best biography of artists

15 Engrossing Artist Biographies and Memoirs to Read Now

We spotlight a selection of our favourite artists’ autobiographies and biographies, from the empowering to the scandalous, for your summer reading inspiration

Summer is upon us and this year, more than ever, it feels pertinent to pick holiday reads that will uplift and inspire. Where better to turn to, then, than artists’ memoirs and biographies – filled as they are with tales of overcoming life’s hardships, fights for justice and recognition in and outside of the art world, the quest to forge a legacy through art, and, more often than not, a juicy scandal or two to keep the reader’s interest piqued. Here, we’ve selected 15 of our favourites for your perusal, spanning the empowering, the ephemeral, the political and the downright provocative (Diego Rivera, we’re looking at you).

1.   We Flew Over the Bridge: The Memoirs of Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold is one of America’s most renowned artists and activists, whose inherently political, exquisitely executed work – from “story quilts” to paintings – tackle civil rights and gender inequality head on. But Ringgold has had to fight hard for her successes, a story she shares in her stunning, illustrated memoir We Flew over the Bridge . In it, Ringgold details the many prejudices she’s battled and the challenges she’s faced in balancing her thriving artistic career with motherhood, sharing words of advice and empowerment along the way. It makes for magical reading; in the words of Maya Angelou: “Faith Ringgold has already won my heart as an artist, as a woman, as an African American, and now with her entry into the world of autobiography (where I dwell), she has taken my heart again. She writes so beautifully.”

2.  Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney by Beauford Delaney and David Leeming

Amazing Grace paints a poignant picture of the celebrated African American artist Beauford Delaney, a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance, and later – following a move to Paris in the 1950s – a noted abstract expressionist. Delaney’s tale is both remarkable and heartbreaking: he was a much loved character, who counted Henry Miller and James Baldwin among his close friends, yet he often felt isolated and underappreciated, struggling with mental illness throughout his life. His wonderfully vibrant paintings boast an extraordinary psychological depth, betraying the hardships he faced and his determination to keep going no matter what. “He has been menaced more than any other man I know by his social circumstances and also by all the emotional and psychological stratagems he has been forced to use to survive; and, more than any other man I know, he has transcended both the inner and the outer darkness,” Baldwin once wrote.

3.  Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann

A memoir quite unlike any other, this book by American photographer Sally Mann weaves together words and images to form a vivid personal history, revealing the ways in which Mann’s ancestry has informed the themes that dominate her work (namely “family, race, mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South”). Mann decided to write the book after unearthing a whole host of unexpected family secrets – “deceit and scandal ... clandestine affairs, dearly loved and disputed family land ... racial complications, vast sums of money made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody murder” – while sorting through boxes of old family papers and photographs. In gripping prose, she allows us to follow her on her resulting journey of self-discovery, shedding pertinent light on her image-making practice at every turn.

4.  Close to the Knives by David Wojnarowicz

David Wojnarowicz ’s beloved collection of creative essays, Close to the Knives , remains a vital work – “a scathing, sexy, sublimely humorous and honest personal testimony to the ‘Fear of Diversity in America’” (as per its inside flap). It’s an intensely powerful memoir that guides the reader across the American artist’s life – from his violent suburban childhood through a period of homelessness in New York City to his ascent to fame (and infamy) as one of America’s most provocative creators and queer icons – inciting action and self-examination on every page. In the words of Publishers Weekly : “ What Kerouac was to a generation of alienated youth, what Genet was to the gay demimonde in postwar Europe, Wojnarowicz may well be to a new cadre of artists compelled by circumstance to speak out in behalf of personal freedom.”

5.  Diane Arbus by Patricia Bosworth

Patricia Bosworth’s fantastic  Diane Arbus biography takes a deep dive into the turbulent life of the seminal American imagemaker, whose unflinching photographs of marginalised groups sought to challenge preconceived notions of “normality” and “abnormality” – with extraordinary results. Through Bosworth’s shrewd investigation, and interviews with Arbus’ friends, colleagues and family members, we learn of the ideas and inspirations that drove her, the fears and anguish that plagued her, her pampered childhood and passionate marriage, and the tragic turn her life took – in spite of growing artistic acclaim – resulting in her suicide in 1971.

6.  Ninth Street Women: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art by Mary Gabriel  

This book is the brilliant tale of five brilliant women artists: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler, who burst onto the male-dominated New York art scene in the 1950s, smashing down gender barriers along the way. Each was an indomitable force in their own right – Krasner, an assertive leader and hellraiser; de Kooning, a great thinker; Hartigan, a fiercely determined housewife-turned-painter; Mitchell, a vulnerable soul with a steely exterior and prodigious talent; Frankenthaler, a well-schooled New Yorker, who shunned a traditional career path to follow her dreams. But together, “from their cold-water lofts, where they worked, drank, fought, and loved”, they changed the face of postwar American art and society forever.

7.  Voices in the Mirror: An Autobiography by Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks ’ autobiography Voices in the Mirror is a compelling and empowering read. It traces the American photographer’s difficult early life in Minnesota – where he became homeless, following his mother’s death – through his groundbreaking and meteoric rise as an image-maker (the first Black photographer at Vogue and Life , no less) and thereafter as a Hollywood screenwriter, director and novelist. Parks was a man of great compassion and courageous vision, whose work spanned “intimate portrayals of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini; of the Muslim and African American icons Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad and Muhammad Ali; of the young militants of the civil rights and black power movements; and of the tragic experiences of the less famous, like the Brazilian youngster Flavio”. Suffice to say that incredible stories and  words of wisdom abound.

8.  Hanging Man: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei by Barnaby Martin

Ai Weiwei  has spent his entire career creating very beautiful, deeply political works that challenge and confront his country’s totalitarian regime – to global acclaim. But rising the ranks to become China’s most famous living artist and activist has come at a price. In April of 2011, just six months after his vast, thought-provoking sculpture Sunflower Seeds was installed in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall , Weiwei was arrested at the Beijing Capital International Airport and detained illegally for over two months in dire conditions. Shortly after his release, Barnaby Martin travelled to Beijing to interview the artist about his imprisonment and to discover more about “what is really going on behind the scenes in the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party”. Hanging Man is the result – a highly informative and stirring account of “Weiwei’s life, art, and activism”, as well as “a meditation on the creative process, and on the history of art in modern China”.

9.  Gluck: Her Biography  by Diana Souhami

In Gluck , author Diana Souhami examines the radical life and work of British painter Hannah Gluckstein (1895-1978), who took on the name Gluck, with “no prefix, suffix, or quotes”, in her twenties to reflect her gender non-conforming identity. Famed for her masculine, undeniably chic style of dress, her passionate affairs with society women, and her emotive portraits, flower paintings and landscapes, Gluck was provocative and tender, fierce and gifted in equal measure – and decades ahead of her time. This excellent biography “captures this paradoxical ... woman in all her complexity”, to page-turning effect.

10.  Interviews with Francis Bacon by David Sylvester

As its title suggests, this book is not a biography as such, but a series of nine interviews with the inimitable figurative painter, Francis Bacon . They were conducted by the late art critic and curator David Sylvester over the course of 25 years, from 1962 to 1986, and thereafter compiled into what has long been heralded a classic, offering an illuminating glimpse into one of the great creative minds of the 20th century. In it, the British painter contemplates the fundamental problems involved in making art, as well as his own “obsessive thinking about how to remake the human form in paint” (to quote the book’s back cover), revealing a great deal about his radical practice and storied past in the process. Cited by David Bowie as one of his all-time favourite books, it is essential reading not just for Bacon fans, but for anyone in search of creative impetus.

11.  My Art, My Life: An Autobiography Novel by Diego Rivera and Gladys March

My Art, My Life by Diego Rivera is a wild read, offering juicy first-person insight into the world of the larger-than-life Mexican painter. Rivera recounted his life’s story to the young American writer Gladys March over the course of 13 years, leading up to his death in 1957. The book sheds fascinating light on Rivera’s radical approach to modern mural painting, his strong political ideology and his equally unerring devotion to women (he married  Frida Kahlo not once but twice, you’ll remember). In the words of the San Francisco Chronicle : “There is no lack of exciting material. A lover at nine, a cannibal at 18, by his own account, Rivera was prodigiously productive of art and controversy.”

12.  Sophie Calle: True Stories by Sophie Calle

First published in French in 1994, and since expanded and printed in English, True Stories , by the French conceptual artist Sophie Calle , is a real gem. Calle’s idiosyncratic oeuvre comprises controversial explorations of “the tensions between the observed, the reported, the secret and the unsaid,” in the words of the book’s cover, spanning photography, film, and text. Many of her pieces revolve around the documentation of other people’s lives, and the insertion of herself into them (think: her 1980 work Suite Vénitienne , where she followed a stranger from Venice to Paris), but True Stories is entirely focused on Calle herself. Through a montage of typically poetic and fragmented autobiographical texts, and photographs, the artist “offers up her own story – childhood, marriage, sex, death – with brilliant humour, insight and pleasure”.

13.  Everything She Touched: The Life of Ruth Asawa by Marilyn Chase

This book centres on the late Japanese American artist Ruth Asawa – best known for her breathtaking hanging-wire sculptures and bold, urban installations and fountains. Asawa survived an adolescence spent in World War Two Japanese-American internment camps, before securing a place at the revolutionary art school Black Mountain College. There she discovered her signature medium as a lyrical means of challenging the conventions of material and form. Later, Asawa would become a pioneering advocate for arts education in her adopted hometown of San Francisco, while raising six children, battling lupus and continuing to work. By incorporating Asawa’s own writing and sketches, photographs, and interviews with her loved ones, Marilyn Chase conjures up a fully rounded image of a visionary creator, who “wielded imagination and hope in the face of intolerance and transformed everything she touched into art”.

14.  Hannah H öch : Life Portrait: A Collaged Autobiography by Hannah Höch and Alma-Elisa Kittner

German Dadaist and collage artist Hannah Höch’s esteemed career spanned two world wars and most of the 20th century, and by the age of 83, she was ready to reflect. The result was her final, largest photo-collage, Life Portrait (1972-3), comprising 38 sections and measuring nearly four by five feet. It is a self portrait-cum-memoir, alluding to the different periods of Höch’s life and work, while “ironically and poetically commenting on key political, social and artistic events from the previous 50 years.” It also includes imagery of her favoured themes and inspirations (“fashion imagery, news photographs, African art and pictures of plants and animals”) as well as multiple pictures of herself, identifiable by her signature bob haircut. This unique book presents the collage section by section, alongside relevant quotes and explanatory texts by Alma-Elisa Kittner, acting as a brilliant meditation on “Höch’s final masterpiece, and the life’s work it represents”.

15.  Georgia O’Keeffe by Roxana Robinson

Roxana Robinson’s acclaimed  Georgia O’Keeffe biography is a sensitive and enthralling investigation into the life and work of the so-called “mother of American Modernism”. It takes an in-depth look at O’Keeffe’s influences, from abstraction and photography to Asian art, and how she assimilated these into her singular painting practice – “the red hills, the magnified flowers, the great crosses and white bones”. It also shines a light on the many intense relationships the artist forged throughout her life, from her marriage to the revered photographer Alfred Stieglitz to her scandalous relationship with Juan Hamilton, a man six decades her junior. Best of all, it includes plenty of O’Keeffe’s own words – in the form of her letters and writings – allowing the artist herself to play a key role in the telling of her own multifaceted, infinitely inspiring story.

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100 Must-Read Musician Memoirs and Biographies

Looking for musician memoirs and biographies? We got 'em of all shapes, sizes, colors, and genres. A hundred of them, in fact.

Ashley Holstrom

Ashley Holstrom helps make books at Sourcebooks. She lives near Chicago with her cat named after Hemingway and her bookshelves organized by color. Newsletter: Crooked Reads . Twitter: @alholstrom .

View All posts by Ashley Holstrom

At least, that’s how I ended up obsessed with Guns N’ Roses. And The Doors. And Motley Crue. And Aerosmith. And, in the future, many more that I’m holding on to for just the right moment.

Here are 100 musician memoirs and biographies, sorted by the music’s genre (loosely defined), to get you rockin’ and rollin’ and movin’ and groovin’.

Country/Folk

My Cross to Bear by Gregg Allman

Bound for Glory by Woody Guthrie

Rat Girl by Kristin Hersh

Love, Janis by Laura Joplin

Coal Miner’s Daughter by Loretta Lynn, George Vecsey

Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography by Jimmy McDonough

Reba: My Story by Reba McEntire, Tom Carter

It’s a Long Story: My Life by Willie Nelson

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering the Free Birds of Southern Rock by Gene Odom, Frank Dorman

Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir by Linda Ronstadt

The 50th Law by 50 Cent, Robert Greene

Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm by Percy Carey, Ronald Wimberly

Fight the Power: Rap, Race, and Reality by Chuck D, Yusuf Jah

The Way I Am by Eminem

Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-from South Central to Hollywood by Ice-T, Douglas Century

Unashamed by Lecrae Moore

The Tao of Wu by The RZA

The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur

How to Ruin Everything: Essays by George Watsky

Gone ‘Til November by Lil Wayne

The Good Life by Tony Bennett

The Godfather of Soul: An Autobiography by James Brown

Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker by Stanley Crouch

Miles: The Autobiography by Miles Davis

Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters by Robert Gordon

Blues All Around Me: The Autobiography of B.B. King by B.B. King, David Ritz

John Coltrane: His Life and Music by Lewis Porter

Jazz Cleopatra: Josephine Baker in Her Time by Phyllis Rose

Now and Then… by Gil Scott-Heron

Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong by Terry Teachout

Pop/Punk/Reggae/Ska

Catch a Fire: The Autobiography by Melanie B.

Black By Design: A 2-Tone Memoir by Pauline Black

Passion Is a Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash by Pat Gilbert

Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout by Laura Jane Grace

If Only by Geri Halliwell

Herbie Hancock: Possibilities by Herbie Hancock, Lisa Dickey

Reckless: My Life as a Pretender by Chrissie Hynde

Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs by John Lydon

I’ll Never Write My Memoirs by Grace Jones, Paul Morley

A Natural Woman: A Memoir by Carole King

Army of She: Icelandic, Iconoclastic, Irrepressible Björk by Evelyn McDonnell

Lobotomy: Surviving the Ramones by Dee Dee Ramone

Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag by Henry Rollins

Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, or My Life As a Fabulous Ronette by Ronnie Spector, Vince Waldron

Rod: The Autobiography by Rod Stewart

Diana Ross: A Biography by J. Randy Taraborrelli

In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death, and Duran Duran by Nigel John Taylor

I, Tina by Tina Turner, Kurt Loder

Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley by Timothy White

Pharrell: Places and Spaces I’ve Been by Pharrell Williams

Rock ‘n’ Roll

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine

Between a Heart and a Rock Place: A Memoir by Pat Benatar

Chuck Berry: The Autobiography by Chuck Berry

Moonage Daydream: The Life & Times of Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie

Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein

Lips Unsealed: A Memoir by Belinda Carlisle

Cash by Johnny Cash

Clapton: The Autobiography by Eric Clapton

Journals by Kurt Cobain

Not Dead Yet by Phil Collins

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello

  Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix by Charles R. Cross

Neon Angel by Cherie Currie

Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division by Deborah Curtis

Hammer of the Gods by Stephen Davis

Things The Grandchildren Should Know by Mark Oliver Everett

Fleetwood: My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac by Mick Fleetwood, Stephen Davis

Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon

Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick

Diary of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star by Ian Hunter

Dancing with Myself by Billy Idol

Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury by Lesley-Ann Jones

Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis

White Line Fever by Lemmy Kilmister

The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee

Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead by Phil Lesh

Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love by Courtney Love

The Long Hard Road Out of Hell by Marilyn Manson

Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd by Nick Mason, Philip Dodd

It’s So Easy: And Other Lies by Duff McKagan

Autobiography by Morrissey

Joan Jett by Todd Oldham, Joan Jett

I Am Ozzy by Ozzy Osbourne

Rocks: My Life in and out of Aerosmith by Joe Perry

Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley

Life by Keith Richards

Crazy from the Heat by David Lee Roth

Bird Lives!: The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker by Ross Russell

Slash by Slash, Anthony Bozza

Somebody to Love?: A Rock-and-Roll Memoir by Grace Slick, Andrea Cagan

Just Kids by Patti Smith

Face the Music: A Life Exposed by Paul Stanley

Seven Deadly Sins: Settling the Argument Between Born Bad and Damaged Good by Corey Taylor

Who I Am by Pete Townshend

The Real Frank Zappa Book by Frank Zappa, Peter Occhiogrosso

Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke by Peter Guralnick

Lady Sings the Blues by Billie Holiday, William Dufty

Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz

Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues by Elijah Wald

Hit Me, Fred: Recollections of a Sideman by Fred Wesley

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Nonfiction Books » Best Biographies » Artists' Biographies

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Last updated: September 12, 2024

Maria Loh, Professor of the History of Art at CUNY Hunter College, chooses her best books on the lives of famous artists . Her choice is varied, including works on portraiture in the renaissance, as well as On Photography by Susan Sontag and Just Kids by Patti Smith. Meanwhile, Adam Eaker, assistant curator in the department of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, chooses his best books on the Dutch masters .

Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at Oxford University, one of the world’s leading authorities on the work of Leonardo da Vinci, chooses his best books on one of the most famous of all artists .

Edvard Munch: Behind The Scream

By sue prideaux.

🏆 Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in Biography

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Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin

“I had no idea he spent his first seven years in Peru, running wild in a palace with jaguars and volcanos—it reads like a magical realist South American novel. Then his mother took him back to France, aged seven. He couldn’t speak French, and he was put in a very strict Catholic seminary. When they bullied him, he put up his fists and said, ‘I’m a wild thing from Peru.’ That gave me the title of the book, but it also gave him his attitude from then on. He’s an outsider, and he’s searching for comparable places. When he lost all his money, the French government paid his passage out to Tahiti to be the official artist.” Read more...

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Studio of the South: Van Gogh in Provence

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“Martin Bailey is the most amazing van Gogh scholar. This book has everything you might want to know about that period in his life that produced all those paintings that everyone adores: the orchards, the sower etc. It’s a great book.” Read more...

Surreal Spaces: The Life and Art of Leonora Carrington

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Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words

By boel westin.

“I loved Tove Jansson as a child. Then, when I read this biography, I realized that actually the Moomins started as Jansson’s political signature. When Hitler was annexing parts of Europe, she was drawing rude cartoons of him and signing them with a little Moomin…Her Moomin books are about political expression and not just domestic expression.” Read more...

Monet: The Restless Vision

By jackie wullschläger.

“As I read it, at first Monet is not an attractive character. You think, ‘This is absolutely why, as a woman, you should not live with an artist.’ It’s full of scrounging letters, and the suffering of these women who are, of course, immortalised in beautiful portraits by him, but following him around or being abandoned by him…She explains quite how it is that he comes to revolutionise art and to create these ravishing works that are just luminous. She writes very beautifully about it. As life goes on, instead of being improvident, he becomes very wealthy. Finally, you see him at Giverny employing six gardeners, one of whom has to dust off the water lilies! There’s great pathos. You’re won over to him, as his life goes on, and see how he, too, has suffered for his art. It’s a rich and moving account.” Read more...

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Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane

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Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers

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Rembrandt's Eyes

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“I chose this book because Simon Schama is such a wonderful writer. He has guts…He goes all the way, with all the senses engaged. Reading Schama is like stepping into a time machine. You can smell the paint, the poor quality of the air above Amsterdam’s canals, centuries ago…Rembrandt’s Eyes reads almost like a novel. He goes very far with some of his speculations, but I find it marvellous that Schama can do this about a foreign country—one that he didn’t even grow up in. It’s a real accomplishment of cultural empathy, and of course of bringing another time alive. He writes a book at once about a Dutch hero (and Rembrandt’s competition with Rubens, the Flemish master) and about Dutch history with the authority of a native…You have to remember: the only way to write about history or about a fabulous figure like Rembrandt is by being a storyteller. You have to use words, images, metaphors to kiss the past alive—and that is exactly what Schama does. I admire him for it. And since we’re talking about art, so much comes down to interpretation. Adopting an interpretive technique I think is fitting for the subject matter. What he does is to create a richer picture for the reader.” Read more...

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The Lives of the Artists

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Leonardo da Vinci

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The Lives of Lucian Freud: Youth 1922 - 1968

By william feaver.

***Shortlisted for the 2019 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction***

This book is the first volume in William Feaver's biography of Lucian Freud and the book to read on one of the 20th century's greatest painters. Feaver was a journalist and artist who became a friend of Freud's and they'd speak on the phone most weeks. As they put together material for this book—a process that took many years—they agreed that it wouldn't be published until after Freud died. The second volume of the biography , which covers the years till Freud's death in 2011, has also been longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize.

The Lives of Lucian Freud: Fame 1968 - 2011

* **Longlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction***

This is volume two in William Feaver's two-part biography. Volume one covers the years 1992-1968 and was shortlisted for the 2019 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction.

de Kooning: An American Master

By annalyn swan & mark stevens.

“Through the accounts of his contemporaries, de Kooning emerges not only as a great artist, but as sympathetic figure for whom we are rooting from the first pages” Read more...

The best books on Goya and the art of biography

Janis Tomlinson , Art Historians, Critics & Curator

by Lawrence Gowing

“Gowing adopts what you might describe as a formalist aesthetic approach to characterising the power of these paintings” Read more...

The best books on The Dutch Masters

Adam Eaker , Art Historians, Critics & Curator

Goya: A Portrait of the Artist

By janis tomlinson, memoirs of the life of john constable: composed chiefly of his letters, by c.r. leslie.

“You might say that Freud and Constable were literally close.” Read more...

The best books on Lucian Freud

William Feaver , Artists & Art Critic

Francis Bacon’s Gilded Gutter Life

By daniel farson.

