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