Should we separate an artist’s life from their art?

TW: Sexual abuse

On 12th January this year, a protester scaled the BBC Headquarters in London, UK, in order to vandalise a controversial stone statue by Eric Gill (1882-1940), an English sculptor associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. There have been calls to remove the statue ever since 1989, when a biography revealed that Gill had sexually abused his two daughters, among other sexual crimes. Whether or not we separate an artist’s life from their works is hardly a new debate, and it seems to have no clear answers. Some argue that we must acknowledge an artist’s life, but not let it interfere with our treatment of their art; others believe that art (and our interpretations of it) should be inherently bound to an artist’s personal life.

The passing of time is often used to defend artworks by controversial figures. ‘Things were different back then’ or ‘it is a product of its time’ are familiar arguments. For many, however, this is not a valid excuse. We asked our followers on Instagram what they thought… On English photographer - and duplicitous murderer - Eadweard Muybridge, one Athena follower lamented: ‘Who cares after 150 years? I do!’ In the case of Eric Gill, another Athena follower noted that Gill’s statue ‘ruffled feathers when it was first unveiled… It made me uncomfortable (not in a good way) even before I knew it was by Eric Gill’. In this article, we will look at four more artists who had highly problematic personal lives which, for many, leaves their artwork tainted - but does this mean their art is less worthy of study? Perhaps this Athena follower is right to suggest that ‘artists’ works can be appreciated, but personal lives cannot be disregarded. [We must] acknowledge it all.’

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Pablo Picasso’s misogynistic treatment of women - in both his life and, arguably, his art - has been subject to increased critical attention by art historians. In 2001, his granddaughter Marina Picasso wrote that her grandfather ‘submitted women to his animal sexuality, tamed them, bewitched them, ingested them and crushed them onto his canvas.’ Although his most famous paintings of angular, distorted female sitters are often used as evidence for this, what about some of Picasso’s earliest paintings of women? His pastel portrait of his mother, made in 1896, conveys a tenderness that may surprise some viewers. Similarly, his portrait of art writer Gertrude Stein, painted between 1905-6, is simultaneously sensitive and imposing. Stein’s early patronage was crucial to Picasso’s success, and this solemn portrait arguably conveys a sense of the young artist’s respect for Stein’s authority and intellect. Do Picasso’s more sympathetic depictions of women make us less likely to consider his misogyny in relation to his art? These depictions certainly complicate the narrative… As art writer Shannon Lee suggests: an artist’s flaws can ‘provide us with potential opportunities to revisit and re-contextualize their work’.

Nonetheless, Lee laments the fact that ‘we’ (as a collective) still tend to see Picasso as an untouchable genius: ‘Somehow, the [biographical] information is perceived as a threat to the artwork’s very existence - as if the importance… of the work [depends] entirely on its misogyny.’ Last summer, in June 2021, a Spanish art professor and her students staged a protest at the Picasso Museum, Barcelona, in a call to the museum to put more emphasis on the artist’s relationships with women and his misogyny. Professor Maria Llopis explained: ‘It was not an attack on Picasso… I don’t believe at all in cancel culture. I believe in the truth, in not hiding things’.

Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571)

Benvenuto Cellini was a sixteenth-century Italian sculptor and goldsmith, who lived a life full of dramatic conflicts and crimes. After murdering the man who killed his brother in Rome, Cellini fled to Naples where he managed to gain favour with several cardinals (through whom he then obtained a papal pardon). Later, among other dramas, he was imprisoned for embezzlement of papal jewels, during which he survived an assassination attempt. Throughout his career, Cellini sexually exploited many of his female models, as well as young men under his care; various accusations of sodomy brought him multiple heavy fines and long periods of house arrest. In 1556, his apprentice Fernando di Giovanni di Montepulciano accused Cellini of having sodomised him many times while ‘keeping him for five years in his bed as a wife’.