“He came back to London wanting to create things that were reflecting the latest aesthetic and ideological thinking in art and design that he’d seen on the continent.” Read more...

The best books on Bohemian Living

Darren Coffield , Art Historians, Critics & Curator

by Blake Gopnik

"One of the major points in my book is that he’s not at all the kind of holy fool or idiot savant that he still stands as in the popular imagination...He was a deeply sophisticated thinker about art, as much so as other high calibre thinkers like Donald Judd or Pablo Picasso." —Blake Gopnik

Our interview with Blake Gopnik on the Best Andy Warhol Books was published on March 5th, 2020

Ninth Street Women: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art

By mary gabriel.

“ Ninth Street Women is about the women who were part of that collection of artists in post-war New York, who had really been written out of art history. When we think of Abstract Expressionism, we think of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko. It’s almost like a string quartet. But this book shines a spotlight on the period and shows that there’s a full orchestra playing, not just those four men. I really loved it, because it wasn’t preachy. It didn’t say, ‘they’ve been overlooked.’ It just told the story of Abstract Expressionism from a really, impeccably well-researched position.” Read more...

The best books on Art History

Charlotte Mullins , Art Historians, Critics & Curator

A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley

By jane kamensky, by kenneth clark.

“It’s a beautiful book. And Leonardo has been fortunate in some of the writers who have tackled him……The book as a whole conveys wonderful shape to Leonardo’s art and life. And Clark is more right about aspects of his science and engineering than he has any right to be. He kept clear of the science, he didn’t really tackle it head on, yet via the art and via the drawings, he gets an enormous amount right about Leonardo’s scientific opus. “ Read more...

The best books on Leonardo da Vinci

Martin Kemp , Art Historians, Critics & Curator

Nollekens and his Times: Comprehending A Life Of That Celebrated Sculptor, And Memoirs Of Several Contemporary Artists

“I was completely charmed by the scurrilous, sardonic, sarcastic and farcical account of the life of this very eccentric, miserly, unhappily married person who made portrait busts of eminent people such as the bibulous politician Charles James Fox. It’s a splendid book, with none of the pieties of standard art biographies. What makes these so irritating to my mind, and to my eyes, is that they often see more intellectual substance and indeed more cunning in painting than is actually there. Painting is a fundamentally straightforward practice. If you’re making portrait busts like Nollekens did, it’s practically a nine-to-five occupation and not something to be larded in mysticism.” Read more...

The Andy Warhol Diaries

By pat hackett.

“We assume that Andy knew that they might be published, and he may have wanted them to be published – and so would have controlled and manipulated their content. He didn’t scribble these entries down in a notebook, for his own eyes only. So you never know if he’s speaking to posterity in order to falsify the record – or at least to construct a record – or whether the Diaries are actually giving you a genuine insight into the man himself, not only into his psyche but also into his actions and behaviours. There are incidents mentioned in the Diaries that his friends say are absolutely and simply untrue.” Read more...

The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

By benvenuto cellini.

“The only autobiography by a major Italian Renaissance artist. We don’t have Leonardo’s, or Michelangelo’s, or anybody else’s memoirs. But we do have Cellini’s, and they are absolutely astonishing. It’s a completely thrilling book, and anybody who loves Italy and Italian art has to read it. I more often than not take it with me when I’m in Florence or Rome, to read passages of it. If a few hundred readers discover this book then we will have done something very, very worthwhile. We’ll have enriched their lives.” Read more...

Five of the Best European Classics

David Campbell , Publisher

Tiepolo Pink

By roberto calasso.

In a way, Calasso makes a case for Tiepolo as not the last of the Old Masters, but one of the first of the Moderns.

El «Cuaderno italiano», 1770-1786: los orígenes del arte de Goya

By jesús urrea fernández & manuela b. mena marqués.

“Rather than talk about sources for drawings in the notebook, or identities of named individuals, I invite people to look at this book as an intimate document of Goya’s life.” Read more...

The Peninsular War: A New History

By charles esdaile.

“Charles Esdaile’s book, The Peninsular War is required reading for anyone seeking to understand the tragedy that inspired Goya’s ‘Disasters of War’.” Read more...

Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen

By giles tremlett.

“Tremlett reveals Catherine through her role in events and relationships with people significant not only in her life, but in the course of European history: royal births, weddings, and deaths; alliances and intrigues of leaders jockeying for power; and the ever fascinating, ever despicable, Henry VIII.” Read more...

Cartas a Martín Zapater

By mercedes águeda & xavier de salas.

“The letters from the 1780s are crucial to understanding Goya’s career, as he reports his progress in impressing influential people and commissions received.” Read more...

Private View: The Lively World of British Art

By antony armstrong-jones (lord snowdon) , bryan robertson & john russell.

A Free House!: Or, The Artist as Craftsman

By walter richard sickert.

“Sickert was Austrian-Danish-British, a great European figure. He was a follower-student of Degas, knew Whistler very well, and they were almost competitors for a time. He wore very loud suits, was a great dresser-up and loved being a kind of artist rascal, always against the establishment, as he saw it. The London establishment was peculiarly stuffy in his day, roughly from the 1890s to the 1930s. And he wrote brilliantly…His book A Free House is a selection of his writings. He calls the bluff on Roger Fry for example, who in the early 1900s was forever earnestly proselytizing for Cézanne, while Sickert came out fighting, questioning everything including Cezanne.” Read more...

Emil and the Detectives

By eileen hall (translator) & erich kästner.

“ Emil has this vivid atmosphere of growing up in late 1920s Berlin, in which the protagonist and his young accomplices, rough-and-tumble working class boys, set out to catch a mysterious man in a hat who had pinched money from Emil when he fell asleep on a train.” Read more...

Factory: Andy Warhol

By andy warhol & stephen shore.

“There are a couple things that are special about this book. One is that sense of immediacy, of a snapshot aesthetic, which was to become a hallmark of Shore’s work as one of our great photographers.” Read more...

The Arts and Man

By raymond s. stites.

“One of the wonderful things about this book is that we know Andy Warhol actually read it. His copy of this textbook still exists in the Warhol archive. This is one of the things that is surprising about Andy and that I think is extremely important to understand: Lots of people who knew him well said he was smart in a fairly traditional sense.” Read more...

Swasarnt Nerf's Gay Guides for 1949

By hugh hagius.

” There’s this beautiful balance in these Gay Guides between an excitement about the possibilities of this particular subculture in American life, and the very real risks involved in pursuing those possibilities.” Read more...

Young Rembrandt

By onno blom.

“What Onno Blom is really asking in this biography is, ‘How did a miller’s son from a provincial Dutch town become the greatest artist of his time?’ It’s just about Rembrandt’s first years. It’s a description of Leiden, this small provincial town steeped in scriptural Protestantism.” Read more...

Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation

By e.h. gombrich.

“Gombrich was kind of mentor of mine.” Read more...

Leonardo da Vinci: i documenti e le testimonianze contemporanee

By edoardo villata.

“I always emphasise primary sources.” Read more...

The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci

By jean paul richter.

“He details all the military things he can do. He can build bridges for crossing moats and he can dig tunnels.” Read more...

The Self-Aware Image: An Insight Into Early Modern Meta-Painting

By victor stoichita.

“Stoichita pushes us to think about painting as a site of self-awareness, where painting becomes almost a form of and forum for visual philosophy.” Read more...

The best books on The Lives of Artists

Maria Loh , Art Historians, Critics & Curator

by Patti Smith

Is there any reason not to listen to Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids , as an audiobook when it’s narrated by the artist herself?

Narrator: Patti Smith

Length: 9 hours and 50 minutes

Camera Lucida

By roland barthes.

“I have to confess that Camera Lucida is perhaps my favourite book ever about art.” Read more...

The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art

By joseph leo koerner.

“This is a seminal text in art history because it refers not only to Dürer specifically, but to the evolution of the idea of the artist.” Read more...

The best books on Albrecht Dürer

Ulinka Rublack , Art Historians, Critics & Curator

Art of the Everyday: Dutch Painting and the Realist Novel

By ruth bernard yeazell.

“That sort of cross-media artistic inspiration across centuries is very fascinating to me.” Read more...

Rembrandt's Enterprise: The Studio and the Market

By svetlana alpers.

“Alpers is the dominant figure in American art history working on Dutch art in recent years” Read more...

The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age

“There’s a big debate within the study of Dutch art about whether these works are pure transcriptions of reality, documents of a historical moment, or whether they are really symbolic texts that we should be interpreting on a figurative level. I think the debate comes down to this: is the best explanation of these images a thorough knowledge of Dutch history and culture at the time, such as Schama presents? Or is there something irreducible in the greatest Dutch art that you can’t boil down to historical context?” Read more...

Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy

By mark doty.

“He’s very right, that is what still life painting is about: the investment that humans make in things.” Read more...

The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso

By dante alighieri.

“It’s a poem that comes out of conflict in Florence in various ways. In a most literal sense it comes out of Dante’s exile – he was exiled in 1302 as a result of the conflicts between several political factions and he remained exiled, in various parts of Italy, for the remainder of his life (he died in 1321). The Commedia reflects that acute sense of the loss of one’s homeland and the resentment of that – Florence gets attacked quite viciously by characters in the Inferno . And then there’s the epigraph for the Inferno : ‘A Florentine by birth but not by disposition.'” Read more...

The best books on Dante

Nick Havely , Literary Scholar

On Photography

By susan sontag.

“Sontag’s lesson is that being photographed gives us a sense of both being real and also of existing. The rise of the selfie is eloquent testimony to how people continue to see themselves and how personal histories are now constructed first and foremost through the authority of the image.” Read more...

Five Biographies of Artists , recommended by Sue Prideaux

Caravaggio: a life sacred and profane by andrew graham-dixon, tove jansson: life, art, words by boel westin, young rembrandt by onno blom, surreal spaces: the life and art of leonora carrington by joanna moorhead, studio of the south: van gogh in provence by martin bailey.

From the Baroque painter who killed a man in Rome during the Counter-Reformation to the surrealist artist who left Britain and died in Mexico City in 2011, award-winning biographer Sue Prideaux talks to us about her favorite biographies of artists. Her new biography of Paul Gauguin, Wild Thing , is out today and has been longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize.

The best books on Goya and the art of biography , recommended by Janis Tomlinson

Catherine of aragon: henry's spanish queen by giles tremlett, de kooning: an american master by annalyn swan & mark stevens, el «cuaderno italiano», 1770-1786: los orígenes del arte de goya by jesús urrea fernández & manuela b. mena marqués, cartas a martín zapater by mercedes águeda & xavier de salas, the peninsular war: a new history by charles esdaile.

The art of Francisco de Goya reflects the social and political chaos of Spain in his day, leaving later generations to read into his prolific work—by turns formal and bizarre, official and fantastic—many often contradictory interpretations. Art historian Janis Tomlinson recommends books that disentangle Goya from the retroactive projections of later admirers and situates him in his own time. We also consider what makes for a compelling biography.

The best books on Lucian Freud , recommended by William Feaver

Emil and the detectives by eileen hall (translator) & erich kästner, private view: the lively world of british art by antony armstrong-jones (lord snowdon), bryan robertson & john russell, a free house: or, the artist as craftsman by walter richard sickert, memoirs of the life of john constable: composed chiefly of his letters by c.r. leslie.

Though ferociously private, Lucian Freud spoke about painting, the art world and his life and loves to his confidante and frequent collaborator, William Feaver , on the phone most weeks for many years. Feaver's transcript forms the core of his definitive two-volume biography . He speaks with us about the best books for understanding the life and work of this renowned painter, and the very particular collaboration that led to this magisterial account of one of the finest painters of the last century.

Though ferociously private, Lucian Freud spoke about painting, the art world and his life and loves to his confidante and frequent collaborator, William Feaver, on the phone most weeks for many years. Feaver’s transcript forms the core of his definitive two-volume biography . He speaks with us about the best books for understanding the life and work of this renowned painter, and the very particular collaboration that led to this magisterial account of one of the finest painters of the last century.

The best books on Andy Warhol , recommended by Blake Gopnik

The lives of the artists by giorgio vasari, the arts and man by raymond s. stites, swasarnt nerf's gay guides for 1949 by hugh hagius, factory: andy warhol by andy warhol & stephen shore, the andy warhol diaries by pat hackett.

Andy Warhol's ubiquitous soup cans – and his willingness to play the naïf – eclipse the leading Pop Art figure's depth, as Blake Gopnik reveals in his magisterial new biography. Here, Gopnik discusses five key books that offer crucial insight into Warhol the man.

Andy Warhol’s ubiquitous soup cans – and his willingness to play the naïf – eclipse the leading Pop Art figure’s depth, as Blake Gopnik reveals in his magisterial new biography. Here, Gopnik discusses five key books that offer crucial insight into Warhol the man.

The best books on Leonardo da Vinci , recommended by Martin Kemp

The divine comedy: inferno, purgatorio, paradiso by dante alighieri, art and illusion: a study in the psychology of pictorial representation by e.h. gombrich, leonardo da vinci: i documenti e le testimonianze contemporanee by edoardo villata, the literary works of leonardo da vinci by jean paul richter, leonardo da vinci by kenneth clark.

Every generation has its own Leonardo, and for many he remains a man of mystery. Martin Kemp , Emeritus Professor in Art History at Oxford and the author of Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting, helps us identify the non-mythical Leonardo. What might Leonardo be doing were he alive today, in our own digital age?

Every generation has its own Leonardo, and for many he remains a man of mystery. Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor in Art History at Oxford and the author of Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting, helps us identify the non-mythical Leonardo. What might Leonardo be doing were he alive today, in our own digital age?

The best books on The Lives of Artists , recommended by Maria Loh

The moment of self-portraiture in german renaissance art by joseph leo koerner, the self-aware image: an insight into early modern meta-painting by victor stoichita, on photography by susan sontag, camera lucida by roland barthes, just kids by patti smith.

We live in an age obsessed with self-image. Technology has made the ‘selfie’ a ubiquitous form of social currency. Renaissance means may have been very different, but celebrity artists in Medici Florence dealt with many of the issues relating to identity and authorship that we grapple with today. Maria Loh , author of Still Lives: Death, Desire, and the Portrait of the Old Master , talks to Five Books about the curated self.

We live in an age obsessed with self-image. Technology has made the ‘selfie’ a ubiquitous form of social currency. Renaissance means may have been very different, but celebrity artists in Medici Florence dealt with many of the issues relating to identity and authorship that we grapple with today. Maria Loh, author of Still Lives: Death, Desire, and the Portrait of the Old Master , talks to Five Books about the curated self.

The best books on The Dutch Masters , recommended by Adam Eaker

Still life with oysters and lemon: on objects and intimacy by mark doty, the embarrassment of riches: an interpretation of dutch culture in the golden age by simon schama, vermeer by lawrence gowing, rembrandt's enterprise: the studio and the market by svetlana alpers, art of the everyday: dutch painting and the realist novel by ruth bernard yeazell.

The past may be a foreign country, but the world portrayed in the art of the Dutch Masters is not so very far from our own, says Adam Eaker of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. For a society that struggles with materialism and consumption, there are a lot of lessons to be learnt from the 17th century Golden Age.

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

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The 50 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time

By Rob Sheffield

Rob Sheffield

Funny thing about rock & roll memoirs: They tend to have the same plot. Our heroes begin with big dreams about making it as rock stars. There’s the sleazy bars, the cheap motels, the shady managers. Then they get a taste of the big time: hit records, limos, drug orgies, groupies, diseases, the works. What could go wrong? Craaaash! But, hey, Elizabethan revenge tragedies all have the same plot too, and nobody complains when the royal family gets butchered in the final scene. Great rock memoirs don’t always come from great artists: Sometimes it takes one-hit wonders, losers, hacks, junkies, crooks. Every rock & roll character has a story to tell. Here are 50 of our favorites.

Steven Tyler: ‘Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?’ (2011)

If you can find a single coherent sentence in this book, write and tell the publisher, so they can correct this error in future editions. But happy hunting, because Steven Tyler’s brain is located, as he puts it, “in the way-out-a-sphere.” From Aerosmith to American Idol , Tyler has been “61 Highwayed and I did it my wayed; Little-Willie-Johned and been-here-and-goned; million-dollar riffed and Jimmy Cliffed; cotton-picked and Stevie Nick’d.”

[ Find the Book Here ]

Nikki Sixx: ‘The Heroin Diaries’ (2007)

This one gets the “truth in packaging” award — Nikki Sixx does so many drugs in this book it should come in an aluminum-foil dust jacket. It’s more personal than The Dirt , but just as juicy. It might be cheating to mention  The Heroin Diaries on a list like this, since there’s barely any mention of his music, but anyone even vaguely interested in Mötley Crüe is going to be fine with that.

Alice Bag: ‘Violence Girl’ (2011)

A Chicana punk coming-of-age story from East L.A., where a barrio kid named Alicia Armendariz starts a hardcore band called the Bags, battles her way to the stage, then finds she has to keep on battling. Raised on the Mexican ranchera records of her immigrant parents, baptized in 1970s glam rock, Alice Bag thrives on her confrontational dust-ups with the slam-dancing mosh pit crew, in her pink dress and high heels. For her, it’s all about “the giddy adrenaline rush of the fight.”

Billy Idol: ‘Dancing With Myself’ (2017)

Billy Idol seems to show up at least once in every Eighties-Nineties memoir, usually when some sort of pharmaceutical dessert is consumed. So it’s only fitting he wrote his own. Hell, Billy’s index has more drama than most books: “Idol, Billy, cocaine use of,” “GHB overdose of,” “hair of,” “police anti-crack sting,” “violin lessons of.” From “White Wedding” to “Cradle of Love,” his purple prose is a thing of beauty, as when an early punk romance breaks up because the drugs “dashed my hopes on the rocks of desire as the sea poured into our kingdom.” No matter where he is, Billy never idles.

Debbie Harry: ‘Face It’ (2019)

The Blondie grande dame has told her story before — most notably in Making Tracks , her great 1982 photo-history with Chris Stein and Victor Bockris. But Face It has the complete saga: how Debbie Harry came out of nowhere to seduce the world, from CBGB to The Muppet Show , then lost it all, yet refused to give up and quit. Her whole book has the glorious sneer of a tough old punk queen who knows how cool she is and does not care if you agree. “My Blondie character was an inflatable doll, but with a dark, provocative, aggressive side. I was playing it up, yet I was very serious.”

Rick James: ‘Glow’ (2014)

Fame — it’s a hell of a drug. Rick James begins his chronicle in Folsom Prison after flaming out on crack, in the hard times between his “Super Freak” peak and his Chappelle’s Show comeback, which explains why it’s not titled I’m Rick James, Bitch . In the Sixties, he plays in a hippie band with a not-yet-famous Neil Young, stays up all night with Joni Mitchell grooving to Sketches of Spain , cruises the Whiskey a Go Go with David Crosby, gets turned on to acid by Jim Morrison. Then he sees KISS and gets a lesson in showmanship. Rick becomes the King of Punk Funk, hitting Studio 54 (“Tanya Tucker was my best friend”?) and beefing with Prince. And along the way, he meets some very, very kinky girls.

Elton John: ‘Me’ (2019)

When Elton published his long-threatened memoir in late 2019, the world learned why the biopic Rocketman was such a humorless drag — it turned out Captain Fantastic was saving all the juiciest dish for his own superb book. Me has the right mix of salty gossip and even saltier self-mockery. A shy English schoolboy named Reginald Dwight decides to become a glitter-rock starlet, dubs himself Elton, peacocks through the Seventies, only to end up a respectable elder statesman. Hello, yellow brick road.

Gucci Mane: ‘The Autobiography of Gucci Mane’ (2017)

Dean Wareham: ‘Black Postcards’ (2008)

Dean Wareham led the great New York guitar band Luna through the 1990s, after the breakup of the Boston indie pioneers Galaxie 500. He shares the dirty details of how tedious it can be to plug away in a semi-famous, halfway-to-the-big-time rock band: the airports, the motels, the bickering band politics, the broken relationships, the constant asking around to see who’s got the drugs. Nobody in this story gets rich, or even seems to break even — all anyone gets out of the experience is a few dozen excellent songs. And that ends up being enough.

Bobbie Brown: ‘Dirty Rocker Boys’ (2013)

Peter Hook: ‘Substance: Inside New Order’ (2016)

Neil Peart: ‘Ghost Rider’ (2002)

In the summer of 1997, Neil Peart’s teenage daughter Selena dies in a car crash. Less than a year later, his wife Jackie dies of cancer. So he gets on his motorcycle and hits the road, from Quebec to the Yukon, then down south to Mexico and Belize. He rides thousands of solitary miles, brooding over his grief, with no home to go back to, while his brothers in Rush give him the time he needs to fire up the willing engine. Ghost Rider is different from anything Peart wrote for Rush — an unusually personal statement from such a shy and private writer. But the Professor brings all his analytical rigor to these road journals — and leans on the healing power of mechanical music.

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Tegan and Sara: ‘High School’ (2019)

Donald Fagen: ‘Eminent Hipsters’ (2013)

Joe Boyd: ‘White Bicycles’ (2006)

John Lydon: ‘Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs’ (1993)

The former Johnny Rotten has all the dirt about how the Sex Pistols pissed off the world. But he’s also got poignant details about his hardscrabble youth in London’s Irish-immigrant squalor, raised by a mother even more badass than he was. He also shares his deep hatred for religion, the Queen, the other Sex Pistols, hippies, rich people, racists, sexists, the English political system, Malcolm McLaren, and, of course, Pink Floyd . “A lot of people feel the Sex Pistols were just negative,” he says. “I agree, and what the fuck is wrong with that? Sometimes the absolute most positive thing you can be in a boring society is completely negative.”

