What Artists Were Actually Famous in Their Lifetime?
There’s an old stereotype about the “starving artist” having to suffer in poverty and isolation as the world rejects their efforts, and many times in history it’s proved to be true. Even all-time greats such as Vincent Van Gogh and Johannes Vermeer struggled to draw attention to the very works that were later taught in art schools around the world.
But not every successful artist spends a lifetime waiting in vain for the recognition that never arrives. Here are five figures who saw the adulation of the masses, and the accompanying financial windfalls, while they were still around to enjoy the success.
Michelangelo
Italy’s thriving city-states were marvelous places for gifted artists during the 16th century, and no one attracted more demand from wealthy patrons than Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. Following the stunning successes of his marble-carved Pietà (1498-1499) and David statue (1501-1504), Michelangelo became a favorite of Pope Julius II, for whom he produced the equally breathtaking Moses (1513-1515) as part of an otherwise unfinished mausoleum project. While he primarily viewed himself as a sculptor, Michelangelo also delivered some of humankind’s greatest paintings with frescoes such as “The Creation of Adam” (1508-1512) on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and he later displayed his talents for design after taking over as chief architect of St. Peter’s Basilica. The nonstop commissions made this Renaissance master a very rich man, even as he lived frugally, while his fame made him the first Western artist to be the subject of a biography while he was still alive.
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Joshua Reynolds
While not as well remembered as Michelangelo, painter Joshua Reynolds was a big deal in 18th-century England. Reynolds is best known for launching the “Grand Manner” portraiture movement, which placed subjects in classical poses amid idealized depictions of nature, even if many of his works aged poorly due to his experiments with colors. Thanks to his personal connections, the artist received the opportunity to paint many of his era’s celebrities (including King George III) and establish his own standing in high-society circles.
A founding member of the Royal Academy of Arts, Reynolds became its inaugural president in 1768, and was knighted the following year. Around that time he delivered the first of 15 lectures to Royal Academy students, later published for posterity as Discourses. Upon his death in 1792, Reynolds’ body was brought to London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral in a procession that included 91 carriages filled with his famous friends, trailed by the members of the Royal Academy’s faculty and student body.
Georgia O’Keeffe
Overcoming the stifling limitations of her traditional training, Georgia O’Keeffe forged her own path to emerge as the “mother of American modernism” in the years following World War I. This was partly due to the connections and promotional abilities of her husband, New York gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz, but mainly due to the accessibility of her work. Unlike, say, French modernist Marcel Duchamp, who aimed to provoke by exhibiting a urinal in a gallery, O’Keeffe’s abstractions were far more pleasing to the eye and mind.
Drawing inspiration from her immediate surroundings, be it the petals featured in “Petunia No. 2” (1924), the skyscraper of “Radiator Building - Night, New York” (1927), or the horned subject of “Cow's Skull: Red, White and Blue” (1931), O’Keeffe found an audience willing to shell out premium prices for her oil paintings by the 1920s. The first woman to earn a retrospective from the Museum of Modern Art in 1946, she was recognized as a national treasure toward the end of her life, receiving the Medal of Freedom from President Gerald Ford in 1977 and the Medal of Arts from President Ronald Reagan in 1985.
Salvador Dalí
Instantly recognizable with his pointed mustache and wide-eyed countenance, Spain’s Salvador Dalí wielded a celebrity that transcended his formidable skills with a paintbrush. Following his early dabbles with cubism and impressionism, Dalí became a leader of the burgeoning surrealist movement by way of such compellingly bizarre paintings as “The Persistence of Memory” (1931) and “The Enigma of William Tell” (1933).
While he was soon excommunicated from the surrealists, the combination of his instinct for public theatrics and the acute business sense of his wife and muse, Gala, ensured his survival as a one-man brand. Dalí spent much of the 1940s in the United States, where he channeled his creativity toward projects in feature films, jewelry, and theater set design, before returning to Spain at the end of the decade to focus on religious imagery in his paintings. While his later years were not happy ones, Dalí had earned enough money to buy a castle for his beloved Gala, as well as the creative freedom to launch a museum dedicated to his works in his hometown of Figueres.
Andy Warhol
Had he continued on his early career path as a commercial illustrator, Andy Warhol likely would have retired a financially secure if mostly unknown individual. Instead, he became the face of the pop art movement by way of photo-based paintings such as “Campbell’s Soup Cans” (1962) and “Triple Elvis” (1963), while his Manhattan studio, aka “The Factory,” emerged as the center of the bohemian New York City art scene. Although he ostensibly “retired” from painting in the mid-’60s to focus on filmmaking and other endeavors, that decision proved short-lived; Warhol supported himself by undertaking commissioned portraits through the 1970s, and he later enjoyed a revival via collaborations with younger talents such as Jean-Michel Basquiat. His fame and fortune intact upon his death in 1987, Warhol demonstrated to successive generations of artists that it was OK to fulfill one’s creative ambitions while simultaneously seeking pursuit of the almighty dollar.
