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.
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Jasper Johns, 1958.
Peter Stackpole/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Thomas Hart Benton, 1939.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Louise Bourgeois. 1983.
Ted Thai/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Georgia O’Keeffe photographed on the roof of her Ghost Ranch home in New Mexico, 1967.
John Loengard The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
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Marcel Duchamp, 1952.
Gordon Parks/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Georges Braque, 1946.
David E. Scherman/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Pablo Picasso, 1949.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Elaine de Kooning, 1964.
Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Alexander Calder, 1952.
Gordon Parks/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Jackson Pollock, 1949.
Martha Holmes/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Marc Chagall, 1960.
Loomis Dean/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Henri Matisse sculpts a nude in clay, Nice, France, 1951.
Dmitri Kessel The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
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Roy Lichtenstein, 1963.
John Loengard/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Herman Cherry, 1946.
Eliot Elisofon/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Christo, 1968.
Carlo Bavagnoli/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Salvador Dali, 1950.
Mark Kauffman/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Giorgio de Chirico, 1949.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Willem de Kooning, 1945.
Gordon Coster/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Guy du Bois, 1949
Herbert Gehr/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Marisol Escobar, 1957.
Walter Sanders/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Lyonel Feininger, 1951.
Andreas Feininger/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Alberto Giacometti, 1951.
Gordon Parks/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Robert Rauschenberg, 1951.
Wallace Kirklan/ Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Arshile Gorky, 1945.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Barbara Hepworth, 1964.
Paul Schutzer/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Eva Hesse, 1969.
Henry Groskinsky/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Edward Hopper, 1967.
John Loengard/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Edward Kienholz, 1965.
Ralph Crane/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Franz Kline, 1954.
Fritz Goro/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Fernand Leger, 1949.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Peter Max, 1967.
Yale Joel/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Henry Moore, 1946.
Eliot Elisofon/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Isamu Noguchi, 1946.
Eliot Elisofon/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Claes Oldenburg, 1960.
Yale Joel/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Man Ray, 1947.
Yale Joel/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Ad Reinhardt, 1966.
John Loengard/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Auguste Renoir, 1919.
Pictures Inc./Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Georges Rouault, 1949.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Richard Serra, 1969.
Henry Groskinsky/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Ben Shahn, 1954.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Jacques Villon, 1949.
Gjon Mili/Life Pictures/Getty Images