Under his will, the bulk of his estate was destined for the Mark Rothko Foundation. To administer his affairs, he appointed three trusted friends as executors. What followed became one of the most infamous estate disputes in art history.
Within 3 months of Rothko’s death, hundreds of paintings were transferred pursuant to contractual agreements with the Marlborough Gallery. The transactions were subsequently challenged on the basis that the executors had significant financial ties to the gallery itself. The paintings, estimated to be worth approximately USD 15 million at the time of trial, were sold under arrangements that were ultimately found to be highly disadvantageous to the estate.
Estate litigators will immediately recognize familiar allegations: conflicts of interest, self-dealing, and breaches of fiduciary duty. Yet what makes Rothko different from an ordinary succession dispute is the nature of the asset being protected. The paintings were not merely assets awaiting liquidation. They constituted a cultural legacy that would continue to influence museums, collectors, scholars, and the public long after the estate administration had concluded.
The deceased’s daughter, Kate Rothko, challenged the transactions and pursued litigation that ultimately resulted in the removal of the three executors, substantial damages owed by both the fiduciaries and the gallery, and the recovery of significant value for the estate. Without her efforts, the trajectory of Rothko’s legacy may have been very different.
The controversy raises a question seldom encountered in ordinary estate administration: does a fiduciary owe duties only to beneficiaries, or does that fiduciary also owe obligations to the artistic legacy entrusted to them? The Rothko dispute suggests that the two may be impossible to separate. Stewardship of an artist’s legacy may be every bit as important as stewardship of the artist’s works.
Indiana, Estate of Robert Clark
Robert Indiana, one of the leading figures of American Pop Art and creator of the iconic LOVE image, spent his final years in isolation in Maine. Following his death in 2018, a complex series of disputes emerged involving the beneficiary (The Star of Hope Foundation), representatives holding his IP rights (Morgan Art Foundation), his caretaker (Jamie Thomas), and his publisher (Michael McKenzie).
The Indiana litigation was sprawling. Claims ranged from allegations concerning exploitation and undue influence to disputes over copyrights, trademarks, licensing arrangements, and the authenticity of works attributed to the deceased. However, beneath the complexity of the various claims, the parties were all essentially competing for control of Indiana’s legacy.
One of the more prominent resolutions was a settlement between the artist’s estate and Morgan Art Foundation. The settlement did not merely resolve the long litigation, but it established a structure/mechanism for Indiana’s work to be preserved and exhibited in a museum in Maine. Most recently, a 2026 verdict in Morgan Art Foundation’s favour against McKenzie for forged or unauthorized pieces. The Foundation’s lawyers explicitly framed this verdict as restoring trust in the Indiana market and preserving the artists’ legacy.
Through subsequent settlements, the estate was instrumental in constructing a framework for preserving Indiana’s artistic legacy. In doing so, it performed a role far broader than ordinary estate administration. Rather than simply collecting assets and distributing them to beneficiaries, the estate became a protector of reputation, a manager of intellectual property, a gatekeeper for authenticity, and an arbiter of who could legitimately invoke Indiana’s name and work.
Bacon, Estate of Francis
The estate of Francis Bacon reveals perhaps the most extraordinary power artist estates can assert: the power to determine authenticity.
Bacon, the Irish-born British painter renowned for his visceral and psychologically unsettling depictions of the human condition, left behind not only an internationally celebrated body of work but also an enduring question common to many major artists: what constitutes a real Bacon?
In an ordinary estate, an executor identifies assets held by the deceased. In an artist’s estate, the executor may effectively determine what assets were created by the deceased, even if said asset was not owned by the deceased at the time of their death. The implications are profound. Inclusion in a catalogue raisonné can transform a canvas into a multimillion-pound painting. Exclusion can render it commercially worthless. In practical terms, a determination regarding authenticity can mean the difference between an object worth thousands and one worth millions.
Following the deaths of both Bacon and his heir, John Edwards, the estate and its successor institutions responsible for managing the artist’s legacy assumed responsibility for a broad range of academic and corporate functions. These included supporting research, publications, and exhibitions. Most significantly though was the estate’s implementation of the Authentication Committee and the development of the definitive catalogue raisonné of Bacon’s works.
The dispute surrounding the so-called Barry Joule archive illustrates the estate’s role in authentication. Joule, the deceased’s handyman, claimed that the artist had gifted him a substantial body of sketches, preparatory materials, and related works. Joule gifted this body of work to the Tate, which agreed to exhibit it. Questions regarding authenticity followed – the estate determined that the works were not, in fact, real Bacons. The Tate ultimately returned the works back to Joule.
For collectors, museums, dealers, and scholars, the Joule incident was a cautionary tale: the estate’s Authentication Committee possesses the authority of determining authenticity. The publication of Bacon’s catalogue raisonné in 2016 effectively brought that authority to its culmination. Works included within the catalogue became recognized components of the artist’s oeuvre. Works omitted from it faced a far more uncertain future. The estate’s authentication processes eventually ceased, but the catalogue itself remains the definitive reference point. That is a responsibility rarely encountered in ordinary estate administration. The task is not simply to preserve wealth – it is to preserve identity.
The Next Problem
The disputes surrounding Rothko, Indiana, and Bacon demonstrate that artist estates occupy a unique position at the intersection of law and culture. They are not merely responsible for administering assets – they are also responsible for influencing how history remembers the deceased. Which brings us back to Ansel Adams.
More than forty years after his death, Adams is in the middle of a debate he never could have anticipated. The controversy surrounding AI-colourized versions of Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico is not fundamentally a dispute about technology. It is a dispute about legacy. It is a dispute about who has the authority to determine how an artist’s work should be presented, interpreted, and reimagined after the artist is gone.
The loudest voice in that debate does not belong to Adams himself. It belongs to the Trust and, in particular, to his grandson, Matthew Adams, who has assumed the responsibility of safeguarding the photographer’s legacy. This is also not the first time the Trust has stepped up to this role – it engaged in litigation in 1989 and 2010 to protect the integrity of Adams’ work.
The debate also highlights an important difference in how jurisdictions protect an artist’s legacy after death. In the United States, the Trust’s objections are likely to rest principally on copyright, trademark and stewardship, as an artist’s moral rights generally do not survive the author. Elsewhere, however, artist estates may have another tool at their disposal. In the United Kingdom, moral rights continue for 70 years after death, while in France they endure in perpetuity, preserving an artist’s identity and the integrity of their work long after they are gone. Whether the AI-colourized version of Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico would amount to a derogatory treatment of the photograph in those jurisdictions is an intriguing question, and one that may become increasingly important as generative AI continues to evolve.
To date, the Trust has taken a clear position against the colourized images. Others disagree. But perhaps the more interesting question is not whether either side is right. It is whether future artist estates will increasingly be asked to answer questions that their creators never contemplated during their lifetime. The Trust may be confronting something that other artist estates never have: if technology allows works to be altered or recreated in ways unimaginable by the artist, where does stewardship end and reinterpretation begin?
Boris Eng
Pierre Valentin