Beg, Borrow, Steal? Pablo's Question of Originality

photo by Melvin Sokolsky

UPDATE!

The NYTimes explains the images here...apparently the first one to create this image was photographer Melvin Sokolsky! http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/behind-the-cover-salma-hayek/?ref=womens-fashion

Josephine Meckseper's Pyromaniac 2, 2002.

Picasso famously said that "good artists borrow, great artists steal..."

A great artist surely must know the difference between stealing another artist's idea and making it their own and taking another's idea and calling it their own.

George Condo is a great example of an artist that successfully takes ideas from painters and movements through-out the ages to create something original.

An example of obvious copying though is more apparent on the current cover of the NY Times Magazine. The image of Salma Hayek is a rip-off of an image by artist Josephine Meckseper called Pyromaniac 2 from 2002.

What do you think constitutes originality?

Salma Hayek by Cass Bird, 2011.