Gregg Allman: ‘My Cross to Bear’ (2012)

A Southern Gothic rock epic. The Allman Brother sings “Whipping Post,” he snorts himself senseless, he rats on his drug roadie. And, of course, he marries Cher . On their first date, he even manages to stay off heroin until right after dinner. “I went to her house in a limousine, and when she came out, she said, ‘Fuck that funeral car,’ and handed me the keys to her blue Ferrari.… She didn’t have shit to say to me, and I didn’t have shit to say to her. What’s the topic of conversation? It certainly ain’t singing.” The second date goes a little better: “We made some serious love.”

Boy George: ‘Take It Like a Man’ (1995)

The confessions of a natural-born poseur. Boy George grows up as the “pink sheep” of his working-class Irish Catholic family, getting his start on the London club scene as a coat-check boy with a face full of cosmetics and a reputation for picking the customers’ pockets. He becomes an international pop sensation with Culture Club, while having a torrid affair with the drummer. The Boy doesn’t worry about making himself seem likable — quite the opposite. He bitches himself out along with everybody else, which is why his catty recollections make this book addictive.

Marilyn Manson: ‘The Long Hard Road Out of Hell’ (1998)

Luke Haines: ‘Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Role in Its Downfall’ (2009)

Brian Wilson: ‘I Am Brian Wilson’ (2016)

Robbie Robertson: ‘Testimony’ (2016)

Lemmy: ‘White Line Fever’ (2002)

Neil Young: ‘Special Deluxe’ (2014)

Henry Rollins: ‘Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag’ (1994)

Did Jack Kerouac ever write a book this great? In a word, no. This is the real on-the-road American adventure: a band of antisocial maniacs who hate each other crammed in a van, bumming from town to town, sleeping on floors when they’re lucky, getting clubbed by the cops when they’re not, doing it all for those few minutes of glorious noise. Black Flag were hardcore pioneers who paved the road other bands have traveled ever since, and Rollins’ tour diaries are the essence of that pain-is-my-girlfriend punk spirit.

Kim Gordon: ‘Girl in a Band’ (2015)

Jay-Z: ‘Decoded’ (2010)

If you’re curious about what it’s really like to be Shawn Carter , you’ll learn more about his hard-knock life from his albums, which have always gone heavy on the In My Lifetime narrative. But what he’s really trying to do here in Decoded is write the whole story of hip-hop, merely using himself as a prime example, as he rises from criminal-minded fan to industry kingpin. Like he says, “Rap is built to handle contradictions.” Most surprising moment: Hov defends the Coldplay duet “Beach Chair” as “one of the hidden jewels of my catalog.”

Tommy James: ‘Me, the Mob and the Music’ (2010)

The Goodfellas of rock & roll literature. Everybody knows the Tommy James oldies — “Mony Mony,” “Hanky Panky,” “Crimson and Clover,” etc. But according to Tommy, these songs got on the radio because he had some influential mobbed-up friends pulling the strings. (And, of course, pocketing the loot.) The whole topic of criminal connections in the music business is still taboo — see Fredric Dannen’s 1990 classic Hit Men for the full picture. But Tommy James is the first star to tell the story from the inside: How the Mafia gave the world “I Think We’re Alone Now.”

David Lee Roth: ‘Crazy From the Heat’ (1998)

You know what’s crazy? How underrated this book is. Diamond Dave’s book of pensees really deserves to be read wherever generally insane ramblings by generally insane dudes are read. Crazy From the Heat barely got noticed because it came out in the late Nineties, when public interest in Van Halen was at an all-time low. But every page abounds with his stark-raving lunatic eat-‘em-and-smile rock & roll Zen wisdom. Preach, Dave: “I’m not real good with baby steps. My specialty is ass-kicking. Does that sound unreasonable? It may well be, but I guarantee you, you will find no reasonable man on top of big mountains.”

Kristin Hersh: ‘Rat Girl’ (2010)

Even if you don’t know Kristin Hersh’s band Throwing Muses, Rat Girl is a crucial first-hand account of the Eighties indie-rock uprising. Her narrative voice is warm, friendly, and surprisingly funny. When Hersh gets pregnant and decides to have the kid, without giving up her band, she shrugs, “I’ll cross the living-in-a-van-is-probably-child-abuse bridge when I come to it.” Deep down it’s a story about messed-up kids finding one other, starting a band, and accidentally scrounging up an audience of similarly messed-up kids. It belongs on the shelf next to Michael Azerrad’s classic Our Band Could Be Your Life .

Morrissey: ‘Autobiography’ (2013)

Richard Hell: ‘I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp’ (2013)

Chuck Berry: ‘The Autobiography’ (1987)

The “Johnny B. Goode” man who invented rock & roll tells a few stories about what he saw along the way. As a Fifties black pop star, scoring hit records in a land full of violent racism, his story seems to touch on all the contradictions and injustices of American culture. In the early Sixties, while bands like the Beatles , the Stones , and the Beach Boys were hero-worshipping him, Berry himself was rotting in jail, railroaded in a blatantly racist trial. That’s where he wrote the deeply ironic “Promised Land” — a classic celebration of American dreams, written in a prison cell.

David Bowie: ‘Moonage Daydream: The Life and Times of Ziggy Stardust’ (2002)

It’s a massive coffee-table art book, with lavish images of Bowie in the Seventies from photographer Mick Rock . But the main attraction of Moonage Daydream is the text by the man himself. He’s in top form, whether he’s shopping for shoes with Cyrinda Foxe (who teaches him to wear “palm-tree’d fuck-me pumps”) or sipping tea with Elton John (“We didn’t exactly become pals, not really having that much in common, especially musically”), or partying it up with Mick Jagger (“I have absolutely no recollections of this party at all”). The closest this world will ever get to a straight-up Bowie autobiography — but who’d ever want anything straight-up from Bowie?

Rod Stewart: ‘Rod’ (2012)

Anthony Kiedis: ‘Scar Tissue’ (2004)

The Red Hot Chili Pepper tells a quintessential made-in-L.A., rise-and-fall-and-rise story, complete with all the californicatory details. Kiedis muses about his childhood, his band, his face time with the Dalai Lama, and his many, many, many ex-girlfriends, most of whom inspire him to share a kind word, a nude photo, or both. (Ione Skye was “an au naturel, soft, soulful forest nymph.”) Scar Tissue has the best final sentence of any book on this list, starring Keidis’ lovable pooch Buster: “And when I do think, ‘Man, a fucking motel room with a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of narcotics would do me right,’ I just look over at my dog and remember that Buster’s never seen me high.” Let’s hope Kiedis writes a whole book about Buster some day.

Ronnie Spector: ‘Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness’ (1989)

The New York doll of the Ronettes had one of rock & roll’s biggest voices. She also had one of rock & roll’s most famously nightmarish marriages, as she was practically kept captive by Phil Spector for years. But if you’re looking for self-pity, you’ll be disappointed, because her book, like her voice, is full of cocky, smart, self-aware humor. And, yes, in case you were wondering, it totally sucked to be married to Phil Spector.

John Taylor: ‘In the Pleasure Groove’ (2012)

Paul McCartney: ‘Many Years From Now’ (1997)

Officially this is an “authorized biography,” by longtime Macca friend Barry Miles. But that’s just a front, because the book really exists as a vehicle for Paul to tell his story in his own words. Every page has killer lines, like when he reveals “Can’t Buy Me Love” was recorded after a nine-day orgy with Miami Beach’s finest hookers: “It should been ‘Can Buy Me Love,’ actually.” Some fans were put off by the way he squabbles over credits, even breaking down songwriting by percentages. (To pick one controversial example, he calculates that “Norwegian Wood” as 40 percent his and 60 percent John’s.) But on the page, as well as in song, his voice overflows with wit and affection. And he did less to fuck up his good luck than any rock star who has ever existed, which might be why his memories make such marvelous company.

Nile Rodgers: ‘Le Freak’ (2011)

The “sex, drugs, and disco” revolution of the Seventies, as seen by the Chic guitarist who permanently changed the way music sounds and feels and moves. This is a cerebral and unabashed celebration of disco; as Nile Rodgers puts it, “We shared Afrobromantic dreams of what it would be like to have real artistic freedom.” He also reveals that when he and Bernard Edwards wrote the classic “Upside Down” for Diana Ross , everybody at Motown hated it. The song would have been axed forever, if not for the one listener who recognized its brilliance. “We played it for Gene Simmons of KISS , who was recording next door, and he told us it was great. We respected Gene, but he was dating Diana Ross at the time, so what else would he say?”

Carrie Brownstein: ‘Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl’ (2015)

The RZA: ‘The Tao of Wu’ (2009)

How do you choose between the RZA’s two excellent memoirs? ( Choose the sword and you join me. Choose the ball and you join your mother. You don’t understand my words, but you must choose! ) The first installment, The Wu-Tang Manual , is more of a beginners-guide handbook to the Shaolin mythology. But The Tao of Wu digs deeper, as the RZA broods on hip-hop and spirituality. He combines esoteric Buddhism, true mathematics, kung-fu flicks, chess tactics, and comic books into his own unique theosophical ruckus.

Slash: ‘Slash’ (2007)

There’s no shortage of Sunset Strip metal-sleaze gossip books out there, including other excellent GN’R memoirs — see Steven Adler’s My Appetite for Destruction or Duff McKagan’s It’s So Easy (And Other Lies) . But Slash’s book is surprisingly reflective, yet hilariously blasé about all his decadence. Low point: Slash collapses during a hotel drug binge and gets rushed to the hospital, where the doctors restart his heart. He complains, “I had no remorse whatsoever about my overdose — but I was pissed off at myself for having died. The whole hospital excursion really ate into my day off.”

Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz: ‘Beastie Boys Book’ (2018)

Viv Albertine: ‘Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys’ (2014)

Keith Richards: ‘Life’ (2010)

Like a lot of books on this list — only more so — Life makes you marvel that the guy who lived through all this chaos could end up remembering any of it. In fact, it’s hard to imagine how a guy who lived the rock & roll myth as hard as Keith Richards could still talk his way through a transaction at the drive-through window, let alone a book this great. Despite all the cranky bitching about Mick , this book exceeded any reasonable expectation for literary Keefness.

Questlove: ‘Mo Meta Blues’ (2013)

Bruce Springsteen: ‘Born to Run’ (2016)

Patti Smith: ‘Just Kids’ (2010)

An incredibly romantic portrait of two young hustlers in the big city: Patti Smith and her best friend, artist Robert Mapplethorpe, have to keep telling each other how great they are, because nobody else will believe it. The most amazing thing about this book is the warmth, the lack of bitterness — what Smith seems to remember most about New York bohemia in the 1960s is all the moments of awkward kindness. Best scene: Allen Ginsberg buys Patti a cheese-and-lettuce sandwich at the Automat, because he thinks she’s a pretty boy. When she breaks the news that she’s a girl, she asks, “Well, does this mean I return the sandwich?” Ginsberg just keeps talking to her about Jack Kerouac while she eats — a gentleman as well as a poet.

Bob Dylan: ‘Chronicles, Volume One’ (2004)

Everybody knew this guy had a way with words. But it’s safe to say that nobody expected his autobiography to be this intense. He rambles from one fragment of his life to another, with crazed characters and weird scenes in every chapter. It all hangs together, from his Minnesota boyhood (who knew Dylan started out as such a big wrestling fan?) to the “deserted orchards and dead grass” of his Eighties bottoming-out phase. He evokes his early folk-rogue days in New York, even though he hated being perceived as the voice of a generation: “I was more a cowpuncher than a Pied Piper.” So where’s that Nobel Prize already?

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10 Artist Biographies To Read This Year

Artsper’s best sellers

Mathilde Polidori

Summer meditation

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Andrew Weir

She knows the names birds and flowers (2)

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Too Much Fun

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Iryna Bondar

On the other side

80 x 80 x 2 Cm

30 x 30 x 1 Cm

Burgundy Rose

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What would the winter holidays be without those warm, comforting afternoons spent under the blankets or close by the chimney? If you’ve exhausted all the classics of French literature and the summer’s bestsellers, why not try another genre: the artists’ biography? Since many artists have lived thrilling lives, Artsper suggests these biographies of artists whose lives make for a compelling novel!

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Dazzling Epic of the Precursor of Street Art

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), whose works can be found on Artsper, was undoubtedly one of the artists who made the biggest impressions on the New York underground art scene in the 1980s.

Born in Brooklyn, this African-American with a rebellious temperament left school when he was a teenager to devote himself to his passion: art. His personal graffitis were quickly noticed for their tribal signs and naïve characters. Criticizing consumerism and the exclusion of ethnic communities, Basquiat has his first exhibition at the age of 21. This remarkable arrival brought him to the forefront of the art scene.

These profoundly violent, tortured works relate to art brut and include numerous evocations of death. This work continued to torment him until his death, caused by an overdose when he was only 28 years old.

Short but prolific, the career of the child prodigy of urban art has recently been related in a graphic novel written by Julien Voloj and illustrated by Søren Mosdal. While based on real events, the book tries to reveal the artist’s demons, which inspired him but precipitated in his demise.

Andy Warhol: Icon of Pop Art

Close to Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol (1928-1987) collaborated with him on over 200 works. They shared the same favourite theme: consumer society. If Basquiat is the emblem of Street Art, Andy Warhol (available on Artsper ) is unquestionably the emblem of Pop Art .

Beginning his career in advertising, he became world famous in the 1960s thanks to his screen prints of mass products, then eventually became one of the most iconic artists of all time. Duplicating his works in a multitude of flashy colours, he brought art into the category of consumer goods. In order to produce in industrial quantities, he created his Factory in 1964, a giant studio central to New York artistic life. His works are now among the most sought-after within the contemporary art market.

His biography was written by Victor Bockris, who was close to the artist, is the result of a meticulous investigation of his entourage. It reveals the career of this leader of pop culture, from his precarious childhood in a family of Slovakian emigrants to his breakthrough into the world of show business.

Raphaël: Genius of the Renaissance

Like Jean-Michel Basquiat , Raphael (1483-1520) is regarded as a precocious artist prodigy, whose early death only helped to create a myth.

At a young age, he acquired important notoriety in Northern Italy thanks to his realistic style, characterized by his great gentleness and harmony of shapes and colors. His achievement was completed in 1508, when Pope Julius II asked him to create monumental frescoes to decorate his apartments in the Vatican.

2020 being the anniversary of his death, Raphael is honoured by two major retrospectives. The first, in France, at the Musée de Condé du Domaine de Chantilly and extended until August 30th, displays a large number of his drawings. The second, in Rome, at the Scuderie del Quirinale and open until August 31st, allowing visitors to see his greatest pictorial masterpieces.

On this occasion, art historian Stefano Zuffi published a biography that allows visitors to (re)discover the life of the “prince of painters”, according to Giorgio Vasari. A fascinating biography with the details of his works as guiding thread.

Caravaggio: The Prodigious Criminal

What could be more gripping than the life of Caravaggio (1571-1610)? Raphael’s calm and luminous works are the opposite of the brutal and dark works of the master of chiaroscuro. It has been said that this 16th century Italian artist revolutionized painting.

Breaking tradition, Caravaggio depicted uncompromising realism of sacred Bible characters, transcended by powerful contrasts of light. Like Raphael, he was already famous during his lifetime. The birth of Caravaggism at his death demonstrates his influence on the many artists of the early 17th century. But the comparison stops just as quickly! Aggressive in his paintings as in life, he was compelled to exile himself from Rome after killing a man in a duel. Leaving for Malta, he was finally imprisoned there for a criminal case. After his escape from the island, he died days later near Rome.

Yannick Haenel tells us the story of the tumultuous life of this rogue, “bad boy” painter. Through the analysis of his works, the writer attempts to unlock the mysteries of this famed murderous artists. Discover this fascinating genius of tenebrism!

Artemisia Gentileschi: Revenge of the Humiliated Student

Although attached to the Caravaggesque school, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653) clearly distinguished herself from the other disciples of the Italian master, as much by her talent as by her success. In fact, few women painters could have a career in the 17th century since they were not allowed access to artistic education… Nevertheless, Artemisia Gentileschi managed to be recognized of her time thanks to the singularity of her painting.

The violence of her scenes, depicting courageous, active women, taking their destiny into their own hands, often earned her the label of feminist artist before her time! Unfortunately, her painting is often interpreted in the light of her personal life. Raped at the age of 19 by her drawing teacher and humiliated by the trial that followed, many art historians justify her choice to paint women in the midst of revenge by her trauma. However, her talent cannot be reduced to the simple representation of strong female subjects. Rather, her subtle and powerful mastery of chiaroscuro must be noted.

Awaiting the retrospective at the National Gallery in London this autumn, the exciting life of one of the first renowned women painters is to be discovered in Alexandra Lapierre’s book. Lapierre’s book received the Prize for Best Historical Novel when it was published in 2012.

Niki de Saint Phalle: The Mentor of Feminist Artists

Also assaulted in her childhood, Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002), whose drawings are for sale on Artsper, choose art as an outlet.

Her decisive encounter with the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely enabled her to join the group of the Nouveaux Réalistes in the early 1960s. She began her series of “Shooting” which scandalized the public as much as it brought the artist international recognition. Her performance paintings are made by shooting with a rifle at pockets filled with paint. They were a means of “shooting at society and its injustices”, especially those suffered by women. She keep on with her commitment through the production of her Nanas since 1965, female figures liberated from the patriarchal and misogynistic world. Behind the appearance of joyful and naive creations, Niki will not end to be committed to the defence of the feminine cause.  

This world of fantasy and colour is transcribed in the first graphic biography devoted to her. Plunging us into her artistic universe, the book retraces her journey with great sensitivity.

Frida Kahlo: Art as Therapy  

One of the greatest artists who left their imprint on 20th century art is undoubtedly Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). While politically committed and defending communist values, Frida Kahlo was best known for being one the most famous members of surrealism in Mexico.

Her painting is deeply poetic and inspired by Mexican folklore. This activity has also been the way enabling her to express her suffering through dreamlike worlds. Indeed, Frida’s life was full of tragic events, which nevertheless destroyed her unfailing joy of life. At the age of 18, a bus accident seriously injured her spine, crippling her for life and forcing her to wear a metal corset for the rest of her life. Finding refuge in art, she developed a passionate relationship with the artist Diego Riveira. They tried to conceive, but Frida had multiple miscarriages. Her global recognition allowed her to pass to posterity, while constituting a model for many women through her independence and strength of character.

This rich and dramatic life is told to us in a delicate, touching way by Rauda Jamis, a French author of Latin American origin.

Tina Modotti: Disowned Activist Photographer

Tina Modotti (1896-1942) died in Mexico and was politically committed like Frida Kahlo. Unlike her compatriot, Modotti was long forgotten by art history. She was known as a great photographer during her lifetime; nothing predestined this young girl who was forced to work in a factory at the age of 12.

After emigrating to the United States, she was spotted for her beauty and became a model, before starting an acting career in Hollywood. She met there the photographer Edward Weston, who made her his muse and taught her the technique of photography. It was during their trips to Mexico that she met artists link to the Communist Party. She decided to use her art to support political and social causes and became a photojournalist for the Mexican communist newspaper, El Machete. After leaving photography behind, she fully devoted herself to the fight against fascism. In 1936, she joined the International Red Cross and took part in the defense of Madrid against the Francoists. After fleeing Spain for America, she helped Spanish refugees and died there at the age of 45.

Gérard de Cortanze dedicated his last novel to the life of Tina Modotti. He had made a series of biographies about women within the 20th century artistic world, including Frida Kahlo and Violette Morris, in a style that is as romantic as ever, making the story more exciting. 

Camille Claudel: Madness Before Oblivion

If Camille Claudel (1864-1943) is one of the most famous French female artists and sculptors in the world, the whole first half of the 20th century passed her by in silence. Like Tina Modotti, she was subject to a late rediscovery.

Claudel was an apprentice of Rodin in the 1880s before having an affair with him. She hardly managed to emerge from the shadow of her mentor despite her undeniable talent. They separated after ten years of a passionate and destructive relationship. Camille Claudel was convinced that her lack of recognition was caused by Rodin and later developed paranoia disorders; leading to her admission into a psychiatric hospital in 1913. Her family’s opposition to her requests for release explains that she ended her days in total indifference, confined in an asylum until she died in 1943.

This novel about a tragically cursed artist was written by Anne Delbée, who received the 1983 Readers’ Choice Award of the revue Elle for her book.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Duo You Cannot Ignored in Contemporary Art

This article has surely made you aware of the difficulties for women artists to obtain recognition from their peers… A fact that has motivated many authors to take an interest in these complex, exciting journeys! Some artists have overcome their obstacles by working in tandem, blossoming both personally and artistically. One of the most famous couples in art is none other than Christo and Jeanne-Claude!

Christo (1935-2020) and Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009) have always worked together, each finding in the other a respective source of inspiration. Attached to the Land Art movement , they are famous for their monumental and ephemeral productions, especially their “wrappings”. They never stopped traveling the world to reveal its beauty.

With Christo’s death on 31 May 2020, the retrospective of the couple’s creations in Paris at the Centre Pompidou (ends October 19th, 2020) has become a tribute. The wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe in September 2021 will be their final salute. Jacob Baal-Teshuva’s book browses their entire work: the passionate adventure of two lives.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of a few artist’s biographies. Learn more about the captivating personalities who were often subjected to the margins of society. While being stunning and entertaining, these artist stories act as a gateway to understanding their artworks by revealing the behind-the-scenes representations of simple appearances. 

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The 8 Most Essential Books to Read About Pablo Picasso

By Alex Greenberger

Alex Greenberger

Senior Editor, ARTnews

Just as there is no shortage of Picasso exhibitions this year to mark the 50th anniversary of his death, there is no dearth of literature about the 20th century’s most celebrated artist. But which books about him are really worth your time? Here are eight essential texts.

