Verified as of 1 October 2026. If you spot an error, write to me.
An artist may leave behind works, an archive that makes it possible to understand them and rights to exploit them. These are not the same thing, and they need not go to the same people. Putting them in order while you are alive stops the legacy from depending on whoever finds the boxes, knows a password or interprets a note without context.
Works, archive and rights
The works and materials that belonged to the artist form part of their estate. Their fate will depend on the will, the applicable succession regime and, where relevant, forced heirship rules and other legal limits.
The archive brings together everything that allows a career to be reconstructed and the works to be connected with their history: notebooks, sketches, photographs, correspondence, invoices, contracts, exhibition lists and digital files. These documents are also property, but their interest goes beyond their material value. Without order, dates and clear relationships, they lose much of their usefulness for research, attribution or preparing a catalogue raisonné.
Exploitation rights are independent of ownership of the originals. They can pass on death to the author's successors and, as a general rule, last for the author's lifetime and seventy years after their death or declaration of death. The count starts on 1 January of the following year. Whoever inherits a painting does not necessarily receive the right to reproduce or publish it.
The resale right on certain resales is also recognised for the author's successors after their death. Whether it applies depends on the specific requirements of each transaction.
Moral rights after death
Moral rights cannot be waived or assigned. After the author's death, the exercise of two of them follows a specific rule:
- recognition of authorship;
- respect for the integrity of the work.
The author may expressly entrust their exercise to a natural or legal person through a provision in their will. If they do not, it falls to their heirs. These two rights can be exercised without time limit.
The same designated person or body, or failing that the heirs, can decide for seventy years whether to release a work the author left unpublished. If none of those people exists or their whereabouts are unknown, the law gives standing to the State, the autonomous communities, local authorities and public cultural institutions.
This designation does not, on its own, transfer ownership of the works or all the exploitation rights. It allows functions to be separated: whoever receives the originals is not necessarily best placed to defend the authorship, the integrity or the meaning of the archive.
The digital archive and accounts
Websites, social media, email, cloud storage and other services raise problems of access as well as succession. Article 96 of Organic Law 3/2018 allows relatives, people with a de facto link to the deceased and heirs to approach service providers to access the deceased's content and give instructions on its use, destination or deletion. The executor and any person or institution expressly designated may also do so, in line with the instructions received.
There are limits. Access is not available where the deceased expressly forbade it or the law prevents it, although that prohibition does not stop the heirs from accessing content that forms part of the estate. Autonomous communities with their own civil law may apply specific rules. In addition, actual access depends on what content each service manages, on its procedures and on the rights of third parties present in emails, messages or shared files.
Cryptoassets and other digital assets with economic value need separate treatment. Their transfer is governed by the applicable succession rules, but without keys, devices, instructions and security measures it may be impossible to exercise real control. Do not put keys or recovery phrases directly into a will that may end up accessible to more people than intended: document a secure procedure with specialist advice.
What you can do now
- Make an inventory of the works. Record title, date, technique, dimensions, location, ownership, provenance and a photograph. The master artwork record offers a starting structure.
- Put the archive in order. Group documents by work, project or year. Give folders, media and files names that make sense and keep the relationships between them.
- Separate originals, archive and rights. Do not assume they should all go to the same person or institution.
- Make a will. Identify the copyright, decide where it goes and consider whether you want to entrust someone expressly with exercising the rights of attribution and integrity.
- Leave instructions about digital content. Say who should act, which accounts should be kept or closed and where the access procedure is.
- Plan for assets protected by keys. Keep the inventory, the instructions and the secrets apart. Avoid a single loss destroying access, and avoid one person receiving more information than they need.
- Decide what happens to the archive. It can stay in the family, or be deposited with or donated to an archive, a library, a museum or a foundation. Before committing to any of them, check the conditions on acceptance, conservation, access, digitisation and use.
- Document technical works. Record interviews and explain materials, processes and installation criteria. For a digital or installation-based work, make clear what can be replaced without altering the piece.
Common mistakes
- Assuming that inheriting the original means inheriting the exploitation rights.
- Mixing ownership of the works, custody of the archive and the exercise of moral rights into a single decision.
- Leaving boxes and digital files without dates, names or identifiable relationships.
- Assuming that knowing a password is enough to be entitled to use all the content of an account.
- Putting sensitive keys in insecure documents or places.
- Failing to provide for who decides about unpublished works.
Further reading
- Catalogue raisonné.
- How to document the provenance of your own work.
- The artist's resale right.
- When a work enters the public domain in Spain.
- Preserving a digital artwork.
About the open conversation
This guide explains the general rules of Spanish law and is not a substitute for an assessment of a specific case in terms of succession, tax and assets. A will should be prepared with notarial or legal advice. If you have managed an artist's legacy or work in an archive that receives artists' collections and you spot an omission, write to me.