I am not trying to proscribe or inhibit artistic endeavour. My initial response was mainly that if the artist wanted to paint a vague Asian woman based on the subject of Turandot, he might have been inspired by the original photograph and did not want to contact the photographer (for whatever reason), he could have found a number of resources which contained the elements he wanted to use that were freely available. I can fully understand the frustration and anger of the photographer, she has the moral right to protect her work (which, since it was a shoot for Vogue, was probably commercially protected too).
I mainly work (not professionally) with drawing life models I rarely go beyond drawings but will occasionally go back through them to find a subject for a linocut or screen print and even more rarely make a painting. In this process I am happily able to access a large variety of models but before I join a group/class I satisfy myself that the model is being properly recompensed (there have been a number of recent outcries that models are paid only when they are posing, not for the preparatory work/travel/cancellations etc.; conditions that are safe, cleanish). In the recent lockdowns that live event has been transferred to online events – still drawing a person(s) posing live rather than a photograph – this has put more pressure on the models (because they are often working alone, operating cameras, administering access etc.). So if I seem strict it is only that I want to be sure that I am not exploiting, I have modelled myself occasionally in the dim and distant past – pre-internet and barely at all since internet and cameras in every phone.
