Artists’ Letters: Leonardo Da Vinci to David Hockney

A treasure trove of carefully selected letters written by great artists, providing unique insight into their characters and a glimpse into their lives.

Artists’ Letters is a collection of intriguing, entertaining, moving, significant, surprising, witty and insightful correspondence from great artists. Arranged thematically, it includes writings and musings on love, work, daily life, money, travel and the creative process.

On the theme of friendship, for example, letters provide evidence of a creative community between peers, with support and mutual appreciation that helps to dispel the myth of the artist as solitary genius. Letters between Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin show an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas. We see mutual admiration between Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot, and Picasso’s quick notes to Jean Cocteau illustrate their closeness. Letters, some of which includes sketches and drawings, are reproduced with the transcript and some background and contextual information alongside.

Artists include: Salvador Dali, Goya, Lucian Freud, Vanessa Bell, Michelangelo, Mondrian, Gustav Klimt, Jasper Johns, Edward Burne-Jones, William Blake, Marcel Duchamp, Dorothea Tanning, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Picasso, Mark Rothko, David Hockney, Monet, Marina Abramovic, Cindy Sherman, Joseph Cornell, Leonora Carrington, Wang Zhideng, Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, Renoir, Rubens, Eva Hesse, Cy Twombly, Roy Lichtenstein, Mary Cassatt, Jackson Pollock, Leonardo da Vinci, Joseph Beuys, Judy Chicago, Frida Kahlo, Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, Auguste Rodin, Camille Claudel, Henry Moore, Joshua Reynolds, Rembrandt, Whistler, Anni Albers, Naum Gabo, Kazimir Malevich, Francis Bacon, Ana Mendieta, Lee Krasner, Andy Warhol

Michael Bird is a writer, art historian and radio broadcaster. He has published many books, essays and articles on modern and contemporary art. His books include Artists’ Letters (2019) and 100 Ideas That Changed Art (2012).