Life with Picasso , by Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake

Artist Françoise Gilot, who died this past June at 101, is famous for being the only Picasso “muse” to walk out on him. In 1964 she made a splash with her best-selling memoir (written with journalist Carlton Lake), in which she piercingly describes her decade-long relationship with Picasso. Gilot recounts beautiful and ugly aspects of their romance, fondly remembering Picasso’s advice about art-making and then unsparingly describing instances of abuse pages later. More than just a gossipy evocation of Picasso’s true psyche, her proto-feminist treatise unpacks how male genius is often built on female exploitation. Gilot reaches a conclusion that is just as striking today as it was then: “I realized, as I thought it over, that Pablo had never been able to stand the company of a woman for any sustained period.”

A Life of Picasso: The Prodigy, 1881–1906 , by John Richardson

John Richardson’s four-volume biography of the artist runs more than 1,800 pages and was initially expected to be even longer: Richardson died in 2019, before he could write the planned fifth and final book. Initiated in 1991, the series is justly regarded as one of the best artist biographies ever for its attention to detail. Richardson tracks Picasso’s rise from milquetoast Spaniard to master Frenchman in the first book, which traces the artist’s early years and his Blue Period. Along the way, Richardson roots aspects of Picasso’s persona in the initial stages of his life, showing that his desire to be constantly surrounded by a vibrant circle of friends can be connected to the tradition of the tertulia in Spain. Meanwhile, Richardson also explores how Picasso’s promiscuous, bohemian lifestyle left a lasting mark on the artist.

A Life of Picasso: The Cubist Rebel, 1907–1916 , by John Richardson

The second book in Richardson’s famed multivolume Picasso biography kicks off with the making of a truly great work, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon , and ends with the artist beginning his transition away from the mode he helped usher in with it. The focus of this book is primarily how Picasso, along with his friend Georges Braque, shaped and reshaped Cubism, a style that abstracts objects until they shatter into an array of planes, as though seen from many different angles at once. As Cubism found an audience, Picasso changed dramatically, leaving the squalor of Paris’s Montparnasse neighborhood for a more middle-class lifestyle.

A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917–1932 , by John Richardson

Richardson’s third book in his four-part Picasso biography is the one most focused on the artist’s social life, with much of its 500-plus pages given to digressions about figures like Olga Khokhlova, a ballet dancer who became the artist’s wife, and Jean Cocteau, a poet whose attempts to infiltrate the French avant-garde were not always successful. That Richardson spills so much ink about them and many others is a testament to how wide Picasso’s network had grown during this era, his “classical” one, as it is often called, because its subject matter and style evoked the ancient art he saw in Italy. This so-called “return to order” gave way to turmoil at home, as he and Khokhlova began to start a family, even as he routinely cheated on her. As Richardson charts the chaos, he makes no excuses for Picasso’s misogyny.

A Life of Picasso IV: The Minotaur Years: 1933–1943 , by John Richardson

The final A Life of Picasso volume is by far the shortest, perhaps because Richardson died ahead of its publication. It doesn’t bring us to the end of Picasso’s career, cutting off before the French government finally began to embrace him after years of surveillance and distrust, but it still serves as a fitting conclusion for an artist whose experimentalism resisted tidy interpretations. Picking up well after Picasso had begun to integrate the precepts of Surrealism into his work, this book guides its readers through the making of one of his most well-known works, 1937’s Guernica , made in response to the carnage of the Spanish Civil War, and also tracks how the artist’s manipulation and misogyny forced lovers like Olga Khokhlova, Dora Maar, and Marie-Thérèse Walter, whom Picasso began seeing when she was a teenager, to suffer. Unusually for Richardson, the women are sometimes sidelined—they are briskly tossed off in a terse epilogue, although Richardson does leave readers on a disturbing note, writing that Picasso’s art “tended to thrive on the dark side.”

Picasso, by Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein’s unconventional 1938 memoir is less a rehashing of her friendship with Picasso than it is a “story of his story,” as she labels it toward this short book’s end. Its looping structure surveys Picasso’s growth as an artist while also returning repeatedly to his beginnings, implicitly mimicking his desire to make everything old new again through modernism. As she charts his stylistic transitions—from Blue Period to Rose Period, Cubism to Surrealism—Stein notes that Picasso was faced with a constant drive to “empty himself” of anything preconceived.

Picasso the Foreigner: An Artist in France, 1900–1973 , by Annie Cohen-Solal

Annie Cohen-Solal’s 2023 book chronicles Picasso’s strained relationship with France, which never formally recognized him as a citizen. As the historian writes, Picasso feared the French police from the time he arrived in Paris in 1900, and for good reason—they surveilled him for decades, according to archival documents she quotes at length. Their concern was Picasso’s flirtation with anarchism early on (despite the fact that he was labeled apolitical by his cohort). His outspoken Communism later triggered yet more concern, even as his work found fame in the country he long called home. Cohen-Solal’s reporting casts Picasso as an explicitly political subject, showing how his art became ensnared in a larger identity crisis facing France.

Picasso’s Demoiselles : The Untold Origins of a Modern Masterpiece , by Suzanne Preston Blier

In the intro to this 2019 book about a Picasso showstopper, Suzanne Preston Blier, a historian focused on African art, states that Les Demoiselles d’Avignon can’t be considered simply a painting of five female sex workers. Pointing out that African masks inspired Picasso’s depiction of these women, Blier writes that the work is “consistent with the larger colonial world that Picasso and his friends inhabited.”Her feminist analysis involves viewing the titular demoiselles as more than sex objects. She also explores what African art meant to white Europeans like Picasso, whose encounters with work from afar were often bound by the walls of museums that cared little for their holdings’ original context.

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13 of the greatest artist biographies to live vicariously through

From tracey emin to francis bacon, yayoi kusama, and more, escape into the worlds of 13 artists who pushed life beyond its limit.

With a third of the global population currently on  coronavirus lockdown, life is likely to have turned a little monotonous.

Many museums, art galleries, and theatres are set to remain closed until further notice, meaning a daily dose of artistic inspiration can be rather challenging – especially if you’re not ready to settle for COVID-19-friendly  digital exhibitions .

From performance artists to photographers, sculptors, directors, and more, we tally a list of biographies of some of the most influential artists you can get lost in during quarantine. Through intellectual discussions, entertaining anecdotes, previously unseen artworks, and shocking revelations, these books will help you cope with the lockdown while satisfying your hunger for art. 

Winner of the 2010 National Book Award for Nonfiction,  Patti Smith ’s  Just Kids  retraces the romance and long-lasting friendship between Smith and photographer  Robert Mapplethorpe . Going back to their first encounter in 1967 New York, the memoir immerses the readers into the passionate lives of the two artists well before they reached international success. Reflecting the culturally and politically engaged nature of the 70s,  Just Kids  features, among others, Beat Generation artists  William S. Burroughs , Harry Smith, and Allen Ginsberg. In 2019,  Just Kids  was re-published with never-before-seen photographs, such as the one above by Norman Seeff .

Just Kids   is published by  HarperCollins Publishers

A CHOICE OF WEAPONS

First published in 1966, A  Choice of Weapons retraces Gordon Parks ’ artistic career as he escaped poverty and turned into the first African American to work at Life  magazine and write, direct, and score a Hollywood film. Entirely written by the artist himself, the book emphasises the incredible role that Parks’ mother, who died when he was only 16, played in the personal and artistic growth of the photographer, writer, composer, activist, and filmmaker. “I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs,” he writes. “I knew at that point I had to have a camera.” Through a profound and honest narration, A  Choice of Weapons celebrates Parks’ unique artistic contribution by telling his fight for a better, more democratic America.

A Choice of Weapons is published by  Minnesota Historical Society Press

KUSAMA: INFINITY

In internationally-acclaimed Infinity Rooms creator  Yayoi Kusama ’s documentary, Kusama: Infinity , the artist invites the audience on a journey into a universe full of repetition, shapes, mirrors, and dots. Presenting the public with Kusama’s revolutionary artistic production, the documentary sheds light on the artist’s mental health and childhood traumas, showing how she managed to turn those into a 50-plus year, unprecedented artistic production.

Watch Kusama: Infinity   here

THE SECRET LIFE OF SALVADOR DALÍ

Published in 1942,  The Secret Life of Salvador Dal í  is an autobiographical book by the late Spanish artist  Salvador Dalí . Originally written in French, the memoir was translated into English by Haakon Chevalier. The book reveals the artist’s family history, providing the readers with insights into his childhood and the beginning of Dalí’s artistic career. “At the age of six, I wanted to be a cook. At seven, I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily since,” reads the incipit of the autobiography. Thanks to Dalí’s detailed writing and visual descriptions, readers are encouraged to “step” into the artist’s world – full of anecdotes, fantasy, and questionable confessions. Due to its controversial content, the book was criticised by none other than George Orwell in  Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dalí .

The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí is published by  Dial Press

WALK THROUGH WALLS: A MEMOIR

Serbian-born artist  Marina Abramović  retraces her nearly 50-year-long artistic career in an autobiographical book celebrating the evolution of her groundbreaking performance art. Turning the spotlight on the artist’s dramatic childhood in post-war Yugoslavia,  Walk Through Walls  renders the intense struggle of Abramović in her passionate pursuit of art. Through the narration of the 12-year love story and artistic collaboration with fellow performance artist Ulay, Abramović engages her readers, taking them on a trip that culminates in a moving break-up on the Great Wall of China . A truthful portrait of a revolutionary artist, the book tells how Abramović overcame limits imposed by fear, pain, exhaustion, and danger by using her body as a vehicle of artistic expression. 

Walk Through Walls: A Memoir is published by  Penguin Random House

THE SURREAL LIFE OF LEONORA CARRINGTON

Follow journalist Joanna Moorhead in her journey to reconnect with her long-lost cousin, who was also one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, Leonora Carrington. Published in 2017,  The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington  retraces the life and artistic production of the Lancaster-born artist, as she rejected the norms imposed by her upper-middle-class family to fulfil her artistic genius. In 2006, Moorhead found out that her father’s cousin, who had gone missing many decades earlier, had been a key member of the surrealist movement in Paris before moving to Mexico where she had become a national treasure. Curious to know more about it, the journalist flew to Mexico City where she reunited with Carrington and discovered the behind-the-scenes of her artistic career – from her escape from London, to her romance with the great Max Ernst, and finally her life in the Mexican capital. 

The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington is published by  Virago

CLOSE TO THE KNIVES

David Wojnarowicz ’s  Close To The Knives   is a collection of essays, sex memories, travel journalism, dream diaries, and manifestos written by the artist himself and published in 1992, the year of his death. A gay man raised on the streets of 1960s New York, Wojnarowicz was an artist, photographer, and writer whose work expressed the turbulent and provocative nature of an “outlawed existence”. Narrating his traumatic childhood and homelessness whilst living on the streets of New York City, the memoir pays tribute to Wojnarowicz’s seductive and rebellious contribution to the art world through his own poignant words.

Close To The Knives is published by  Vintage Books

DUCHAMP: A BIOGRAPHY

Writer Calvin Tomkins celebrates the extravagant life of last century’s most influential artist by telling readers how Marcel Duchamp revolutionised the future of modern art. Focusing on Duchamp’s art – stemming from the relationship between symbol and object – the biography describes how the painter, sculptor, and writer distanced himself from “retinal art” (that which is pleasing to the eye) to make art that served the mind. Through a glorious prose style, wit, and irony, Duchamp illustrates how the artist took the world by storm and influenced generations of artists, filmmakers, writers, and more.  

Duchamp: a Biography is published by Chatto & Windus

WIDOW BASQUIAT

Written by Jennifer Clement, Widow Basquiat narrates the rise to fame of one of the most influential visual artists of all time, Jean-Michel Basquiat. Told through the eyes of his muse and ex-lover  Suzanne Mallouk, the memoir brings the readers to 1970s New York. Guiding them across the transition which plunged  Jean-Michel Basquiat  into the centre of the city’s artistic scene – as well as the company of Madonna , Andy Warhol , Keith Haring , and more –  Widow Basquiat remembers the intense, incredible life of yet another artist who left us too soon.

Widow Basquiat is published by Canongate Books Ltd

KEITH HARING JOURNALS

Iconic artist Keith Haring kept a diary from his early teens until the day before his death in 1990. Published under the title Keith Haring Journals , the diary presents the readers with a largely unseen Haring, conscientious and serious, it shares everything from his reading lists to his daily thoughts. Featuring previously unpublished drawings from his notebooks, the book touches on key moments of Haring’s life as he emerged into the artistic scene of New York and became one of its most renowned pop icons. An unfiltered portrait of a brilliant artist, Keith Haring Journals shows the artist’s endless devotion to art, as expressed in his own words, “Work is all I have and art is more important than life.”

Keith Haring Journals is published by  Penguin Books

STRANGELAND

Published in 2006, Tracey Emin’s Strangeland captures the essence of the controversial British artist through a series of intimate memoirs and confessions. Known for her complex and medium-spanning artistic production – including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon text, and sewn appliqué – Strangeland  reflects on Emin’s past by presenting the readers with her honest and controversial, yet touching view of the world.

Strangeland is published by Hodder & Stoughton

INTERVIEWS WITH FRANCIS BACON

Written by British art critic and curator David Sylvester, Interviews with Francis Bacon is a collection of exclusive interviews conducted by Sylvester over a period of 25 years. Throughout the book, Bacon reveals the goal of his artistic production, providing the readers with insights on his vision. Disclosing details of his personal life, the artist reflects upon the problem of realism with an unmistakable and engaging language. Among the others, Sylvester’s questions investigate Bacon’s artistic relation to the human form and its representation, his variations of old masters’ painting, and his dependence on chance. The result is an intriguing book capable of shedding light on the life of one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. 

Interviews with Francis Bacon is published by Thames & Hudson

AI WEIWEI SPEAKS

In this series of interviews conducted by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ai Weiwei talks about the artistic inspirations that have shaped his work and also dives into his multi-dimensional artistic production – ranging from ceramics to blogging, philosophy, and more. The son of a Chinese poet who had been accused of “rightism”, Weiwei and his family were sent to a labour camp in Beidahuang when he was one year old. He then lived in exile in Shihezi, Xinjiang, for 16 years. In the book, the artist reflects upon his past and criticises the Chinese government, providing the audience with an authentic portrait of his personal, political, and artistic identity. 

Ai Weiwei Speaks is published by Penguin Special

• BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

8 Artist Biographies That Will Change Your World View

These artists laid the foundation for their craft and led incredibly fascinating lives.

Whether it’s through painting, photography, or dance, artists see the world in unique, eye-opening ways. If you want to shake up your own view of the universe, step into the inner lives of the biggest figures in the 20th-century art scene by reading the following biographies, memoirs, and essay collections.

Facts and Fancies

By Paul Taylor

Paul Taylor passed away in August of 2018, but he'll always remain a preeminent figure in the world of modern dance. After graduating from Juilliard in 1953, he went on to create and join various dance companies before transitioning to choreography—the beginning of a career that spanned over six decades. Known for his out-of-the-box musical choices and emotive (but often funny) pieces, he's the man behind 147 original works and the much-respected Paul Taylor Dance Company. The personal essays found in Facts and Fancies burst with his signature sense of humor and offer a peek inside his brilliant mind—from his thoughts on country living to his many years as a pioneer of American dance.

Georgia O'Keeffe

By Roxana Robinson

Before she became the most famous female painter of the 20th century, Georgia O'Keeffe was an outsider in a field largely dominated by men. The first biographer to be granted access from O'Keeffe's family, writer Roxana Robinson reveals new information about the icon's intense personal relationships (in particular, with her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz) and her struggle for independence as an underdog of artistic modernism.

Related: Art in Fiction: 10 Novels That Take You Beyond The Goldfinch

By Phoebe Hoban

Jean-Michel Basquiat first created waves as a graffiti artist in the Lower East Side of 1970s Manhattan. Less than ten years later, he was an internationally admired and in-demand painter. But his trajectory was cut grievously short in 1988 when, at the young age of 27, he died from a heroin overdose. Hoban’s biography chronicles Basquiat’s humble beginnings and lightning-speed ascent while also painting a fascinating portrait of the New York art scene of the era.

Andy Warhol

By Wayne Koestenbaum

Critic Wayne Kostenbaum invites readers into the strange world of Andy Warhol. Despite being one of the most famous celebrities of the 1960s, Warhol was an enigma—even to those who thought they knew him best. Kostenbuam's book aims to shed new light on the American icon, arguing that he wasn't just a great "pop artist" but one of the most influential thinkers of our time.

Related: Andy Warhol's Factory People Is Coming to Kanopy

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Diane Arbus

By Patricia Bosworth

Diane Arbus is known for her disarming portraits of carnies, twins, transvestites, and marginalized people. But author Patricia Bosworth offers her a more well-rounded perspective of the photographer, taking readers deeper into her personal life and career. An early marriage to Allan Arbus led to years of unfulfilling collaborations and, ultimately, a divorce. But without Allan, Diane was free to pursue the kind of work she was really passionate about (see also: not fashion) and went on to produce some of the 20th century's most arresting images.

By Diana Souhami

Born into a life of privilege, Hannah Gluckstein (who would later be known as "Gluck") rebelled against her conservative upbringing by wearing pants, having affairs with well-known women, and becoming a successful painter during the 1920s and 30s. Diana Souhami’s thoughtful biography celebrates the work of this fearless artist, whose lifestyle was just as unconventional as her paintings.

By Richard Buckle

Though he died over 50 years ago, Vaslav Nijinsky is still the most famous dancer in the world—a predecessor to aforementioned Paul Taylor. Here, readers get to know more about his tumultuous relationship with the great ballet impresario Diaghilev, his frenzied rise to superstardom, and his descent into madness (schizophrenia ultimately ended his career). Drawn from conversations with those who knew him personally, Buckle’s biography is the definitive work on Nijinsky’s life and influence.

Close to the Knives

By David Wojnarowicz

Performance artist, writer, filmmaker, and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz began as a mixed media artist, and then became one of the most controversial artists in the 70s and 80s New York scene. When his partner died of AIDS in 1987, Wojanowicz transitioned to more radical, politically charged work, before dying of an AIDS-related illness himself in 1992. Read more about his life and lasting mark in this aptly titled memoir, Close to the Knives .

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Blog – Posted on Monday, Jan 21

The 30 best biographies of all time.

Biographer Richard Holmes once wrote that his work was “a kind of pursuit… writing about the pursuit of that fleeting figure, in such a way as to bring them alive in the present.”

At the risk of sounding cliché, the best biographies do exactly this: bring their subjects to life. A great biography isn’t just a laundry list of events that happened to someone. Rather, it should weave a narrative and tell a story in almost the same way a novel does. In this way, biography differs from the rest of nonfiction .

All the biographies on this list are just as captivating as excellent novels , if not more so. With that, please enjoy the 30 best biographies of all time — some historical, some recent, but all remarkable, life-giving tributes to their subjects.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the number of great biographies out there, you can also take our 30-second quiz below to narrow it down quickly and get a personalized biography recommendation  😉

Which biography should you read next?

Discover the perfect biography for you. Takes 30 seconds!

1. A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar

This biography of esteemed mathematician John Nash was both a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize and the basis for the award-winning film of the same name. Nasar thoroughly explores Nash’s prestigious career, from his beginnings at MIT to his work at the RAND Corporation — as well the internal battle he waged against schizophrenia, a disorder that nearly derailed his life.

2. Alan Turing: The Enigma: The Book That Inspired the Film The Imitation Game - Updated Edition by Andrew Hodges

Hodges’ 1983 biography of Alan Turing sheds light on the inner workings of this brilliant mathematician, cryptologist, and computer pioneer. Indeed, despite the title ( a nod to his work during WWII ), a great deal of the “enigmatic” Turing is laid out in this book. It covers his heroic code-breaking efforts during the war, his computer designs and contributions to mathematical biology in the years following, and of course, the vicious persecution that befell him in the 1950s — when homosexual acts were still a crime punishable by English law.

3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton is not only the inspiration for a hit Broadway musical, but also a work of creative genius itself. This massive undertaking of over 800 pages details every knowable moment of the youngest Founding Father’s life: from his role in the Revolutionary War and early American government to his sordid (and ultimately career-destroying) affair with Maria Reynolds. He may never have been president, but he was a fascinating and unique figure in American history — plus it’s fun to get the truth behind the songs.

Prefer to read about fascinating First Ladies rather than almost-presidents? Check out this awesome list of books about First Ladies over on The Archive.

4. Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston

A prolific essayist, short story writer, and novelist, Hurston turned her hand to biographical writing in 1927 with this incredible work, kept under lock and key until it was published 2018. It’s based on Hurston’s interviews with the last remaining survivor of the Middle Passage slave trade, a man named Cudjo Lewis. Rendered in searing detail and Lewis’ highly affecting African-American vernacular, this biography of the “last black cargo” will transport you back in time to an era that, chillingly, is not nearly as far away from us as it feels.

5. Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert

Though many a biography of him has been attempted, Gilbert’s is the final authority on Winston Churchill — considered by many to be Britain’s greatest prime minister ever. A dexterous balance of in-depth research and intimately drawn details makes this biography a perfect tribute to the mercurial man who led Britain through World War II.

Just what those circumstances are occupies much of Bodanis's book, which pays homage to Einstein and, just as important, to predecessors such as Maxwell, Faraday, and Lavoisier, who are not as well known as Einstein today. Balancing writerly energy and scholarly weight, Bodanis offers a primer in modern physics and cosmology, explaining that the universe today is an expression of mass that will, in some vastly distant future, one day slide back to the energy side of the equation, replacing the \'dominion of matter\' with \'a great stillness\'--a vision that is at once lovely and profoundly frightening.

