Bukowski's drawings (1 Viewer)

Hi there,
I co-run a small Polish publishing house and we are currently working on a Polish edition of Charles Bukowski's "Laughing with Gods. Interview by Fernanda Pivano". For the cover we'd like to use one of Bukowski's drawings. Does anybody know who holds the rights for this material so we could get the license for it?
The drawing in question is this:

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Hopefully someone here could help us out with this?
 
Did that drawing appear in a specific publication or is it something he created while signing a book or as a stand-alone drawing? If it has been published, you may need the permission of both the publisher (or whomever the rights of the publisher have been transferred to; as in Black Sparrow Press rights are now ecco/Harper Collins rights) and the estate (meaning Linda Lee Bukowski as curator of his estate). If it is a non-published drawing in a book or on a piece of paper, my take is that permission would be needed from Linda Lee Bukowski as curator of his estate (I'm not an attorney; so take that as you will).

A few folks here have published Buk, so they'd know the ins and outs of this, I would think. Don't take my word for it, I just like typing (and asking the right questions to help you get an answer). :D

Of course, you'd need something akin to similar permission for the text of the book itself and that may have its own oddities. But perhaps you've worked that out.
 
Did that drawing appear in a specific publication or is it something he created while signing a book or as a stand-alone drawing?

Thanks a lot! As far as I could dig out from the Internet (and from this Forum), the drawing had been published in "All's Normal Here: A Charles Bukowski Primer" (Ruddy Duck Press, 1985). I don't know if anywhere else, but it's more than likely, given that the drawing is so widespread on-line. I cannot find anything on the Ruddy Duck Press though to contact them.
And of course we have bought the rights for the text of the book :) The only remaining thing for us to settle is that drawing...

Thanks. Been there, done that. One needs up to 8 weeks to get the answer from them. We are still waiting... not even knowing whether they own the rights or not.
 
They don't control the rights to his drawings/art, but I would suspect that they can put you in touch with Linda, who does control them. You might wait more than 8 weeks for an answer from her though.

I cannot find anything on the Ruddy Duck Press though to contact them.
I don't think there is a Ruddy Duck Press anymore. But I'm pretty sure he could not legally transfer the right to use that drawing (if he ever obtained it) to you anyway. They aren't his rights to transfer.

By the way, there are a million Bukowski drawings, why use one that's already been published?
 
Thanks a lot. I suspected the Ruddy Duck Press did not exist anymore. Yeah, I know, they were not the rights owner, but at least a publisher usually knows HOW to contact the person who is.
Btw. out of a million Bukowski's drawings (and we did look through a LOt of them) this one seems right for our book. Furthermore, here in Poland Bukowski's art is not so well-known around his readers as his texts. So it does not really matter that this particular drawing was published three decades ago in a galaxy far away ;)
 
If you are publishing the book, surely you are already in contact with the estate? Who signed the contract for rights to the book?
 

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