Antony and Cleopatra, who brought the end of the Roman Empire, Tristan and Isolde, the legends of the Middle Ages with their tragic end, Napoleon and Josephine with their love evolving from passion to hatred… While the world is shaped by the chaotic relationships of countless couples over time, the art world is also shaped by the romance of passionate lovers.
Love doesn’t just leave a mark on our little lives and our hearts as much as our hands. It penetrates into the deepest corners of history, destroys civilizations with its power, and even reverses the wind in art movements that change over time. Do you think that, “There are no more such love stories”? If a tiny heartbeat can change many things, from Ancient Greek mythology to Medieval Europe, why shouldn’t it change us? Let’s remember today’s cautiously approached concept with the unforgettable lovers of the art world.
Lee Miller & Man Ray
It is unknown how many loves have witnessed the birth of Paris over the centuries, but it is certain that it has deep traces in the love between Lee Miller and Man Ray. The beautiful Lee Miller, who earned her living as a model in New York in the 1920s, went from New York to Paris with the ideal of becoming a good photographer. Imaginary; was to find and work with avant-garde photographer Man Ray. Ray, who rejected him by saying that he did not want an assistant, could not resist the insistence of Miller, who did not accept “No” for an answer, and after a while they started working together. The days he started as an apprentice turned into months, and the months turned into years. In this relationship, in which she served as both a model and an assistant for nearly 10 years, Miller became a muse for Ray; Ray became one of the world’s most influential artists of the 20th century.
The famous name, who had a stormy love affair with the young woman he admired, had a devastating tantrum one day when he caught Miller trying to reuse the negatives he had thrown away. In 1932, he threw his muse out on the street and then fell into a deep depression. He painted only Miller’s lips for two years. Known for his surrealist paintings, Ray’s famous works “l’Heure de l’Observatoire” and “The Lovers” appeared in this period. The two met after two years and remained friends throughout their lives. There are countless works left behind.
Ray – Charles Eames
When you think of Eames furniture, you may realize that you are familiar with this couple from somewhere. Ray and Charles Eames couple are not only one of the most famous duos in the industrial design world, but also among those who took the 20th century design world by storm. Perhaps most people do not know that these successful designers had a lifelong love affair. The success of the duo, who created countless iconic design objects and applications, apart from the Eames Lounge and Ottoman series they created in 1965, was largely fueled by their happy togetherness. The photograph that appeared on the cover of Architectural Design magazine in 1966 presented “Eames Happiness” as an ideal through their world-renowned products. Do you want to be happy, then why not produce something together?!
Jackson Pollock & Lee Krasner
It is useful to remember Aragon; when you look at some relationships, you feel like there is no happy love. Although today’s concept of toxic relationships is an accepted concept, undoubtedly no one was aware of it once. Those who witnessed the Pollock-Krasner relationship would understand very well what we mean if they were alive today. Painter Jackson Pollock, one of the famous representatives of the abstract expressionism movement, was one of the most famous artists from America to the world with his innovative technique. However, his neurotic personality and alcohol addiction made him a very difficult character in his private life. This is destiny; Lee Krasner, a self-confident and self-assured young woman, ironically fell for Pollock’s charm and fell into a relationship where manipulation was obvious.
Even though she was a painter herself, Krasner, who was seen only as Pollock’s muse during her lifetime, lost her husband in a traffic accident when she was only 44 years old. Pollock was also with his girlfriend. Krasner, who added a betrayal confrontation to his mourning process, focused on his own paintings only after Pollock’s death. She focused so much that the talent hidden behind her husband’s shadow finally found its reward. Krasner, who died in 1984, is one of the few female artists who still has a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Arts.
Roberta Smith – Jerry Saltz
Love is not a word that has gone out of circulation. It would be useful to add a couple who are alive and still in love to the list. In addition to being an inseparable duo, Roberta Smith and Jerry Saltz are also the most followed couple of our day with their contemporary art criticism. The art world looks forward to what they will write every week. The relationship of the art world’s most followed couple, with their reviews written in magazines such as New York Magazine and the New York Times, began in the mid-1980s when Saltz asked for help while writing the book Beyond Boundaries: New York’s New Art. Today, they are the figures of a strong relationship that supports each other to the end.