Without sliding into easy psychobiography, Bodanis explores other circumstances as well; namely, Einstein's background and character, which combined with a sterling intelligence to afford him an idiosyncratic view of the way things work--a view that would change the world. --Gregory McNamee

6. E=mc²: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation by David Bodanis

This “biography of the world’s most famous equation” is a one-of-a-kind take on the genre: rather than being the story of Einstein, it really does follow the history of the equation itself. From the origins and development of its individual elements (energy, mass, and light) to their ramifications in the twentieth century, Bodanis turns what could be an extremely dry subject into engaging fare for readers of all stripes.

7. Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

When Enrique was only five years old, his mother left Honduras for the United States, promising a quick return. Eleven years later, Enrique finally decided to take matters into his own hands in order to see her again: he would traverse Central and South America via railway, risking his life atop the “train of death” and at the hands of the immigration authorities, to reunite with his mother. This tale of Enrique’s perilous journey is not for the faint of heart, but it is an account of incredible devotion and sharp commentary on the pain of separation among immigrant families.

8. Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera

Herrera’s 1983 biography of renowned painter Frida Kahlo, one of the most recognizable names in modern art, has since become the definitive account on her life. And while Kahlo no doubt endured a great deal of suffering (a horrific accident when she was eighteen, a husband who had constant affairs), the focal point of the book is not her pain. Instead, it’s her artistic brilliance and immense resolve to leave her mark on the world — a mark that will not soon be forgotten, in part thanks to Herrera’s dedicated work.

9. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Perhaps the most impressive biographical feat of the twenty-first century, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is about a woman whose cells completely changed the trajectory of modern medicine. Rebecca Skloot skillfully commemorates the previously unknown life of a poor black woman whose cancer cells were taken, without her knowledge, for medical testing — and without whom we wouldn’t have many of the critical cures we depend upon today.

10. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, hitchhiked to Alaska and disappeared into the Denali wilderness in April 1992. Five months later, McCandless was found emaciated and deceased in his shelter — but of what cause? Krakauer’s biography of McCandless retraces his steps back to the beginning of the trek, attempting to suss out what the young man was looking for on his journey, and whether he fully understood what dangers lay before him.

11. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families by James Agee

"Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.” From this line derives the central issue of Agee and Evans’ work: who truly deserves our praise and recognition? According to this 1941 biography, it’s the barely-surviving sharecropper families who were severely impacted by the American “Dust Bowl” — hundreds of people entrenched in poverty, whose humanity Evans and Agee desperately implore their audience to see in their book.

12. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Another mysterious explorer takes center stage in this gripping 2009 biography. Grann tells the story of Percy Fawcett, the archaeologist who vanished in the Amazon along with his son in 1925, supposedly in search of an ancient lost city. Parallel to this narrative, Grann describes his own travels in the Amazon 80 years later: discovering firsthand what threats Fawcett may have encountered, and coming to realize what the “Lost City of Z” really was.

13. Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang

Though many of us will be familiar with the name Mao Zedong, this prodigious biography sheds unprecedented light upon the power-hungry “Red Emperor.” Chang and Halliday begin with the shocking statistic that Mao was responsible for 70 million deaths during peacetime — more than any other twentieth-century world leader. From there, they unravel Mao’s complex ideologies, motivations, and missions, breaking down his long-propagated “hero” persona and thrusting forth a new, grislier image of one of China’s biggest revolutionaries.

14. Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted by Andrew Wilson by Andrew Wilson

Titled after one of her most evocative poems, this shimmering bio of Sylvia Plath takes an unusual approach. Instead of focusing on her years of depression and tempestuous marriage to poet Ted Hughes, it chronicles her life before she ever came to Cambridge. Wilson closely examines her early family and relationships, feelings and experiences, with information taken from her meticulous diaries — setting a strong precedent for other Plath biographers to follow.

15. The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes

What if you had twenty-four different people living inside you, and you never knew which one was going to come out? Such was the life of Billy Milligan, the subject of this haunting biography by the author of Flowers for Algernon . Keyes recounts, in a refreshingly straightforward style, the events of Billy’s life and how his psyche came to be “split”... as well as how, with Keyes’ help, he attempted to put the fragments of himself back together.

16. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder

This gorgeously constructed biography follows Paul Farmer, a doctor who’s worked for decades to eradicate infectious diseases around the globe, particularly in underprivileged areas. Though Farmer’s humanitarian accomplishments are extraordinary in and of themselves, the true charm of this book comes from Kidder’s personal relationship with him — and the sense of fulfillment the reader sustains from reading about someone genuinely heroic, written by someone else who truly understands and admires what they do.

17. Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts

Here’s another bio that will reshape your views of a famed historical tyrant, though this time in a surprisingly favorable light. Decorated scholar Andrew Roberts delves into the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, from his near-flawless military instincts to his complex and confusing relationship with his wife. But Roberts’ attitude toward his subject is what really makes this work shine: rather than ridiculing him ( as it would undoubtedly be easy to do ), he approaches the “petty tyrant” with a healthy amount of deference.

18. The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV by Robert A. Caro

Lyndon Johnson might not seem as intriguing or scandalous as figures like Kennedy, Nixon, or W. Bush. But in this expertly woven biography, Robert Caro lays out the long, winding road of his political career, and it’s full of twists you wouldn’t expect. Johnson himself was a surprisingly cunning figure, gradually maneuvering his way closer and closer to power. Finally, in 1963, he got his greatest wish — but at what cost? Fans of Adam McKay’s Vice , this is the book for you.

19. Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

Anyone who grew up reading Little House on the Prairie will surely be fascinated by this tell-all biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Caroline Fraser draws upon never-before-published historical resources to create a lush study of the author’s life — not in the gently narrated manner of the Little House series, but in raw and startling truths about her upbringing, marriage, and volatile relationship with her daughter (and alleged ghostwriter) Rose Wilder Lane.

20. Prince: A Private View by Afshin Shahidi

Compiled just after the superstar’s untimely death in 2016, this intimate snapshot of Prince’s life is actually a largely visual work — Shahidi served as his private photographer from the early 2000s until his passing. And whatever they say about pictures being worth a thousand words, Shahidi’s are worth more still: Prince’s incredible vibrance, contagious excitement, and altogether singular personality come through in every shot.

21. Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss

Could there be a more fitting title for a book about the husband-wife team who discovered radioactivity? What you may not know is that these nuclear pioneers also had a fascinating personal history. Marie Sklodowska met Pierre Curie when she came to work in his lab in 1891, and just a few years later they were married. Their passion for each other bled into their passion for their work, and vice-versa — and in almost no time at all, they were on their way to their first of their Nobel Prizes.

22. Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

She may not have been assassinated or killed in a mysterious plane crash, but Rosemary Kennedy’s fate is in many ways the worst of “the Kennedy Curse.” As if a botched lobotomy that left her almost completely incapacitated weren’t enough, her parents then hid her away from society, almost never to be seen again. Yet in this new biography, penned by devoted Kennedy scholar Kate Larson, the full truth of Rosemary’s post-lobotomy life is at last revealed.

23. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford

This appropriately lyrical biography of brilliant Jazz Age poet and renowned feminist, Edna St. Vincent Millay, is indeed a perfect balance of savage and beautiful. While Millay’s poetic work was delicate and subtle, the woman herself was feisty and unpredictable, harboring unusual and occasionally destructive habits that Milford fervently explores.

24. Shelley: The Pursuit by Richard Holmes

Holmes’ famous philosophy of “biography as pursuit” is thoroughly proven here in his first full-length biographical work. Shelley: The Pursuit details an almost feverish tracking of Percy Shelley as a dark and cutting figure in the Romantic period — reforming many previous historical conceptions about him through Holmes’ compelling and resolute writing.

25. Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

Another Gothic figure has been made newly known through this work, detailing the life of prolific horror and mystery writer Shirley Jackson. Author Ruth Franklin digs deep into the existence of the reclusive and mysterious Jackson, drawing penetrating comparisons between the true events of her life and the dark nature of her fiction.

26. The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

Fans of Into the Wild and The Lost City of Z will find their next adventure fix in this 2017 book about Christopher Knight, a man who lived by himself in the Maine woods for almost thirty years. The tale of this so-called “last true hermit” will captivate readers who have always fantasized about escaping society, with vivid descriptions of Knight’s rural setup, his carefully calculated moves and how he managed to survive the deadly cold of the Maine winters.

27. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

The man, the myth, the legend: Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple, is properly immortalized in Isaacson’s masterful biography. It divulges the details of Jobs’ little-known childhood and tracks his fateful path from garage engineer to leader of one of the largest tech companies in the world — not to mention his formative role in other legendary companies like Pixar, and indeed within the Silicon Valley ecosystem as a whole.

28. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

Olympic runner Louis Zamperini was just twenty-six when his US Army bomber crashed and burned in the Pacific, leaving him and two other men afloat on a raft for forty-seven days — only to be captured by the Japanese Navy and tortured as a POW for the next two and a half years. In this gripping biography, Laura Hillenbrand tracks Zamperini’s story from beginning to end… including how he embraced Christian evangelism as a means of recovery, and even came to forgive his tormentors in his later years.

29. Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacy Schiff

Everyone knows of Vladimir Nabokov — but what about his wife, Vera, whom he called “the best-humored woman I have ever known”? According to Schiff, she was a genius in her own right, supporting Vladimir not only as his partner, but also as his all-around editor and translator. And she kept up that trademark humor throughout it all, inspiring her husband’s work and injecting some of her own creative flair into it along the way.

30. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

William Shakespeare is a notoriously slippery historical figure — no one really knows when he was born, what he looked like, or how many plays he wrote. But that didn’t stop Stephen Greenblatt, who in 2004 turned out this magnificently detailed biography of the Bard: a series of imaginative reenactments of his writing process, and insights on how the social and political ideals of the time would have influenced him. Indeed, no one exists in a vacuum, not even Shakespeare — hence the conscious depiction of him in this book as a “will in the world,” rather than an isolated writer shut up in his own musty study.

If you're looking for more inspiring nonfiction, check out this list of 30 engaging self-help books , or this list of the last century's best memoirs !

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40 Famous Artists Everyone Should Know, From Michelangelo to Frida Kahlo

Museums and textbooks are full of names of artists who've left their mark on history. Certain names, however, still stand out from the rest. Whether it is through their distinctive style, their participance in a pivotal art movement, or their eccentric life, these artists have achieved astounding fame. And while these creatives are well-known in popular culture now, many of them were not recognized for their talents until decades after their death.

So, who are the most famous artists? While you can probably guess the names of a few, some of the others may be new to you. Renaissance masters Michelangelo and Leonardo, for instance, are two creative titans whose names are synonymous with art and genius. Likewise, Georgia O'Keeffe and Frida Kahlo are some of the most significant female artists of the 20th century.

Here we will take a look at the names and lives of 40 of the most famous artists in the world .

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list that in any way indicates the most talented or most worthy of recognition. Art has had an unfortunate history of excluding women and people of color, but we look forward to that changing within our generation. This list is a reflection of the names and faces that have achieved fame, thus far.

40 All-Time Most Famous Artists in the World

Italian & northern renaissance, sandro botticelli (1445–1510).

Self-portrait of Sandro Botticelli from his painting “Adoration of the Magi,” c. 1476 (Photo: Uffizi via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli was one of the most prolific painters of the 15th century. While the artist's oeuvre features secular portraits and Biblical depictions, he is most well-known for his larger-than-life, mythological scenes. In fact, he was one of the first artists of this time period to revive Classical subject matter and adopt its iconography.

Famous works of art: Birth of Venus (c. 1486), Primavera (c. 1477–82)

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)

Portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, attributed to Francesco Melzi, c. 1515-17 (Photo: Royal Collection via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Leonardo da Vinci was the quintessential Renaissance man . Not only did he leave behind a collection of notebooks filled with scientific observations and illustrations, but he also left an important legacy of artwork spanning different mediums. His mastery of oil painting techniques such as sfumato and chiaroscuro can be seen in his portraits, Mona Lisa and Lady with an Ermine . The former remains as one of the most visited works of art in the world.

Famous works of art: Lady With an Ermine (1489–91), Vitruvian Man (c. 1492), The Last Supper (1498), Mona Lisa (1503–1516)

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)

Self-portrait at 28, oil painting on lime, 1500 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication)

Northern Renaissance  artist  Albrecht Durer  was the first artist to elevate printmaking to a form of fine art. He produced engravings, woodcuts, and etchings based on his meticulously detailed drawings. It was the first time someone attempted to duplicate such realistic illustrations, and its overwhelming success subsequently inspired other artists to make and distribute prints.

Famous works of art: Melancolia I (1514)

Michelangelo (1475–1564)

Portrait of Michelangelo, attributed to Daniele da Volterra, c. 1545 (Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

A master of painting, sculpture, and architecture, Michelangelo Buonarroti is one of the most exemplary figures of the Italian Renaissance . His nickname Il Divino (‘The Divine One”) is evidence of how beloved he was. Additionally, his incredible success is significant in a time when most artists did not enjoy wealth or fame while they were alive. In fact, Michelangelo is the first Western artist to have a biography published during his lifetime.

Famous works of art: Pietà (1498–99) David ( 1501–4), Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508–12), The Last Judgment (1536–1541)

Raphael (1482–1520)

Raphael, “Self Portrait,” 1504–1506 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, best known simply as  Raphael  (1482–1520), is held today as a master of form and composition. Although he died at just 37 years old, the Italian architect and painter left behind a vast body of work. He is primarily known for his  Madonna paintings , including his vivid  Madonna in the Grass, as well as his large-scale mural, The School of Athens , which celebrates philosophy.

Famous works of art:    Wedding of the Virgin  (1504),  School of Athens  (1511),  The Transfiguration  (1520)

Baroque Period

Caravaggio (1571–1610).

Portrait of Carvaggio by Ottavio Leoni, c. 1621 (Photo: Biblioteca Marucelliana via Wikimedia Commons )

Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi—better known as Caravaggio —led a passionate and turbulent life. His artistic legacy is just as evocative in style and technique. Never before had an artist used “normal” people as the models for paintings of biblical characters. Furthermore, his masterful use of extreme light and dark, or tenebrism , added an unparalleled psychological drama to his paintings.

Famous works of art: The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599–1600), David with the Head of Goliath (1610)

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)

Peter Paul Rubens, “Portrait of the Artist,” 1623 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , Public Domain)

Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a prominent Flemish Baroque painter who lived during the Dutch Golden Age. His distinct style emphasized color, movement, and drama—all key characteristics of the Baroque period. Known for his voluptuous women, opulent colors, and dynamic compositions, Rubens established himself as a prominent court painter for the Spanish Hapsburgs, developing an international reputation as an artist and diplomat.

Famous works of art: Marie de' Medici cycle (1620s)

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–c. 1656)

Artemisia Gentileschi, “Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting,” 1638–1639 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

As the daughter of an accomplished painter,  Artemisia Gentileschi  was afforded access to the art world at a young age. Early on she was in her father's workshop mixing paints and he supported her career when he noted that she was exceptionally gifted. As a noted painter of the Italian Baroque period, Gentileschi did not let her gender hold her back from her subject matter. She painted large-scale Biblical and mythological paintings, just like her male counterparts, and was the first woman accepted to the prestigious Fine Art Academy in Florence.

Famous works of art: Judith Slaying Holofernes (1614–1620)

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680)

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, “Self Portrait,” c. 1635 (Photo: Uffizi via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Perhaps no other artist defines the  Baroque era  more than  Gian Lorenzo Bernini , whose impressive career spanned nearly 70 years. As a child prodigy, Bernini was creating large-scale marble sculptures as a teen. Later, he would become the architect of St. Peter's Basilica—following in Michelangelo's footsteps—where he created the Basilica's iconic plaza and colonnade, as well as its central bronze canopy. A master of materials, Bernini is known for his astonishing ability to create movement and bring forth emotion with his work. In his hands, marble transforms into soft flesh that looks so real, that you’d want to reach out and squeeze it.

Famous works of art: The Rape of Proserpina (1621–1622) , The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa (1647–1652)

Diego Velázquez (1599–1660)

Diego Velázquez, “Self-Portrait,” c. 1640 (Photo:  Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Of the many influential artists that emerged during the Baroque period, one is best known for his honest and exquisite portraits of royalty: the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez . His position as a court painter granted the artist opportunities to travel Europe and see the art of the old masters, and capture some of the most prestigious people of the time. Velázquez's portraits are considered to be among the finest ever made and had a lasting impact on future artists like Manet and Picasso.

Famous works of art:  Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1650),  Las Meninas (1656),

Rembrandt (1606–1669)

Self-Portrait with Two Circles, c. 1665 -1669 (Photo: Kenwood House via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Dutch artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn is regarded as one the most important and influential figures in the history of art. A master painter, printmaker, and draughtsman, his extensive body of work continues to fascinate art-lovers around the world. It is why he is also known as an “Old Master”—a label reserved for Europe's most prolific pre-19th century painters.

Famous works of art: Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (1632) , The Night Watch (1642)

Jan Vermeer (1632–1675)

Assumed self-portrait of Jan Vermeer from his painting “The Procuress,” 1656. (Photo: Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Johannes Vermeer was devoted to exploring the everyday moments of the 17th-century Dutch Golden Age, often painting scenes of domestic life. He was dubbed the “Master of Light” due to the way he perfectly painted how natural light danced on the skin, fabrics, and other objects. Although he was a relatively successful painter during his lifetime, there are only 34 paintings attributed to him today. Still, this precious portfolio reveals the artist's exceptional understanding of color, composition, and realism.

Famous works of art: Girl with a Pearl Earring (c. 1665)

Edo Period (Japan)

Katsushika hokusai (c. 1760–1840).

Keisai Eisen, “Portrait of Hokusai,” before 1848 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Best known for his iconic print The Great Wave Off Kanagawa , Katsushika Hokusai was a pioneer of the Ukiyo-e movement or Japanese woodblock prints. He was incredibly prolific during his lifetime, creating over 20,000 paintings, sketches, and prints. His series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji were a major part of the Japonisme influence that helped shape Impressionism, several decades later.

Famous works of art: The Great Wave Off Kanagawa (c. 1826–1833)

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858)

Utagawa Kunisada, Memorial Portrait of Utagawa Hiroshige, 1858 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Japanese artist  Utagawa Hiroshige  is often regarded as the last great artist of the   Ukiyo-e   movement.  Ukiyo-e translates to “images of the floating world,” and artists of the movement made woodblock prints and paintings that depicted scenes of history, nature, and the famous faces of Edo. However, rather than create prints depicting typical Ukiyo-e motifs, Hiroshige developed his own style. Later, his works would influence prominent Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists like Monet and Van Gogh.

Famous works of art: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856–1859)

Romanticism

Eugène delacroix (1798–1863).

Eugène Delacroix, “Self-Portrait,” 1837 (Photo: Louvre Museum via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

A master of color, movement, and drama, Eugène Delacroix was a leader of the Romanticism art movement and an influential figure in the work of the Impressionists. Delacroix's oeuvre spanned contemporary events, mythological scenes, Orientalism, and portraiture.

Famous works of art: The Death of Sardanapalus (1827), Liberty Leading the People (1830)

Realism—Impressionism

édouard manet (1832–1883).

Photograph of artist Édouard Manet, enlargement by Paul Nadar of his father's original, before 1870 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Édouard Manet (1832-1883) was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life and a pioneering figure who led the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Controversial at the time, his paintings depicted nude women—one of which was the French female painter, Victorine Meurent— who posed for several of Manet's most famous paintings, including Olympia .

Famous works of art: Olympia (1863), The Luncheon on the Grass (1863),  A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882)

Impressionism

Edgar degas (1834–1917).

Edgar Degas, “Self-Portrait,” c. 1863 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Unlike other Impressionists,  Edgar Degas  was not preoccupied with light and nature. Instead, he preferred to capture intimate indoor depictions (seen “as if you looked through a key-hole”). This interest is evident in his collection of ballet paintings —set both in studios and on stage—as well as his voyeuristic pastel series of women at  la toilette . Though less prevalent than ballerinas and bathers, horseback riders often appear in Degas' oeuvre.

Famous works of art:   The Dance Class  (1875),  L'Absinthe  (1875–1876)

Claude Monet (1840–1926)

Portrait of Claude Monet by Nadar, 1899 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

With a one-of-a-kind style and a pioneering approach to painting, Claude Monet is renowned as an influential Impressionist figure. Using distinctively dappled brushstrokes, a characteristically colorful range of tones, and a focus on light, the French artist created compositions that captured the essence of the movement.

Famous works of art: Impression, sunrise ( 1872), Water Lilies series (1883–1926)

Mary Cassatt (1844–1936)

Mary Cassatt, “Self-Portrait,” c. 1878 (Photo: The Met via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Initially introduced to Paris' premier artists by Edgar Degas,  Mary Cassatt   (1844–1936)—an  American artist —would become a key figure in the French, male-dominated movement. Cassatt is known for her interest in representing women and girls in her art, which mostly manifested as quiet, mother-daughter depictions. However, some of her pieces, like her celebrated  Little Girl in a Blue Armchair , depict women and girls in a state of solitary reflection.

Famous works of art:  Little Girl in Blue Armchair  (1878),  Child's Bath  (1893)

Post-Impressionism

Paul cézanne (1839–1906).

Paul Cézanne, “Self-Portrait with Palette,” c. 1890 (Photo: The Yorck Project via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

French artist Paul Cézanne was one of the pioneers of the Post-Impressionist art movement, whose work is   characterized by painterly brushstrokes, an avant-garde approach to perspective, and a vivid color palette. Additionally, he is celebrated as the forefather of Fauvism  and a precursor to Cubism. Given his prominence in these groundbreaking genres, Cézanne is regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of  modern art .

Famous works of art: The Card Players series (early 1890s), The Bathers series (1898–1905)

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903)

Paul Gauguin, “Self-Portrait with the Yellow Christ,” 1891 (Photo: Musée d'Orsay via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

As one of the most significant French painters of the Post-Impressionist movement,  Paul Gauguin  (1848–1903) experimented with new color theories and new stylistic approaches to painting. He famously worked alongside Vincent  Van Gogh  during a summer in the south of France, before abandoning his life in Western society altogether. In the early 1890s, he began traveling regularly to the south Pacific where he developed a new style that married his day-to-day observations with mythical symbolism. This style was strongly influenced by the so-called “primitive” arts of Africa, Asia, and French Polynesia.

