Written By: Ben Cosgrove
It can be eye-opening to see the men and women behind famous works of art. And yet, while Picasso, Dali, Matisse and perhaps a handful of other “art superstars” are recognized around the world, countless other painters and sculptors, including some of the finest, most influential artists of the past century are, in a sense, invisible. Their works endure; but their look—their faces and the way they held themselves—is often little known
Here, LIFE.com presents a series of portraits of artists who re-imagined and redefined the way we see the world. Pollock is here, and Picasso, along with Georgia O’Keeffe and even Renoir. But can art aficionados identify a photograph of, Claes Oldenburg? Jasper Johns? Barbara Hepworth? Giorgio de Chirico?
What’s wonderful about the pictures here, including those (like the deeply shadowed silhouettes of Hopper and O’Keeffe) in which we perceive a powerful sense of the full figure, rather than discrete details, is that each photo reveals something uniquely essential about the artist. One would be hard-pressed to find two more dissimilar portraits than those of Arshile Gorky and Robert Rauschenberg; but each captures an aspect of the artist’s personality and sensibility (Gorky’s moody intensity; Rauschenberg’s exuberance) that helps us see something, even if only a glimpse, of the human being behind the art.
Jasper Johns, 1958.
Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Thomas Hart Benton, 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Louise Bourgeois. 1983.
Ted Thai/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Georgia O’Keeffe photographed on the roof of her Ghost Ranch home in New Mexico, 1967.
John Loengard The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Marcel Duchamp, 1952.
Gordon Parks/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Georges Braque, 1946.
David E. Scherman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Pablo Picasso, 1949.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Elaine de Kooning, 1964.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Alexander Calder, 1952.
Gordon Parks/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jackson Pollock, 1949.
Martha Holmes/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Marc Chagall, 1960.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Henri Matisse sculpts a nude in clay, Nice, France, 1951.
Dmitri Kessel The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Roy Lichtenstein, 1963.
John Loengard/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Herman Cherry, 1946.
Eliot Elisofon/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Christo, 1968.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Salvador Dali, 1950.
Mark Kauffman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Giorgio de Chirico, 1949.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Willem de Kooning, 1945.
Gordon Coster/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Guy du Bois, 1949
Herbert Gehr/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Marisol Escobar, 1957.
Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Lyonel Feininger, 1951.
Andreas Feininger/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Alberto Giacometti, 1951.
Gordon Parks/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Robert Rauschenberg, 1951.
Wallace Kirklan/ Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Arshile Gorky, 1945.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Barbara Hepworth, 1964.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Eva Hesse, 1969.
Henry Groskinsky/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Edward Hopper, 1967.
John Loengard/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Edward Kienholz, 1965.
Ralph Crane/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Franz Kline, 1954.
Fritz Goro/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Fernand Leger, 1949.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Peter Max, 1967.
Yale Joel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Henry Moore, 1946.
Eliot Elisofon/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Isamu Noguchi, 1946.
Eliot Elisofon/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Claes Oldenburg, 1960.
Yale Joel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Man Ray, 1947.
Yale Joel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Ad Reinhardt, 1966.
John Loengard/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Auguste Renoir, 1919.
Pictures Inc./Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Georges Rouault, 1949.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Richard Serra, 1969.
Henry Groskinsky/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Ben Shahn, 1954.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Jacques Villon, 1949.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