Camille Claudel – Auguste Rodin
On the one hand, Auguste Rodin, famous for his sculptures The Kiss and The Thinker; on the other hand, Camille Claudel, famous for her works such as Sakountala and Waltz… They are the main heroes of a tragic story. Young Camille Claudel, whose banker father Louis-Prosper Claudel sent her to Paris in 1881 to study art, was a young sculptor trying to discover her talent when she enrolled in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Rodin, whom he met in this studio, was a name that had already come of age and was famous not only for his sculpture works, but also for the intellectual work behind his works.
Their relationship, which quickly turned from a master-apprentice relationship into a passionate love, has been documented over the years as the inspiration for Rodin’s “Galatée” and Claudel’s “La jeune fille a la gerbe”. But this was not a happy love. When Rodin did not want to leave his wife Rose Beuret, the relationship that deteriorated was triggered by Claudel’s violence, and Rodin found the solution by escaping to Meudon. Because Claudel could not get over this abandonment, she was placed in a mental hospital in Mondevergues and a 30-year isolation began that would last until the end of her life. It is possible to call it isolation; because neither his mother nor anyone else paid attention to the hospital chief physician who allowed him to leave many times. What remained from this love was the controversy that many of his sculptures, including Rodin’s The Thinker, actually belonged to Claudel, as well as countless works that left their mark on art history.
Bonus: With Juliette Binoche’s breathtaking acting, Camille Claudel 1915 is about the famous sculptor’s days in a mental hospital. In addition, while the 1988 film Camille Claudel focuses on the love of Gerard Depardieu and Isabel Adjani, the 2017 film Rodin deals with events from the male side.
Frida Kahlo – Diego Rivera
This list would undoubtedly be incomplete without them. Apart from being one of the most striking couples in the art world, they also had perhaps the most documented relationship. The Mexican couple are two names that have left deep traces in contemporary art, apart from their turbulent relationships, their understanding of a relationship beyond their time, and their tragic stories. It seems that their style, which never allows comparisons between which one is better than another, will be talked about for centuries. Their marriage, which started in 1929 and was interpreted as “the union of an elephant and a dove”, ended in divorce after 10 years of violence and countless abusive relationships. They met again just a year later. Frida’s famous surrealist portrait, “Thinking of Diego”, appeared in this exact period of their reunion.
Perhaps their stories are the embodiment of surrendering to love. Like Kahlo, who devoted her 47-year life to painting and the independence of Mexico, where she coped with physical pain, Rivera painted portraits of her lover countless times. Even though the turmoil they went through is evident from the direction of their gazes in their portraits and from the tear marks added like a faint detail, it is necessary to bow respectfully to the talent of these two extraordinary artists. Rivera perhaps symbolized the toxic side of their love with the portrait he painted on an asbestos sign a year after Kahlo’s death. The note under her picture is at least as sad as Kahlo’s devastating story; “For the daughter of my eyes…”
Pablo Picasso–Dora Maar
Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar, famous for their poisonous love story, are one of the unforgettable couples of the art world. Picasso’s life full of women should not be overlooked. But this story has a pathos that stands out from the rest. Picasso, who met Dora Maar in 1935 thanks to their mutual friend Paul Eluard, did not yet know that she was the woman who would inspire the Weeping Woman painting. He was also married to Marie-Therese Walter, the mother of his daughter Maya.
Photographer Maar was quickly drawn to Picasso at the height of his career and built his life around him to document the creation process of his works. After a while, she abandoned photography and discovered her talent for painting. She accompanied Picasso on many of his travels until the end of the 1940s. Although her masochistic relationship with the talented man, whom she saw as her master, for 9 years was focused on love and sexuality, they also produced many productions together.
Bonus: There is no movie based on their relationship, but “Surviving Picasso” starring Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore is valuable in understanding Picasso. Genious with Anthony Banderas: Picasso gives an idea about the famous painter’s approach to women.