In his autobiography (started in 1558), Cellini wrote about one female model: ‘I keep her principally for my art’s sake, since I cannot do without a model; but being a man also, I have used her for my pleasures.’ Although this power dynamic between artist and model is clearly uncomfortable from a modern standpoint, one could argue that Cellini was a product of his time… In fact, this case is hardly anomalous within the history of art: the stereotype of a sexually promiscuous male artist and his young female muse has been far too often grounded in truth. In relation to Cellini’s ‘sodomy’, it is also important to note that, quite possibly, homophobic narratives over the centuries have represented consensual same-sex relations as aggressive and abusive acts. If we were to exclude Cellini’s art from gallery spaces, then a disturbing number of artworks by other artists would also need to be taken down. Unsurprisingly, both artists and their art were products (and symptoms) of historical systems of oppression.

Paul Gaugin (1848-1903)

French Symbolist painter Paul Gaugin is best known for his brightly coloured, experimental depictions of Tahiti, the southern Pacific colonised by France where he moved in 1891. Having abandoned his wife and five children in France, Gaugin married three child brides and passed on syphilis to them and other local women (although recent forensic evidence of his teeth suggests he may not have had the disease). His 1893 painting ‘Merahi metua no Tehamana’ depicts his wife Teha'amana, whom he married in 1891 when she was only 13 years old. At the time, it was common for French colonists to take native wives, referred to as vahine (Tahitian for ‘woman’), for sexual and practical gains (such as gaining access to local knowledge and food supplies). In many cases, vahine were underage children, who were married off by their families for financial advantage. Teha'amana fell pregnant only a few months after marrying Gaugin, although there is no evidence of the birth. Does this knowledge of the deeply uncomfortable and exploitative dynamics between artist and sitter change how we view the portrait?

Similarly, one of Gaugin’s other vahine was Pahura, whom he married in 1895 when she was aged fifteen. She is the subject of his famous painting Nevermore (1897), in which her husband depicts her reclining naked on a bed. For modern viewers, the highly eroticised image - combined with her passivity and vulnerability - makes this an unsettling painting. Gaugin is exploiting a racist fantasy of Tahitian girls as sexually precocious; drawing on years of colonial damage and oppression.

Edinburgh-based novelist Devika Ponnambalam has written a novel ‘I Am Not Your Eve’ that imagines Teha'amana’s point of view, due to be published on 24th March. Ponnambalam explains: ‘When I first saw Teha'amana's image… looking out towards the man who had painted her, I was curious. I soon realised she had been silenced by history, used to make Paul Gauguin famous, and I was determined to give her voice, to tell a beautiful story while exploring the themes of power, abuse, and colonialism.’ Yet not all viewers see such images as exploitative or problematic. In 2010, a public poll by The Art Fund judged Nevermore as the most romantic artwork in British gallery collections, above works by Titian or Jan Van Eyck.

Caravaggio (1571-1610)

Caravaggio remains an artist with one of the most notoriously disturbing and turbulent lives, whilst still being one of the most celebrated artists in history. Throughout his life, he was a very violent man; most famously, he murdered a man - possibly unintentionally - during a brawl in Rome, which forced him to flee to Naples in 1606 (where he established himself again as a prominent painter). Years later, his face was disfigured in a violent clash, and his behaviour became increasingly erratic. He is said to have died of a fever, however some historians believe that he was murdered.

The psychological realism of Caravaggio’s art is often a key point of interest for art historians, which is possibly why the personal and artistic facts of his life are often more easily reconciled (as opposed to other artists). His realistic depictions of people painted from life - often using peasants and prostitutes as models - almost become richer when we have a knowledge of the grit, violence and roughness of his life. Perhaps his gritty, chiaroscuro artistic style allows us to more easily idealise (and almost fictionalise) the disturbing details of his life. Simply on a practical level, studying Caravaggio has been made so much easier by the fact that he was brought to trial so often: court records tend to survive better than most.

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January 2022