10 interesting facts from the life of famous artists

The life, work and legacy of great people are filled with a lot of stories that seem incredible to us. In this collection, we have collected 10 of the most amazing and interesting facts, stories from the life of artists that will help you better understand their work and reveal their personalities from an unusual side.

10 Picasso’s full name is 23 words

The artist’s full name is 23 words long and 103 characters long. He was named after various saints and relatives. The surname of his mother – Picasso – he took because he considered it the most suitable. His full name was Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruiz Picasso.

9. Renoir was a tailor in his youth

Unlike Manet and Degas, who were from wealthy families, Renoir was the son of a tailor and a seamstress and at one time also worked as a tailor.. In addition, already at the age of 13 he had to get a job at a porcelain factory.

One of Renoir’s earliest memories was watching his father sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by cloth, scissors, patterns, and velvet cushions. He also regularly drew on the floor with chalk, which his father used to mark the cut.

8. Dali’s body was immured in the floor in the museum named after him, and then exhumed

Salvador Dali, who died in 1989, during his lifetime wanted people to walk on his grave, so he indicated this rather strange clause in his will.

The will of the artist was fulfilled and his body was placed under the floor in the museum of the city of Figueres. There it lay quietly until 2017, until Maria Pilar Abel Martinez, a woman who claimed that she was Dali’s daughter, turned to the Spanish court. Since there were no DNA samples, the court ordered an exhumation. The analysis showed that the woman is not the daughter of the artist, so everything was in vain.

He did not have children, so a special fund manages the entire inheritance, but if Maria really turned out to be a child of El Salvador, then she could claim huge money and assets.

It is noteworthy that, according to the experts who conducted the exhumation, the famous mustache was perfectly preserved, despite the fact that the body had lain underground for almost 28 years.

7. The Chupa Chups wrapper was designed by Dali

Chupa-Chups was a popular brand of candy in the 20th century, although the name is still widely used today. It comes from the Spanish verb suck, which means “suck”.

The company was founded by Enric Bernat as a jam factory called “Granja Asturias” in the early 1950s in Spain, and in 1958 began producing sweets specifically for children. The company noticed that when eating sweets, the hands often become sticky and decided to play on it. The Chupa Chups lollipop was on a wooden stick, making it ideal for children and their parents.

A key marketing ploy conceived by Enric Bernat involved store owners placing lollipops at the counter and placing them at a lower height for children to see.

It was a hit and Chupa Chups became extremely popular in Spain in the 1960s. It was decided to enter the international market and this required a recognizable logo. Dali had been living in the US for 10 years at the time, increasing his fame and creating work for Lavin Chocolate, Braniff International Airlines, as well as TV shows, perfume brands and other advertising.

Bernat commissioned Dali to design a logo for them, which was completed in 1969.: Its bright yellow and red color palette caught the eye of the kids while still paying homage to the business’s roots by reflecting the colors of the Spanish flag.

An important component – it’s not clear if it was Dalí’s or Bernat’s idea – was to put the logo on top of the lollipop instead of on the side. The branding was a hit, Chupa Chups expanded worldwide in the 1970s and enjoyed the same success they had decades earlier in Spain.

6. Gauguin worked on the construction of the Panama Canal

Admirers of Gauguin’s work know that in 1891, frustrated by the lack of recognition at home and deprived of finances, he sailed to the tropics to escape European civilization and “everything that is artificial and ordinary”.

However, not everyone knows that this was not the first such trip: before that, he made several attempts to find a tropical paradise where he could “live on fish and fruitand draw in his increasingly primitive style.

On one of these trips he ended up in Martinique and, as a simple worker, worked on the construction of the Panama Canal. However, he was fired from his job two weeks later.

5. Pollock painting bought for $5 and sold for $50 million

Teri Horton was a California trucker who in 1992 bought the painting for $5 (the seller wanted $8, but she knocked the price down) as a gift to cheer up a friend. She thought that such an absurdity would definitely cheer her up, but her friend did not like the picture. Then Teri decided to sell it at a flea market, but her friend noted that the painting could be expensive, as it looked like Pollock’s creations.

Teri had no idea who it was, but decided to hire an expert to evaluate it, who concluded that the painting was indeed the original Pollock. However, art connoisseurs are not fully convinced of the authenticity of the canvas and therefore there are still disputes about it.

Teri Horton turned down offers of $2 million and $9 million for the painting. She claims that she is not “greedy” and just wants a “fair price”. Her story was the basis of the documentary “Who is Jackson Pollock?. Much later, in 2008, a woman listed it for $50 million and found a buyer.

4. Dali appeared at the exhibition in a diving suit

In 1936, Dalí entered a diving shop in England to inquire about a deep-sea diving suit. The reason for this is that he was trying to bring surrealism to the people of England, who had not quite gone beyond the typical classical art forms.

Known for his love of attracting attention in the strangest way, Dali decided that giving a lecture in a wetsuit was a great idea. While he was shopping for the suit, the shop owner asked him where he planned to go diving. The answer was “in the subconscious of the human mind».

3. Picasso stoked the stove with his own paintings

The famous artist did this not because of a creative crisis or a desire to outrageous, but because of simple poverty. At first he lived in Paris so poorly that he could not afford to buy firewood..

2. Munch’s The Scream is the most expensive painting ever sold

An 1895 pastel was bought by an anonymous buyer at Sotheby’s in New York. The auction lasted 12 minutes. The piece is one of four in a series by the Norwegian Expressionist painter and was the only one still in private ownership.

Proceeds from the sale went towards the creation of a new museum, hotel and art center in Norway. Seven applicants fought for the job, the starting price was $40 million.

1. Warhol wore a gray wig

Many identify Andy Warhol by his trademark gray to silver wig that sat restlessly on his head.. And he sat rather uncomfortable, with no pretense of appearing to be real hair.

The ubiquitous hairstyle was not just a fashion item, but rather a fundamental idea for creating the mythologized personality of Andy Warhol, which ultimately makes him look like a brand.

Warhol began wearing wigs in the 1950s to cover up his early male pattern baldness and his gradually graying hair. The first wig was brown, then buff, then platinum, and eventually settled on shades of grey/silver.

Warhol settled on gray because if you always look old, no one knows how old you really are.