Famous works of art:   The Yellow Christ  (1889),  Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?  (1897)

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)

Vincent van Gogh, “Self-Portrait,” 1887 (Photo: Art Institute of Chicago via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

While Vincent van Gogh has found a significant amount of fame posthumously, his life was not as untroubled as his characteristically colorful canvases would suggest. From financial struggles to his failing mental health, Van Gogh faced many personal challenges during his career. In spite of this, he left behind a dazzling body of work—including landscapes, portraiture , and urban scenes—in an iconic style that is uniquely his own.

Famous works of art: The Starry Night (1889), Sunflowers (1887)

Henri Matisse (1869–1954)

Photograph of Henri Matisse by Carl Van Vechten, 1933 (Photo: Van Vechten Collection via Wikimedia Commons )

Considered the greatest colorist of the 20th century and a revolutionary artist who helped define modern art, French artist Henri Matisse first emerged as a Post-Impressionist . Then, in 1904, he led the Fauvism movement , which is French for “wild beasts.” The Les Fauves were a group of modern artists who favored pure, bright colors and expressive brushstrokes over realism.

Famous works of art: Woman with a Hat (1905), The Dance (1909–10)

Vienna Secessionism & Art Nouveau

Gustav klimt (1862–1918).

Photograph of Gustav Klimt by Josef Anton Trčka, 1914 (Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons )

A leader of the Vienna Secessionist artistic movement (which was associated with Art Nouveau ), Austrian artist Gustav Klimt left behind thousands of drawings and a vast portfolio of painted works. He is most well-known for the collection of glistening, gilded works he produced during his Golden Phase .

Famous works of art: The Kiss (1907–8)

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)

Photograph of Pablo Picasso, 1962 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

With a career that spanned 79 years and included success in painting, sculpting, ceramics, poetry, stage design, and writing, Pablo Picasso is one of the most important artists of the 20th century. While most artists are known for one iconic style, Picasso's changed several times during his lifetime. Some of his most distinct periods include the Blue Period, Cubism , and Surrealism.

Famous works of art: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), Guernica (1937)

Amadeo Modigliani (1884–1920)

Photo of Amadeo Modigliani, c. 1919 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Italian painter and sculptor  Amedeo Modigliani was an integral member of the École de Paris (School of Paris). Not associated with any one particular art genre, Modigliani’s signature style merges European movements (such as Cubism) with non-Western art forms. He’s best known for his distinctive nudes and portraits that are characterized by elongated proportions and African mask-like faces. While his nudes scandalized audiences at the time, his melancholic portraits revealed his subjects’ personal inner lives.

Famous works of art: Portrait of the Artist's Wife (1918)

Diego Rivera (1886–1957)

Photo of “Diego Rivera with a xoloitzcuintle dog in the Blue House, Coyoacan” (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Equally famous for his revolutionary paintings and tumultuous personal life, Diego Rivera remains one of modern art‘s most well-known figures. He was one of the leading figures of Mexican Muralism, creating distinct paintings characterized by a bold color palette and simplified forms inspired by both Mayan and Aztec art. With his large-scale public works, Rivera communicated important political messages that challenged, mobilized, and inspired the public.

Famous works of art: Man at the Crossroads (1934)

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986)

Photograph of Georgia O’Keeffe by Alfred Stieglitz, 1918 (Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons )

American artist Georgia O'Keeffe helped to usher in the American Modernism movement with a style that favors the interpretation of subjects rather than representing them through strict realism. Likewise, she is best known for her abstract depictions of colorful blooms and landscapes of the Southwestern United States.

Famous works of art: Jimson Weed (1936) , Sky Above Clouds IV (1965)

René Magritte (1898–1967)

As a pioneer of the Surrealist art movement , René Magritte created work that celebrated the subconscious mind and the world of dreams. Throughout his long career, he produced paintings that blurred the line between reality and fantasy and invited the viewer to question what they thought they knew.

Famous works of art: The Treachery of Images (1929), The Son of Man (1964)

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989)

Salvador Dalí, photographed by Studio Harcourt, 1936 (Photo: RMN via Wikimedia Commons , Public domain)

Few artists are as visually iconic as Salvador Dalí . Although he explored a variety of mediums during his lifetime, including sculpture, printmaking, fashion, writing, and even filmmaking, Dalí’s paintings stand out as particularly epochal. In particular, the artist developed his own visual language for depicting his own inner world, dreams, and hallucinations.

Famous works of art: The Persistence of Memory (1931), The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1946)

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954)

Photograph of Frida Kahlo by her father, Guillermo Kahlo, 1932 (Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons )

As one of the most famous female painters of all time , Mexican artist Frida Kahlo ‘s legacy continues to make an impact today. Her passionate yet tumultuous life greatly impacted the subject matter of her paintings. She is particularly known for her compelling self-portraits, which deal with themes of identity, suffering, and the human body.

Famous works of art: The Two Fridas (1932), Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940)

Abstract Expressionism

Mark rothko (1903–1970).

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Mark Rothko (@markrothkoart)

American painter Mark Rothko revolutionized abstract art by becoming one of the pioneers of color field painting . He expressed profound emotion through his signature compositions of hazy, colored squares on large canvases that occupy a viewer's entire field of vision, evoking what he referred to as “the sublime.”

Famous works of art: Untitled, Black on Gray (1969)

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956)

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Jackson Pollock (@jackson_pollock)

American artist Jackson Pollock is considered one of the greatest painters of the Abstract Expressionist movement. His signature drip paintings—which he began producing in the late 1940s—captivated the art world. Pollock redefined line, color, and pictorial space by finding an entirely new way to fill a canvas.

Famous works of art : No. 5 (1948), Autumn Rhythm: Number 30 (1950)

Andy Warhol (1928–1987)

Photograph of Andy Warhol with Archie, his pet Daschund by Jack Mitchell, 1973 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , CC BY 4.0 )

American artist Andy Warhol was a pivotal figure in the 1950s Pop Art movement . While Warhol worked in a myriad of mediums, he is most famous for his polychromatic silkscreen prints and paintings. His works defined many of the movement's most distinctive characteristics: bold, contemporary imagery; a bright color palette; and a repetitive aesthetic inspired by mass production.

Famous works of art: Campbell's Soup Cans (1962), Marilyn Diptych (1962)

Contemporary Art

Jean-michel basquiat (1960–1988).

From left to right: Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Bruno Bischofberger, and Fransesco Clemente, 1984 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons , CC BY-SA 4.0 )

In the late 20th century, Jean-Michel Basquiat turned the contemporary art world on its head. Living and working in New York City in the 1970s and 80s, the young artist helped pioneer and popularize street art by bringing graffiti into the gallery—a monumental move that made the glitz and glamor of the art world accessible to people from all walks of life.

Famous works of art: Untitled (1982), Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump (1982)

Yayoi Kusama (1929–present)

Photograph of Yayoi Kusama, 2016 (Photo:  Wikimedia Commons , CC BY 4.0 )

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is considered to be the most famous living female artist. Throughout her illustrious career, she has developed a signature approach to her craft. Characterized by polka dots, bold color palettes, and organic forms, her aesthetic is perhaps best typified by her pumpkin art , a collection of works celebrating the subject's “generous unpretentiousness.”

Famous works of art: Infinity Mirror Room—Phalli’s Field (1965), Narcissus Garden (1966), Pumpkin series

Ai Weiwei (1957–present)

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Skirball Cultural Center (@skirball_la)

Artist  Ai Weiwei  is undoubtedly the most well-known living Chinese creative today, but his country’s government doesn’t exactly give him the recognition he deserves. In communist China—where freedom of speech is tightly regulated—Ai’s varied portfolio of work doesn’t fetch the highest prices at auctions, and critics don’t sing his praises. Instead, the activist is viewed as a threat to the “harmonious society.” Through sculpture, film, installation, photography, and architecture—and across an array of materials including ceramics, marble, paint, and tea—Ai explores Chinese identity in the modern world as well as the culture’s social history.

Famous works of art: Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995), Sunflower Seeds (2011)

Keith Haring (1958–1990)

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by The Haring Foundation Account (@keith_haring)

In the 1980s, Keith Haring shot to international fame. Using his trademark line drawings, Haring became instantly recognizable for his pop style art. This would catapult him from the underground art scene in New York City to a career that would see him mingling with the likes of Andy Warhol, Grace Jones, Yoko Ono, and Madonna.

Famous works of art: Keith Haring Mural (1984), Tuttomondo (1989)

Takashi Murakami (1962–present)

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by HYPEBEAST (@hypebeast)

Often referred to as “the Warhol of Japan,”  Takashi Murakami  is known for blurring the line between art and consumerism. His brightly colored, cheerful work draws inspiration from the Japanese subculture of  otaku , a term used to describe people devoted to all things pop culture. Through his art, Murakami explores Japan's contemporary culture as well as the West's ever-growing influence on it.

Famous works of art: Mr. Dob series, The Lonesome Cowboy (1998), Flowers (2002)

Banksy (1974–present)

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Banksy (@banksy)

Known only by his pseudonym, Banksy is arguably the most famous street artist today. Since the 1990s, the elusive, England-based creative has been making politically and socially charged art, oftentimes with a sense of dark humor. While his face and true identity remain unknown, his portfolio of attention-grabbing art continues to shock and entice the world.

Famous works of art: Balloon Girl (2002),  Love is in the Bin (2018)

This article has been edited and updated.

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The 50 Best Biographies of All Time

Think you know the full and complete story about George Washington, Steve Jobs, or Joan of Arc? Think again.

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Biographies have always been controversial. On his deathbed, the novelist Henry James told his nephew that his “sole wish” was to “frustrate as utterly as possible the postmortem exploiter” by destroying his personal letters and journals. And one of our greatest living writers, Hermione Lee, once compared biographies to autopsies that add “a new terror to death”—the potential muddying of someone’s legacy when their life is held up to the scrutiny of investigation.

But despite its long history dating back to ancient Rome and Sumeria, biography as a genre didn’t really pop off until the middle of the twentieth century, when we became obsessed with celebrity culture. Since then, biographies of presidents, activists, artists, and musicians have regularly appeared on bestseller lists, while Hollywood continues to adapt them into Oscar bait like A Beautiful Mind, The Imitation Game , and Steve Jobs .

Why do we read so many books about the lives and deaths of strangers, as told by second-hand and third-hand sources? Is it merely our love for gossip, or are we trying to understand ourselves through the triumphs and failures of others?

To keep this list from blossoming into hundreds of titles, we only included books currently in print and translated into English. We also limited it to one book per author, and one book per subject. In ranked order, here are the best biographies of all time.

Crown The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss

You’re probably familiar with The Count of Monte Cristo , the 1844 revenge novel by Alexandre Dumas. But did you know it was based on the life of Dumas’s father, the mixed-race General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, son of a French nobleman and a Haitian slave? Thanks to Reiss’s masterful pacing and plotting, this rip-roaring biography of Thomas-Alexandre reads more like an adventure novel than a work of nonfiction. The Black Count won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2013, and it’s only a matter of time before a filmmaker turns it into a big-screen blockbuster.

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret, by Craig Brown

Few biographies are as genuinely fun to read as this barnburner from the irreverent English critic Craig Brown. Princess Margaret may have been everyone’s favorite character from Netflix’s The Crown , but Brown’s eye for ostentatious details and revelatory insights will help you see why everyone in the 1950s—from Pablo Picasso and Gore Vidal to Peter Sellers and Andy Warhol—was obsessed with her. When book critic Parul Sehgal says that she “ripped through the book with the avidity of Margaret attacking her morning vodka and orange juice,” you know you’re in for a treat.

Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller, by Alec Nevala-Lee

If you want to feel optimistic about the future again, look no further than this brilliant biography of Buckminster Fuller, the “modern Leonardo da Vinci” of the 1960s and 1970s who came up with the idea of a “Spaceship Earth” and inspired Silicon Valley’s belief that technology could be a global force for good (while earning plenty of critics who found his ideas impractical). Alec Nevala-Lee’s writing is as serene and precise as one of Fuller’s geodesic domes, and his research into never-before-seen documents makes this a genuinely groundbreaking book full of surprises.

Free Press Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, by Robin D.G. Kelley

The late American jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Monk has been so heavily mythologized that it can be hard to separate fact from fiction. But Robin D. G. Kelley’s biography is an essential book for jazz fans looking to understand the man behind the myths. Monk’s family provided Kelley with full access to their archives, resulting in chapter after chapter of fascinating details, from his birth in small-town North Carolina to his death across the Hudson from Manhattan.

University of Chicago Press Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography, by Meryle Secrest

There are dozens of books about America’s most celebrated architect, but Secrest’s 1998 biography is still the most fun to read. For one, she doesn’t shy away from the fact that Wright could be an absolute monster, even to his own friends and family. Secondly, her research into more than 100,000 letters, as well as interviews with nearly every surviving person who knew Wright, makes this book a one-of-a-kind look at how Wright’s personal life influenced his architecture.

Ralph Ellison: A Biography, by Arnold Rampersad

Ralph Ellison’s landmark novel, Invisible Man , is about a Black man who faced systemic racism in the Deep South during his youth, then migrated to New York, only to find oppression of a slightly different kind. What makes Arnold Rampersand’s honest and insightful biography of Ellison so compelling is how he connects the dots between Invisible Man and Ellison’s own journey from small-town Oklahoma to New York’s literary scene during the Harlem Renaissance.

Oscar Wilde: A Life, by Matthew Sturgis

Now remembered for his 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde was one of the most fascinating men of the fin-de-siècle thanks to his poems, plays, and some of the earliest reported “celebrity trials.” Sturgis’s scintillating biography is the most encyclopedic chronicle of Wilde’s life to date, thanks to new research into his personal notebooks and a full transcript of his libel trial.

Beacon Press A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun: The Life & Legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks, by Angela Jackson

The poet Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1950, but because she spent most of her life in Chicago instead of New York, she hasn’t been studied or celebrated as often as her peers in the Harlem Renaissance. Luckily, Angela Jackson’s biography is full of new details about Brooks’s personal life, and how it influenced her poetry across five decades.

Atria Books Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, by Dana Stevens

Was Buster Keaton the most influential filmmaker of the first half of the twentieth century? Dana Stevens makes a compelling case in this dazzling mix of biography, essays, and cultural history. Much like Keaton’s filmography, Stevens playfully jumps from genre to genre in an endlessly entertaining way, while illuminating how Keaton’s influence on film and television continues to this day.

Algonquin Books Empire of Deception: The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation, by Dean Jobb

Dean Jobb is a master of narrative nonfiction on par with Erik Larsen, author of The Devil in the White City . Jobb’s biography of Leo Koretz, the Bernie Madoff of the Jazz Age, is among the few great biographies that read like a thriller. Set in Chicago during the 1880s through the 1920s, it’s also filled with sumptuous period details, from lakeside mansions to streets choked with Model Ts.

Vintage Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life, by Hermione Lee

Hermione Lee’s biographies of Virginia Woolf and Edith Wharton could easily have made this list. But her book about a less famous person—Penelope Fitzgerald, the English novelist who wrote The Bookshop, The Blue Flower , and The Beginning of Spring —might be her best yet. At just over 500 pages, it’s considerably shorter than those other biographies, partially because Fitzgerald’s life wasn’t nearly as well documented. But Lee’s conciseness is exactly what makes this book a more enjoyable read, along with the thrilling feeling that she’s uncovering a new story literary historians haven’t already explored.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

Many biographers have written about Sylvia Plath, often drawing parallels between her poetry and her death by suicide at the age of thirty. But in this startling book, Plath isn’t wholly defined by her tragedy, and Heather Clark’s craftsmanship as a writer makes it a joy to read. It’s also the most comprehensive account of Plath’s final year yet put to paper, with new information that will change the way you think of her life, poetry, and death.

Pontius Pilate, by Ann Wroe

Compared to most biography subjects, there isn’t much surviving documentation about the life of Pontius Pilate, the Judaean governor who ordered the execution of the historical Jesus in the first century AD. But Ann Wroe leans into all that uncertainty in her groundbreaking book, making for a fascinating mix of research and informed speculation that often feels like reading a really good historical novel.

Brand: History Book Club Bolívar: American Liberator, by Marie Arana

In the early nineteenth century, Simón Bolívar led six modern countries—Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela—to independence from the Spanish Empire. In this rousing work of biography and geopolitical history, Marie Arana deftly chronicles his epic life with propulsive prose, including a killer first sentence: “They heard him before they saw him: the sound of hooves striking the earth, steady as a heartbeat, urgent as a revolution.”

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, by Yunte Huang

Ever read a biography of a fictional character? In the 1930s and 1940s, Charlie Chan came to popularity as a Chinese American police detective in Earl Derr Biggers’s mystery novels and their big-screen adaptations. In writing this book, Yunte Huang became something of a detective himself to track down the real-life inspiration for the character, a Hawaiian cop named Chang Apana born shortly after the Civil War. The result is an astute blend between biography and cultural criticism as Huang analyzes how Chan served as a crucial counterpoint to stereotypical Chinese villains in early Hollywood.

Random House Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay, by Nancy Milford

Edna St. Vincent Millay was one of the most fascinating women of the twentieth century—an openly bisexual poet, playwright, and feminist icon who helped make Greenwich Village a cultural bohemia in the 1920s. With a knack for torrid details and creative insights, Nancy Milford successfully captures what made Millay so irresistible—right down to her voice, “an instrument of seduction” that captivated men and women alike.

Simon & Schuster Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson

Few people have the luxury of choosing their own biographers, but that’s exactly what the late co-founder of Apple did when he tapped Walter Isaacson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin. Adapted for the big screen by Aaron Sorkin in 2015, Steve Jobs is full of plot twists and suspense thanks to a mind-blowing amount of research on the part of Isaacson, who interviewed Jobs more than forty times and spoke with just about everyone who’d ever come into contact with him.

Brand: Random House Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), by Stacy Schiff

The Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov once said, “Without my wife, I wouldn’t have written a single novel.” And while Stacy Schiff’s biography of Cleopatra could also easily make this list, her telling of Véra Nabokova’s life in Russia, Europe, and the United States is revolutionary for finally bringing Véra out of her husband’s shadow. It’s also one of the most romantic biographies you’ll ever read, with some truly unforgettable images, like Vera’s habit of carrying a handgun to protect Vladimir on butterfly-hunting excursions.

Greenblatt, Stephen Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, by Stephen Greenblatt

We know what you’re thinking. Who needs another book about Shakespeare?! But Greenblatt’s masterful biography is like traveling back in time to see firsthand how a small-town Englishman became the greatest writer of all time. Like Wroe’s biography of Pontius Pilate, there’s plenty of speculation here, as there are very few surviving records of Shakespeare’s daily life, but Greenblatt’s best trick is the way he pulls details from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets to construct a compelling narrative.

Crown Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

When Kiese Laymon calls a book a “literary miracle,” you pay attention. James Baldwin’s legacy has enjoyed something of a revival over the last few years thanks to films like I Am Not Your Negro and If Beale Street Could Talk , as well as books like Glaude’s new biography. It’s genuinely a bit of a miracle how he manages to combine the story of Baldwin’s life with interpretations of Baldwin’s work—as well as Glaude’s own story of discovering, resisting, and rediscovering Baldwin’s books throughout his life.

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The 10 Best Biopics About Artists, Ranked

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To encapsulate the life of a person within the constraints of a film is a daunting task; to encapsulate the life and essence of an artist, perhaps even more so. With only a few minutes and the medium's limitations in hand, biopic movies about artists are ambitious efforts that try to convey what made the creative in question such a crucial part of art history, whether that's through a traditional biopic narrative or a more abstract structure.

Many filmmakers have set out to portray the lives of certain painters and sculptors . From Oscar laureates like Lust for Life to more underappreciated arthouse masterpieces like Andrei Rublev , these artist biopics succeed at showing the life that brought these icons to put out such extraordinary work while adding some creative elements to dive even deeper into their psyche and individuality.

10 'Big Eyes' (2014)

Director: tim burton.

Though her work earned little acclaim from critics, audiences absolutely loved the "Big Eyed Waifs" of Margaret Keane , who's known for having started a movement characterized by painting subjects with unusually large eyes. Big Eyes is a drama about her success story, touching on the legal difficulties she had with her abusive husband, who claimed credit for her works in the '60s.

Despite his distinctive and instantly recognizable style, director Tim Burton has shown admirable versatility when it comes to working on different genres, and the biopic genre suits his storytelling sensibilities beautifully. With Big Eyes , he made one of the best biopics of the 2010s , with a phenomenal performance by the ever-great Amy Adams and his equally gifted sparring partner, Christoph Waltz . Big Eyes is the kind of unique portrayal of Keane that one might expect from a singular creative mind like Burton .

Watch on Netflix

9 'Pollock' (2000)

Director: ed harris.

Jackson Pollock was one of the most noteworthy American artists of the 20th century, a leading figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement, characterized by spontaneous brushstrokes and movements. Ed Harris makes his directorial debut and stars in Pollock , a biopic about the controversial painter's life and work, his problems with alcoholism, and his troubled marriage with Lee Krasner .

The film's two main performances are fantastic, with Harris earning an Oscar nomination for his work and Marcia Gay Harden winning Best Supporting Actress. More so than just plainly depicting his subject's life, however, Harris seems to be more interested in the nature of creativity and the creative process as reflected in Pollock's work. It's an interesting approach, certainly one that not many artist biopics take.

Rent on Amazon

8 'Camille Claudel' (1988)

Director: bruno nuytten.

