Without diminishing the importance of professional training, and taking into account the hard work and self-education of the following, we leave here a list of five famous artists who in their time did without a degree in art.
Henri Rousseau
The future artist and one of the most influential representatives of primitivism was born into the family of a plumber in the French town of Laval. After serving in the army, Henri got a job at the local customs office, where he worked as a simple clerk for much of his life. “Le Douanier” or “The Customs Officer” is the condescending nickname given by critics of this period to the naive self-taught artist. The modest, tenacious and talented Rousseau, having formed his own unique style, managed to gain recognition during his lifetime – his works were exhibited in the same exhibitions as paintings by Van Gogh, Matisse and Gauguin. Later Pablo Picasso acquired many paintings by Rousseau, some of which he bequeathed to the Louvre.
Paul Gauguin
A successful and wealthy stockbroker Paul Gauguin started his way in art collecting paintings by modern impressionist artists. Gradually gaining an understanding of painting, Gauguin tried his hand at the easel. In Gauguin’s spacious, comfortable apartments, much attention was given to the artist’s studio. Gradually, Paul distances himself from his main profession in favor of painting. Along with immersion in art, his financial problems grow. Friendship with artists Leval, Van Gogh, with whom Gauguin stayed and worked in Arles, and communication with other talented contemporaries become his only professional school. Driven by a desire to merge with nature and get away from civilization, Paul Gauguin goes to Tahiti and then to the Marquesas Islands, where he creates his most famous paintings.
Maurice Utrilo.
For a long time, the work of a self-taught master was not recognized by professional critics and gallery owners. The education of the young Utrilo was to observe the work of the great artists of Montmartre. The boy was given such an opportunity by his mother, the future artist, the beautiful Suzanne Valadon, who worked as a model who posed for such painters as Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Berthe Morioso and Degas. However, by the age of 30, Maurice Utrilo’s work gradually becomes in demand, and even later the artist becomes an international celebrity, receiving the Legion of Honor at age 42 for his contribution to French art, hardly regretting the lack of a diploma.
Maurice de Vlaminck.
The French landscape painter was born in 1876 and graduated only from music school as a violinist and cellist. The musician’s paintings don’t begin selling for the first time until he was 30, and before Morms’ major artistic success comes, he earns a living by giving private music lessons and performing in local salons and restaurants. Vlaminck later devotes himself entirely to painting and becomes one of the artists whose Fauvist paintings had a significant influence on the 20th century Impressionists.
Frida Kahlo
The legendary Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was born in 1907 in the suburbs of Mexico City, later changing her year of birth to 1910, the date of the Mexican Revolution. She graduated from one of Mexico’s best educational institutions, the National Preparatory School, planning to study medicine in the future. After a serious accident, in which Frida was involved at the age of eighteen, the girl found herself bedridden for a year. It was during this period that she asked her parents to bring her brushes, canvases and paints. The novice artist’s first painting was a self-portrait, which for a long time determined the main direction of Frida’s work. Currently, Frida Kahlo is a truly iconic character of modern history, her rich biography has become the prototype of many works of literature and cinema.