One of the most overlooked artists in European history, the French Camille Claudel was a massively talented sculptor in her own right; alas, today, she's best known for having been Auguste Rodin 's muse and mistress. Bruno Nuytten 's Camille Claudel examines their relationship and Claudel's struggle to escape Rodin's shadow.

Isabelle Adjani got an Oscar nomination for playing Claudel, and Gérard Depardieu is terrific as Rodin. Camille Claudel is exquisitely poignant, as beautiful as its main characters' sculptures , and with a truly jaw-dropping performance by Adjani, an essential French film that everyone should watch at least once. It's an accurate character study with some outstanding production qualities, but its exceptionally sad, profoundly compelling story is the main attraction.

Watch on Kanopy

7 'Frida' (2002)

Director: julie taymor.

To this day, Frida Kahlo is still recognized as one of Mexico's most important and renowned painters, best known for her intensely surreal work on topics like identity and the human body. One could talk about her for hours on end without running out of topics for conversation; her life was a story like no other, full of pain, always reflected as sheer beauty in her art. As such, Frida had a lot of ground to cover, and it did a fantastic job. With an unconventional approach to the biopic genre , this film shows how the artist channeled the pain of a crippling injury and her tumultuous marriage into her work.

Salma Hayek earned an Oscar nomination for playing Kahlo, and it was well deserved. Her performance is a tour de force that's marvelously complemented by Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera , Kahlo's husband and an eminent, galavanting artist. The relationship between these two complicated people is the main driving force behind Frida , but it does just as sharp a job of portraying what made the titular character so unique as an individual.

Watch on Paramount+

6 'Maudie' (2016)

Director: aisling walsh.

An exceptional folk artist from the province of Nova Scotia in Canada, Maud Lewis led an extraordinarily simple life. Though she wasn't a trained artist, her work is beautifully cheerful and optimistic. Aisling Walsh 's Maudie is the story of her cozy rural life, as well as her unlikely romance with the recluse fish seller Everett Lewis .

Maud has become an iconic part of modern Canadian culture, and Sally Hawkins portrays her magnificently, with Ethan Hawke playing her husband equally well. Although the film never dives particularly deep into Lewis' remarkable life and achievements, it never aims higher than it needs to. Simultaneously tragic and life-affirming , Maudie is a touching slice of the creative essence of an admirable woman .

5 'Mr. Turner' (2014)

Director: mike leigh.

Undeniably great yet infamously eccentric, English Romantic landscape painter J.M.W. Turner had an expressionistic grasp of color and lighting like no one else in his day, heavily influencing Impressionism. Mike Leigh , one of England's most acclaimed directors, had the daunting task of directing Mr. Turner , a biopic about the last quarter century of this legendary figure's life.

Though it's a biopic on the longer side , clocking in at 150 minutes, Mr. Turner is worth every second. Timothy Spall is masterful in the role of the eponymous painter, utterly transforming into Turner with all his different layers and cantankerous quirks. Leigh's approach to the biopic genre is delicate, slow, and refreshing; thus, Mr. Turner is a different kind of portrait, as singular and interesting as the man at its center .

Watch on Starz

4 'Lust for Life' (1956)

Director: vicente minnelli.

When one hears the word "painting," it's hard for the legendary Vincent Van Gogh not to be one of the first people to come to mind. The magnificent Dutch Post-Impressionist has had his life portrayed on film on many separate occasions; however, few have been as successful as the lauded Lust for Life , which examines Van Gogh as much more than just the archetypical tortured artistic genius.

Director Vincente Minnelli nails both the hauntingly sad nature of Van Gogh's life and the incomparable beauty of his art. The great Kirk Douglas is simply perfect as Van Gogh, his intense and passionate style fitting the role like a glove. Anthony Quinn , chief among Mexican actors who made it big in Hollywood , is also fantastic as Paul Gauguin . Visually striking and fittingly plaintive, Lust for Life is a touching portrait of one of history's most fascinating men .

3 'Loving Vincent' (2017)

Directors: dorota kobiela, hugh welchman.

In a rather unconventional twist of the biopic genre, DK and Hugh Welchman 's Loving Vincent isn't exactly about Van Gogh and his life. Rather, it's the story of a young man who arrives at Van Gogh's hometown to deliver the artist's final letter, ending up investigating his final days there. This was the first oil-painted feature film, and the result is a movie as visually gorgeous as it is narratively gripping.

Experimental, deliberately paced, and full of the kind of melancholy that today permeates Van Gogh's entire body of work, Loving Vincent is regarded by many as one of the best animated movies of the 2010s , and rightfully so . There certainly is no other movie like it, and that alone makes it a must-see, whether you're a Van Gogh fan or not.

Watch on AMC+

2 'My Left Foot' (1989)

Director: jim sheridan.

Christy Brown is nothing short of one of the most impressive and admirable artists of all time. Born with cerebral palsy, he was unable to control any of his limbs except his left foot. It was with only this extremity that he became one of the most noteworthy Irish novelists, painters, and poets ever, which director Jim Sheridan potently captured in My Left Foot .

By the late '80s, audiences didn't yet fully know what Daniel Day-Lewis was capable of. It was in his astonishing transformation into Brown in My Left Foot - which earned him his first Oscar - that he started showing signs of being one of the best actors of all time . But although it's Day-Lewis that brings most audiences to the film, it's the poignantly sincere script, eye-opening story, and Sheridan's phenomenal directing that give My Left Foot its staying power .

My Left Foot

Watch on Hoopla

1 'Andrei Rublev' (1966)

Director: andrei tarkovsky.

Andrei Rublev is considered the greatest Medieval Russian painter of Orthodox icons and frescoes. Little is known about his life, so the illustrious Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky , perhaps cinema's greatest poet, wasted no time in making Andrei Rublev a traditional biopic. As slow-burning, poetic, and philosophical as the rest of the director's work, it's a historical epic touching on religion, spirituality, and art and how the three are more deeply interconnected than most people give them credit for.

Undebatably one of its director's greatest works , Andrei Rublev is a fascinating arthouse drama full of rich symbolism and thought-provoking themes , an insightful exploration of Medieval Russian history, and one of the most unique biopics ever made. It's a beautiful way to get familiar with the work of its titular subject and a must-see masterpiece for all those who enjoy outstanding cinema.

Watch on Criterion

NEXT: The 10 Best World War II Biopics, Ranked

Articles and features

Still Life: This Classic Painting Genre Continues To Endure

By Lauren Gee

” Still life is the touchstone of painting “ Édouard Manet

With the earliest known examples existing amongst frescoes uncovered at Pompeii, the still life has been a staple of artistic production for centuries. Derived from the Flemish ‘stillleven’ during the Dutch Golden Age of the mid Seventeenth century the genre was practised at that time to show the surge in cultural and economic prominence of the burgeoning mercantile nation. Still life painting flowered as a means to show the achievements, but also transience, of ordinary human life. The genre also enabled artists to demonstrate their virtuosity in the depiction of finely crafted goods, which were increasingly emblematic of the emergent middle class’ lifestyle. The still life, also called ‘nature morte’ in French has also been used as a vanitas device – a means to show the fleeting temporality of human existence and as a reflection on the vices and virtues of life. It was represented as a class of painting unto itself in the various official salon exhibitions of Europe during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, but despite the breakdown of the official art system and the emergence of the avant grade in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries the still life shows no sign of going away.

Henri Fantin-Latour

Known for his quietly rendered still lifes, French painter Henri Fantin-Latour was an artist whose work evolved during the advent of Impressionism. He might have been a traditionalist in his approach, but was a master at depicting serene corners of domestic life with soft and subtle brushwork. The assymmetrical table position and composition is framed with the insouciance of quick photographic snap, an emergent medium well known to the artist. Teeming out of the vase in different directions, as though looking for the light, the delicacy of the flowers’ curled petals recall the pastel flora of the Eighteenth century rococo, but reimagined as a painting for the modern life of the day. Balance and poise was always integral to Latour’s work; the scattering of clementine segments in the foreground of the painting draw the viewer in, our eyes gently steered by the artist by the play of light and shadow on the various subjects. The porcelain pot affirms a sense of domesticity, a prevalent theme in the cult of still life painting and rooted in the sanctuary of the home life.

Paul Cézanne

“with an apple I will astonish Paris” Paul Cézanne

The melancholy of the memento mori is embraced here by French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne. Vanitas , Latin for Vanity, was a work intended to remind the viewer of their mortality, the futility of pleasure and the imminence of death. The vanitas image has had a longstanding synergy with the still life, where objects are carefully rendered by the artist to symbolise the fleeting nature of human life. Cézanne’s bold brush shows a further loosening of the Impressionist style, and has long been considered a precursor to the jarring modernism of Cubism a decade later. The darkness of the background is foreboding and threatening to the vibrant green and red hues of the pears, the skull faces towards the collection of pears, producing a contrast between their sense of life and its own hollow structure. Death seeps out of the skull claiming the pear closest as its first victim, decaying or half eaten, leaving a misshapen form in its wake. Life is never far from death.

Giorgio Morandi

Italian painter Morandi treats his still life works as portraits, his chosen domestic objects reimagined as a composition of figural elements, a gathering. Most of his still lives use his famed muted and earth-toned palette, giving his objects and composition a feel of warmth and humility. The painted objects, often jugs and assorted pots, sit in conversational clusters, tangibly human in their interactions and in their separation across the canvas surface. In this example, the compositional tension created by these demarcations is strengthened by the jug, which turns away from the first row of objects, complicating the sense of harmony one expects from a still life. Morandi is clever in concealing these conflicts within a seemingly simplistic composition. These powerful subtleties have led Morandi to be regarded as one of the most renowned painters of the twentieth century, and an artist almost entirely associated with the still life genre, embracing it, evolving it and making it his own.

Jasper Johns

In the mid twentieth century still life is invigorated by American artist Jasper Johns with an attitude that foreshadows the emergence of Pop Art . Though Johns is known primarily for his painting, this sculptural take on the still life is stoic in its simplicity. Moving away from the painterly conventions more readily associated with the still life, the identity this work in its conformity to the genre is clearly perceptible in its honest portrayal of the household object. Johns is well known for his focus on American Culture, both predating and overlapping the Pop Art movement of the 60s, the most famous examples perhaps being his versions of the American flag. This sculpture pays homage to the cult item, in the same way the traditional still life does, but also the branded item, a feature of Pop. The still life is a medium with great anthropological insight, what is on one’s kitchen table produces a telling account of those who would be sat around it. Johns is slightly humorous in this sense, a meagre offering of two beers, a humorous portrait – Johns modernises a genre that still has great contemporary relevance.

Wayne Thiebaud

We are at a 1970’s dinner party, the food is cold, but no one cares because it is gaudy, kitsch and ridiculously styled. This is the world that Wayne Thiebaud has thrown us into with his energetic and cheerful still life, a portrait of the seventies . Aperitifs take the form of synchronized swimming events, the symmetry and vibrancy of which animate the painting’s busy composition. In contrast to the classic origins of the still life which framed its select objects, Thiebaud’s composition extends beyond the pictorial frame, informing us that this is a cropped view of an extended table of food. The shadows that cast bluish pools across the white table cloth, inspire a sense of anticipation, as though the guests’ arrival is imminent. This snapshot of time, a moment of expectation encapsulates the role of the still life, to not only portray a moment but imbue it with a quiet sense of importance. There is a truthfulness to Thiebaud’s work that heralds the inventive flamboyancy of the home cook and the wholesome excess of the home of the era. Thiebaud uses the still life as a pop art vehicle for his narrative about modern life, consolidating its contemporary relevance.

Made from ten pints of the artist’s blood, Marc Quinn’s Self confronts the incremental ageing process and its precarious road to death. Quinn’s work then situates itself amongst the great vanitas works of art history. The sculpture references a period of alcoholism in the artist’s life and the consuming dependency that came with it. Requiring constant electricity to retain the right temperature or else it will melt, Quinn’s head directly mimmicks his reliance on alcohol. The head, though detached from the body, transforms the gallery space into a mortuary and in doing so encourages the dark and silent reflection of a vanitas painting. Stripped of the anecdotal accompanying fruit or tableware, Quinn portrays the core and inescapable presence of death with a stark directness. There is a stillness to the work that feels peaceful and calm rather than upsetting and gory. Quinn’s head is a contemporary ode to the genre – conceptual, serene and shocking in equal measure. Like the traditional still life painters who used to make several versions of the same scene, Quinn makes a head every five years, capturing the process of ageing honestly in his use of materials and process.

Josiah McIlheny

American sculptor Josiah McIlheny brings new depth to the still life, with the infinite meandering of reflections produced in his mirrored cabinets. His hand blown objects sit proudly in regimented rows, each forming and consumed by unending factory lines disappearing into infinity. Mclheny is well known for his glass blowing, a practice whose rarity imbues each of his objects with a sense of preciousness. The mirrored surface of each of the vials is ostentatious in their gleaming perfection. They sit as an untouched bounty of silver to be used for a best occasion which never arises, playing to the relatability and domesticity of the still life we are familiar with. Though sculptural, there is something digital, mechanised or other-worldly in the futuristic appeal of the work. Mclheny then reveals a shift in what is valued. Elaborate displays of wealth once consisting of lobsters and ornate carafes of wine now show technology and futuristic ambition. This is the contemporary still life for the digital age.

The traditional still life was intended to capture a moment in time unnoticed or dismissed in its commonality, Gersht turns this on its head by using the camera to capture moments so dynamic and explosive, they are but a blur to the naked eye. Using an air rifle, Gersht shoots his photographic subjects, catching the moment they shatter into tiny pieces. Gersht’s use of flowers hark back to the classic still life and also to the endangered flowers of his home country Israel, a material for him to explore ideological and mythological narratives that centre around the idea of homeland. Gersht uses the traditional passivity and stasis of the still life as a style from which to grow political and reflective thought. In using art history to power his contemporary ideas of what a still life is and can be, Gersht pays homage to the greats that produced such a revered style, bringing their works into the twenty first century with startling effect.

Mat Collishaw

Mat Collishaw’s bleak but intimate take on the still life, pays tribute to the genre of vanitas with a dark humour. Capturing the chosen last meal of death-row inmates before their execution, Collishaw takes advantage of the capacity of the still life to render an absent subject somehow present, forming a portrait via the story the accoutrements tell. In their gentle honesty there is something almost intrusive about the works, an almost portrait of an individual so painfully and knowingly close to the end of their lives. The pastiche of traditional Flemish or Spanish Old Master examples is at first glance amusing, yet refection on the pitiful circumstances causes a sense of reflective guilt to fill the spectator. Of the three aspects which comprise a vanitas, the futility of pleasure stands out most glaringly; the meaninglessness of being able to choose one’s last meal against the symbolic gesture it represents; a conflict which Collishaw does little to settle in his ghostly series. The inmates’ whole lives are reduced to this last banal indignity – the hopeless pathos present in these still lives is inescapable and haunting.

Edmund de Waal

Edmund de Waal’s art is populated by his iconic porcelain vessels, the delicacy of which consecrate his title as master potter. His works recall Mondrian plus many other exemplars of the modernist grid, but also pay simultaneous homage to the still life of the humble object. The clean, subdued colour palette also recalls Morandi. De Waal’s artistic sensibility imbues his vessels with an illusory weightlessness, delicate in their assured and soothing presence. The cool whites and muted tones of the porcelain pots place as much significance on the space in between each object as they do the hand crafted objects themselves. This focus on absence recalls Rachel Whiteread whose work draws attention to unclaimed space through large and extraordinary casts. De Waal’s breathturn works to the same effect. The spaces act as pauses, rendering his shelves of pots as analogous to a punctuated page of text. De Waal transforms the still life and the familiar objects it uses into a large linear composition heralding artistic influences from the gamut of modernism, with particular nods to minimalism .

Relevant  sources to learn more

10 best contemporary still lifes MoMA on still life

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How to Write a Professional Artist Bio

Crafting the right documents to showcase your work as an artist is essential for your professional journey and knowing how to sell your art .

It’s not just about listing your accomplishments—it’s about telling your story and articulating your vision in a way that resonates deeply with your audience. Whether you are applying to be in one of your local galleries, trying to be accepted for a public art commission, or even looking to sell your art online or at art fairs, you'll need to create documents that effectively convey who you are as an artist and what your work represents.

A strong artist bio, along with a compelling artist statement, CV, and resume, not only supports your applications but also plays a critical role in attracting potential buyers and collectors. These documents act as a bridge between you and your audience, helping them understand the person behind the art.

At Milan Art Institute, we believe that your voice is unique, and it deserves to be presented in a way that resonates with your audience. Your story is your strength, and it’s what will draw people into your work.

In this guide, we’ll explore how to write and craft a professional artist bio that truly reflects who you are and what your art stands for, ensuring you leave a lasting impression.

What is an Artist Bio?

An artist bio is more than just a summary of your artistic career; it’s a brief, powerful narrative that introduces you to your audience—whether they are curators, gallery owners, or art collectors.

It is your first opportunity to connect on a personal level, giving readers insight into what inspires you and how your artistic journey has evolved over time.

Your bio should convey the essence of your artistic practice, offering a glimpse into your inspirations, process, and achievements. Think of it as the story of your artistic journey, told in a way that captivates and resonates with those who encounter your work.

It’s about creating that emotional connection with your audience and allowing them to understand your motivations and vision on a deeper level.

Why Your Artist Bio Matters

When you sit down to craft your artist bio, remember that this is so much more than just a piece of writing—it’s a reflection of your unique journey and the vision that fuels your work as an artist.

Your bio is the first introduction to your audience, a way to invite them into your world and give them a glimpse of the passion that drives you to create. It helps establish a relationship between you and your audience, creating a narrative that not only showcases your accomplishments but also reveals the deeper meaning behind your work.

One of the most powerful elements of your bio is your power statement—a clear, compelling declaration of what makes you and your art unique. This statement should encapsulate your superpower as an artist, that special quality or perspective that only you bring to the table.

It’s this superpower that resonates with others and draws them into your creative journey. Your story is what sets you apart; it’s the essence of who you are as an artist, and it’s what makes your art connect on a deeper level with those who experience it.

Your bio becomes the vehicle through which your audience gets to know not just your work, but also the heart and soul behind it.

If you’re looking for inspiration on how to articulate your journey and harness your superpower, listen to our Light Movement Podcast episode on “Transforming Pain into Creativity ” with Story Worthy author Matthew Dicks. It’s a powerful reminder that your experiences—especially the painful ones—can become a source of strength and creativity, and your bio is where you can start weaving that narrative of your power statement.

The podcast explores how every story, including your own, has the potential to transform the way others view your art and connect with your journey.

What Does an Artist Bio Include?

A compelling artist bio typically covers the following key elements:

• Introduction : A snapshot of who you are as an artist—your name, medium, and the themes or ideas you explore in your work.
• Background : A brief overview of your education, training, and any pivotal experiences that have shaped your path as an artist. This section offers the foundational context that informs your work and provides insight into how your journey has unfolded.
• Artistic Influences : Insight into the artists, movements, or personal experiences that have influenced your work. By sharing your influences, you provide your audience with a deeper understanding of the aesthetic and conceptual decisions you make.
• Exhibitions and Awards : Highlights of your key exhibitions, awards, and recognitions that establish your credibility. These achievements underscore your growth as an artist and validate your work in the eyes of collectors and galleries.
• Current Work : A description of your current projects or the direction your art is taking right now. Keeping your bio up to date with your most recent work gives your audience a sense of where your art is headed and keeps them engaged in your ongoing journey.
• Conclusion : A closing statement that might include your artistic philosophy, future goals, or upcoming projects. This is where you tie everything together and leave your audience with a lasting impression of your mission and vision as an artist.

How to Write an Artist Bio

Crafting an artist bio is an art in itself. It requires you to be concise, have clarity about yourself and your work, and most importantly, be authentic. Here’s how you can create a bio that speaks to the heart of your artistic journey:

Start with Your Introduction : Begin with a clear and concise statement about who you are, what medium you work in, and what themes or concepts drive your art. This is your chance to make a strong first impression and set the tone for the rest of your bio.

Example : "Jane Doe is a Los Angeles-based mixed-media artist whose work delves into the intersection of nature and human experience."

Provide Context with Your Background : Share your educational background, any formal training, and significant experiences that have influenced your growth as an artist. By doing this, you paint a fuller picture of your journey and allow your audience to better understand the evolution of your artistic practice.

Example : "With a BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago, Jane’s work has been deeply influenced by her travels across Asia, where she immersed herself in the study of traditional and contemporary art forms."

Discuss Your Artistic Influences : Mention the artists, movements, or life experiences that have shaped your artistic vision. This adds depth and context to your narrative, showcasing how your influences inform the choices you make in your work.

Example : "Drawing inspiration from the raw textures of Anselm Kiefer and the spiritual depth of Mark Rothko, Jane’s work is a meditation on the beauty and fragility of life."

Highlight Your Achievements : Include notable exhibitions, awards, residencies, or other recognitions that underscore your experience and credibility as an artist. Achievements not only lend authority to your bio but also demonstrate your dedication and success in your field.

Example : "Jane’s work has been exhibited in prestigious galleries across the U.S., and she was recently awarded the Artist of the Year title at the Baltimore Potters Guild."

Describe Your Current Work : Give your audience a glimpse into what you’re currently working on or the direction your art is taking. Keeping your bio current with your most recent projects ensures that it remains relevant and reflective of your current creative pursuits.

Example : "Currently, Jane is exploring the concept of impermanence through a series of sculptures made from organic materials that decompose over time."

End with a Personal Touch : Conclude your bio with a statement that encapsulates your artistic philosophy and what you hope to achieve through your art, or introduce your power statement. This final touch allows your audience to connect with you on a more personal level and provides a sense of closure to your narrative. You can also mention any upcoming projects or exhibitions.

Example : "Through her work, Jane seeks to create a dialogue between the viewer and the natural world, inviting contemplation and connection in an increasingly disconnected world.”

Your Story is Worth Telling

As you write your artist bio, consider exploring art-related books for inspiration and insights.

Whether it’s an artist’s biography, a guide on professional practices, or a creative writing book for artists, these resources can enrich your perspective and help you articulate your story more effectively. They offer practical tips and examples that can make your bio more compelling and true to your vision.

Embrace the process with confidence and authenticity. Remember, writing about yourself may feel daunting at first, but it’s an essential skill for your professional journey.

Overcome your fear of failure. Whether you're just starting out or have years of experience, your voice matters, and your story is powerful. As you continue to grow and evolve as an artist, your bio will evolve with you, becoming a living testament to your artistic journey.

So, take a deep breath, trust in your creativity, and let your story shine through every word you write. Your art has the power to inspire, and so does your story.

Milan Art Institute

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Beautiful and boundary-pushing: Artists’ books shine in new exhibit at the UC Berkeley Library

At first glance, Amissa Anima: A Book of the Dead looks like a traditional hardback volume. Open the cover, however, and you find something unexpected: a kit for contacting the dead.

Nested within the unique artist’s book are an album of unsettling photographs, from which the user can select a spirit to summon; a set of bottled emotions that evoke the strong feelings said to link a person to the spirit world; and a Ouija board to facilitate the conversation. The bewitching work, from artist and bookbinder Stephanie Gibbs, invites “readers” to interact with its contents and pushes against the traditional boundaries of the book form.    

The art piece is one of more than two dozen such wonders on display in The Book as Art , an exhibit opening this week in Doe Library’s Bernice Layne Brown Gallery. The exhibit, which runs through February, showcases artists’ books from the collections of UC Berkeley’s Art History/Classics and Environmental Design libraries.

Lynn Cunningham, the university’s art librarian and a co-curator of the exhibit, said the books span six decades, and represent a wide variety of physical characteristics and themes.

“They are beautiful works that can be appreciated for their aesthetic value,” she said. “But as you spend more time with the exhibit, you also begin to understand a little more about the history and evolution of the modern artists’ books genre.” 

The Book as Art: Selections from the Artists’ Books Collections of the Art History/Classics Library and the Environmental Design Library

Where: Doe Library’s Bernice Layne Brown Gallery

When: Sept. 9 through February, with exceptions; the gallery is open the same hours as Doe Library. Check the hours before you go.  

What is an artist’s book?

The genre evolved out of a centurieslong tradition of artistic practices in bookmaking. By the mid-20th century, the creation of artists’ books had become more widely practiced.

While there is no simple definition of an artist’s book, Cunningham described them as artworks in book form, or works that in some way allude to the book form. Their creators experiment with various materials, construction techniques, and content types — often exploring or expanding upon the very concept of the book.    

For co-curator Abby Scheel, head of the UC Berkeley Library’s Arts & Humanities Division, it was important for the exhibit to highlight a broad range of creative output in the genre. Among her favorites of the books on display is Intersection; Gion, Kyoto by artist Kyoko Matsunaga.

The book chronicles people and cars crossing a busy intersection in Kyoto, Japan. Matsunaga recorded images of the scene every seven seconds, capturing happenstance moments of life. The photos were later altered, with some people or objects being removed to symbolize the ephemeral nature of memory.  

“Each page in Intersection is a work of art on its own, but it’s in flipping through the book that Matsunaga’s message about memory fully comes through, as elements of the same photograph disappear with each page,” Scheel said. “To further reference the flow of time, she uses her own water wheel binding technique to allow the pages to flow open.”  

Scheel said that the work epitomizes what makes artists’ books so remarkable — the unique combination of format and content to deliver a message. 

Influential work

While Matsunaga’s work spins the ordinary material of life into something extraordinary, for other of the featured artists, the commonplace is the point.

Take, for example, Ed Ruscha’s influential photobook, Twentysix Gasoline Stations , which the conceptual artist self-published in 1963. As the title suggests, the book includes photographs of 26 gas stations along Route 66, between Oklahoma City and Los Angeles. Each small black-and-white photo is presented in a deadpan manner, with only a name and location noted. Ruscha described the photos as “unartistic.”

Despite its ostensibly simple presentation, the book proved to be provocative. Ruscha’s experimentation challenged the norms for books of that time in terms of content, form, design, and distribution model. Although Twentysix Gasoline Stations initially confounded the public, it was ultimately embraced as a seminal work in the genre of modern artists’ books.

“I really enjoy Ruscha’s wry humor and his California aesthetic,” Cunningham said. “When researching (for the exhibit), I came to realize that we hold almost a complete collection of his books, although the holdings are divided among the (libraries). This is an opportunity to see many of them displayed in one place.”

Several of Ruscha’s books, and those of his fellow conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, whose work is also featured, were gifted to the Library by longtime donor Richard Sun M.P.H. ’86, M.S. ’86. Cunningham said the exhibit would not have been possible without Sun’s generosity and vision.

As with most collection materials at the Library, the artists’ books provide great value to the academic community. Cunningham said they are excellent primary sources for teaching about specific artistic movements or styles. The themes of the books can also serve as prompts for interdisciplinary discourse around issues of social justice, gender, and politics, as the artists often interrogate subjects such as these in their work.

Cunningham hopes visitors to the exhibit will also engage with the works on a deeper level. “(I’d love for) viewers to come away asking their own questions about the meaning of a book, and reflecting on the different ways books can function and be constructed,” she said.

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6 immersive experiences that bend reality

Take a journey into the fantastic

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In an immersive experience, the boundaries blur — once you enter this themed space, your senses get overtaken and you are no longer a witness but a participant. Lose yourself in art, games, food and other pleasures at these six innovative endeavors.

Groups of two to five tackle as many games as they want at Activate

Integrating physical and digital gaming, Activate lets you choose your own adventure. Start by selecting an interactive room, then pick one of the room's games and a difficulty level. Stay in one room and play the same game on repeat, try every space and every game, or go back and forth — it is up to you. Each game is no more than three minutes long and calls for different actions, from jumping to climbing to problem-solving. Activate has more than 40 locations in the United States and Canada, with spots opening soon in the United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates.

Arte Museum

Vibrant Southwestern scenery lights up the screens at Arte Museum Las Vegas

Using projectors, massive screens, colorful lights and booming sound systems, the Arte Museum transports visitors to gardens, jungles and forests — real and imagined — around the world. The Arte Museum's overarching theme is "Eternal Nature," and digital waterfalls, virtual waves and aurora borealis projections can be found at its eight locations in Asia and the U.S. In Las Vegas, visitors in the live sketchbook room draw animals, scan them and then watch as they almost immediately come to life on the walls. "It's a lovely communal moment, and one that ignites the inner artist in each of us," the Los Angeles Times said.

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All of Artechouse's art is digitally made

Art and technology collide at Artechouse . There are three spaces — Houston, New York City and Washington, D.C. — and each has its own programing that changes with the seasons. One aspect across the locations is constant: All of the art is made digitally with cutting-edge tools. In D.C., "Isekai: Blooming Parallel Worlds," is an annual anime-inspired ode to cherry blossoms. "While it mostly offers intense audiovisual sensation and eye-popping backdrops for selfies, 'Isekai' does pack some educational content," The Washington Post said, like explaining the history of cherry blossoms in the Capitol.

Flyover is a fun way to see the sights

Sit down, buckle up and get ready to soar over some of the world's most beautiful scenery. Flyover is an immersive attraction where riders sit in front of a gigantic spherical screen in seats that turn, dip and swoop, so it feels like being in flight. Special effects like wind, mist and scents intensify the experience. There are Flyovers in Las Vegas , Reykjavik , Vancouver and Chicago , the newest location. With shots of Lake Michigan, Wrigley Field, Tribune Tower and other area icons, the film is "dizzying and inspiring," the Chicago Tribune said, and enough to "restore one's faith in this city's beauty, resilience and fortitude."

The Murdér Express 

Murdér Express is a roaring '20s murder mystery meets dining extravaganza

Billing itself as "where gastronomy meets entertainment," London's Murdér Express takes dinner theater to the extreme. It starts with guests boarding a train in the fictional Pedley Street Station and quickly escalates to someone getting murdered and the rest of the group needing to figure out whodunit. The food is "impressive," Secret London said, and the set design "super cool," with "commitment to detail" everywhere. Screens next to the tables showing country scenery make it feel like you really are heading somewhere, and the audience participation elements cause "side-splitting sputters of laughter."

Omega Mart combines art with storytelling

This is anything but your typical grocery store. At Meow Wolf's mind-bending Omega Mart in Las Vegas, visitors first enter a mock market filled with absurdist products only found here, like bottles of Plausible Deniability laundry detergent (if an item is not bolted down, it is available for purchase). This leads to "not-so-hidden portals into the large-scale exhibitions beyond," the Los Angeles Times said, which are "wildly colorful" and "all-enveloping." Different narratives are told along the way, "allowing guests to place themselves in a mystical story" that keeps them guessing.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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Thursday, 12 September

• 'Special, but also bittersweet': Tyla becomes first South African to win a VMA

• South African pop star Tyla won in the Best Afrobeats category at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards on Wednesday at the UBS Arena in Elmont, New York.
• "This is just so special, but also bittersweet," she said during her acceptance speech.
• Taylor Swift won seven awards, including video of the year for Fortnight with Post Malone.

South African pop star Tyla won a 2024 MTV Video Music Award in the Best Afrobeats category on Wednesday at the UBS Arena in Elmont, New York.

This makes her the first South African to win a VMA.

The singer won the award for her major hit Water. The music video has more than 230 million views on YouTube and almost 800 million streams on Spotify.

Accepting her award at the event, Tyla joked about the award being heavy.

"You guys know me and holding awards, yoh hai. I'm not strong enough," she said and asked Lil Nas X, who was standing next to Halle Bailey, to hold her trophy.

She thanked MTV, her fans (who she refers to as her Tygers), her team and God.

@varietymagazine Tyla accepts her #VMA ? original sound - Variety

"This is such a big moment for Africa [and] African music," she said.

The Afrobeats category was first introduced to the VMAs in 2023 and was given to Rema and Selena Gomez. Tyla is the first solo act to win the award.

"The global impact that Water has had on the world just proves that African music can be pop music too," she continued.

Tyla added:

"I come from South Africa. I represent amapiano. I represent my culture, and I just want to shout out [to] all the Afrobeats artists in this category with me."

She mentioned Tems, Ayra Starr, Lojay, Rema, Wizkid, and Burna Boy and said: "Africa to the world."

The other artists in the Afrobeats category were Giveon (with Ayra Starr), Burna Boy, Chris Brown with Davido and Lojay, Tems, and Usher with Pheelz.

Tyla was also nominated in the Best New Artist and Best R&B categories.

Taylor Swift was the big winner at the event, bagging seven awards, including Video of the Year for Fortnight with Post Malone.

Sabrina Carpenter won Song of the Year, and Chappell Roan received the Best New Artist prize.

SZA, Eminem, Lenny Kravitz and Blackpink's Lisa were among the other winners.

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• Territory unmarked: Ford's Chinese-built Ford SUV arrives in the driveway
• How to beat the 'silent muscle thief': Experts share top tips for combatting sarcopenia

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Chappell Roan: Did MTV’s Best New Artist Tell Off a Photographer at the VMAs?

Roan recently stated she doesn't care what fans feel "entitled to whenever you see a celebrity." Find out more about how the artist stood up for herself at the VMAs.

It’s been a whirlwind year for Chappell Roan , with several of her songs charting on the Billboard Hot 100 and massive crowds flocking to her festival performances across the country. As a breakout artist, Roan has been unapologetically challenging the “norms” that often come with fame. During the 2024 VMAs, she continued to make her voice heard.

Here’s how the “Femininomenon” singer stood up for herself amidst the commotion of last night’s award show, where she won Best New Artist.

What Did Roan Say on the Red Carpet at the VMAs?

On Wednesday, Sept. 11, Roan, whose real name is Kayleigh Amstutz, was captured on camera telling off a photographer who reportedly shouted, “shut the f**k up” at or around the 26-year-old pop star.

A clip from the VMAs red carpet pre-show at the UBS Arena, later shared widely by fans on X , shows the “My Kink Is Karma” singer responding, “You shut the f**k up!” while pointing in the direction of the heckler.

pic.twitter.com/gAoTf4mnsO — photo gala (@24metgala_) September 11, 2024

After stepping back to have her outfit adjusted, she added, “Don’t. Not me, b**ch!” Roan’s reaction prompted cheers and chatter on the carpet, with one attendee heard saying, “You tell ’em, girl.”

In a later red-carpet interview with ET , Roan explained, “It’s just quite overwhelming and quite scary. I think for someone who gets a lot of anxiety around people yelling at you, the carpet is horrifying. And I yelled back. I yelled baaaack — you don’t get to yell at me like that.”

Chappell Roan reacts to being yelled at by photographers on the #VMAs black carpet: "The carpet is horrifying, and I yelled back!" pic.twitter.com/SqUbGdBhnm — Entertainment Tonight (@etnow) September 11, 2024

What Else Has Roan Said About Her New Fame?

In a conversation with Bowen Yang for Interview Magazine published on August 19, she emphasized that, despite her radio and streaming success, she has “never given a f**k about the charts or being on the radio.” She added, “I’m just like, ‘F**k you guys for not seeing what actually matters.’ A chart is so fleeting. Everyone leaves the charts. I’m just like, ‘This is giving valedictorian.'”

On the same day, Roan took to TikTok to discuss the pressures that come with fame in a video that has since gone viral. “I don’t care that abuse and harassment, stalking, whatever, is a normal thing to do to people who are famous or a little famous, whatever. I don’t care that it’s normal,” she began in the clip.

@chappellroan Do not assume this is directed at someone or a specific encounter. This is just my side of the story and my feelings. ♬ original sound – chappell roan

“I don’t care that this crazy type of behavior comes along with the job, the career field I’ve chosen,” Roan continued. “That does not make it OK. That doesn’t make it normal. That doesn’t mean I want it. That doesn’t mean that I like it.”

“It’s weird how people think that you know a person just because you see them online and listen to the art they make. That’s f**king weird. I’m allowed to say no to creepy behavior,” she added.

Additionally, in an Instagram post on August 24, Roan wrote, “For the past 10 years, I’ve been going nonstop to build my project, and it’s come to the point that I need to draw lines and set boundaries.”

“I want to be an artist for a very, very long time. I’ve been in too many nonconsensual physical and social interactions, and I just need to lay it out and remind you, women don’t owe you s***. I chose this career path because I love music and art and honoring my inner child. I do not accept harassment of any kind because I chose this path, nor do I deserve it.”

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In ‘Still Life,’ a Trans Woman’s Homecoming Is Shaped by Grief

In Katherine Packert Burke’s debut novel, a woman is haunted by change while grappling with the death of a friend.

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STILL LIFE , by Katherine Packert Burke

Katherine Packert Burke’s debut novel, “Still Life,” opens with a homecoming. Edith, the story’s protagonist, has briefly returned, after eight years, to Boston, where she lived after college. She’s arrived as a stranger. Before she left, she was living as a man; she’s come back living openly as a trans woman. And, to Edith’s dismay, her core friend group has fractured in the time she’s been gone. Edith has scheduled her visit under the pretense of giving a talk about her writing career to her friend’s undergraduate literature class. In truth, she’s there to see her former best friend, Tessa, whom she misses and to whom she’s barely spoken during her time away.

Though they were close in college, Edith, Tessa and their friend Val went their separate ways. Edith, an aimless writer who flitted from one academic program and city to another, left Boston for grad school and moved to Alabama and later Texas. “You went from one path of least resistance to a different path of equally little resistance,” a friend tells her. Tessa, who grew from Edith’s friend to her girlfriend before Edith left, remained rooted in the city. Val, who was also trans, had a mentor/lover relationship with Edith that was complicated by her life of adventure on the road. Then she died in a car crash, leaving Edith grieving and blaming herself for her death.

“Still Life” has lovely and endlessly quotable writing, lived-in characters and a sense of humor. But it lacks tension, which could spring from multiple sources — from Edith’s desire to get back together with Tessa, or from her quest to overcome grief and guilt over Val’s death. But like Edith, the novel is aimless and uncertain.

It’s undeniable that Edith’s life is interesting and could make for an enticing novel. She leaves her city as one gender and returns as another; a breathless love affair left her in quiet heartbreak; the death of Val, with whom she was also in love, leaves her group of friends bereft. But Burke doesn’t fit these pieces into a narrative framework that transforms a life into a story . These moments, which have so much potential for suspense, instead lie listless on the page. Edith holds back from chasing what she wants, which in the past was Val and now in the present is Tessa. With a protagonist who won’t pursue her deepest desires, what, exactly, are readers supposed to hope for?

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Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

At michigan state university, new international artist in residence begins work at msu’s facility for rare isotope beams.

Michigan State University (MSU) will welcome international artist  Violeta López López  of Ávila, Spain, as the fall 2024 MSUFCU Arts Power Up Artist in Residence. This new residency aims to foster collaboration, exploration, experimentation and innovation, culminating in the creation of groundbreaking artworks at the intersection of art, science and technology. 

Lopéz was selected from a call for artists as part of this collaboration between FRIB; the  MSU Museum ; the STEAMpower Project, Michigan State University’s Art, Science and Culture Collaborative; and  Arts MSU . This new residency fosters collaboration, exploration, experimentation and innovation on MSU’s vibrant campus, culminating in the creation of original artworks at the intersection of art, science and technology. 

López is an interdisciplinary artist who takes a multimedia approach to her practice, merging analog and digital through visuals, sound and words. The resulting work explores language, literature and science from a poetic perspective.

“Participating in the MSUFCU Arts Power Up Arts Residency is an invaluable opportunity to develop a body of work that combines physics and art from the inside out, to gain first-hand knowledge and to engage with the scientific, artistic and university community that the MSU environment offers,” said López. “The research time in collaboration with the scientists at FRIB, as well as the multitude of resources offered, provide a supportive framework for my project that will surely allow it to develop beyond expectations, finding connections between linguistics and physics in search of the common syntax that makes it possible to formulate a new artistic proposal through relations and forces, atoms and verses, codes that we interpret and that interpret us.”  

López will immerse herself in the FRIB laboratory environment and explore this year’s residency theme of nuclear astrophysics through their boundary-pushing work. 

FRIB is a world-unique rare isotope research facility that enables scientists to make discoveries about the properties of rare isotopes, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental interactions and applications for society, including in medicine, homeland security and industry. Rare isotopes are versions of elements with a combination of protons and neutrons that do not hold together forever. The facility proudly supports a community of about 1,800 scientists from around the world, while also regularly collaborating with artists across disciplines.

The residency program provides a supportive environment for artists to create their new artworks while engaging with the vibrant communities across MSU’s campus. MSU encourages the public to join Lopéz at the following free public events as part of this effort:

• Artist Talk and Welcome Thursday, 19 September, 5:10-6 p.m. Meet the second MSUFCU Arts Power Up Artist in Residence, Violeta López López, and learn about her artistic philosophy, past work and her vision for this residency at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. Learn more and register for the event here .  
• Artists in Dialogue and Opening Reception Saturday, 5 October, 1-3 p.m. Join the conversation on transdisciplinary collaboration with current Artist in Residence Violeta López López and previous Artist in Residence Abel Korinsky. Learn more and register for the event here .  
• The Syntax of Science Thursday, 24 October, 5:10-6:30 p.m. Explore the intersection of art, science, language and technology with MSUFCU Arts Power Up Artist in Residence Violeta López López, professor of physics at FRIB and MSU Artemis Spyrou, and linguistics professor Brian Buccola. The conversation and audience Q&A will be moderated by science, technology and society professor Megan Halpern. Learn more and register for the event here .

The MSUFCU Arts Power Up Arts Residency at FRIB program is generously supported by an endowed gift from the Michigan State University Federal Credit Union, with contributions from the MSU Museum and the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

Michigan State University

Michigan State University has been advancing the common good with uncommon will for more than 165 years. One of the world’s leading public research universities, MSU pushes the boundaries of discovery to make a better, safer, healthier world for all while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 400 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.

Facility for Rare Isotope Beams 

Michigan State University operates the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) as a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), supporting the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics. FRIB enables scientists to make discoveries about the properties of rare isotopes in order to better understand the physics of nuclei, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental interactions and applications for society, including in medicine, homeland security and industry.

As the state’s first Smithsonian Affiliate, the MSU Museum is an innovative and experimental collaboratory that exists to catalyze creativity. Here, people can openly explore, express and experiment with ideas across disciplines and interests and indulge their natural curiosity about the world. The museum features three floors of special collections and changing exhibitions. For more information, call 517-355-2370 or visit  museum.msu.edu

Arts MSU is a strategy that moves creativity to the center of university life by integrating the arts into our educational experiences, our research activities, our outreach and our campus culture.

Guided by the belief that the arts are essential to a vibrant university community that is resilient, inclusive, collaborative and globally minded, this strategy is committed to advancing the impact and amplifying the presence of the arts across campus. 

Founded in 1937, MSUFCU has a national reputation for excellence and has received several top industry and workplace awards, including being named a Best Credit Union to Work For® by American Banker for the sixth year, a Top Workplace by the Detroit Free Press for 13 consecutive years and a National Best and Brightest Companies to Work For® winner for seven consecutive years. MSUFCU has also been certified as a Great Place to Work® for 10 consecutive years and has been recognized by the Credit Union National Association, earning first place for the people-helping-people philosophy Louise Herring Award. The credit union operates an award-winning, wholly owned credit union service organization, Reseda Group, along with digital financial platforms AlumniFi and Collegiate, trade name Oakland University Credit Union, and its foundation, the Desk Drawer Fund. MSUFCU is headquartered in East Lansing, Michigan, and has 23 branches, over 350,000 members, $7.61 billion in assets and more than 1,100 employees. For more information, visit  msufcu.org .