8 Artists Who Never Went to Art School
None of these eight had a traditional art education. They taught themselves, and their work ended up in museums around the world.
Ron Mueck
Ron Mueck grew up in Melbourne, the son of German-born toymakers, and has no formal art training beyond high school. He worked as a model maker and puppeteer in television and film, including Jim Henson’s Labyrinth. His sculpture Dead Dad made his name in the Royal Academy’s Sensation exhibition in 1997, and his giant crouching Boy was a centerpiece of the 2001 Venice Biennale.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat came up through New York’s downtown scene in the late 1970s, starting out as a graffiti artist. “I never went to art school,” he said, explaining that he learned about art by looking at it. In 1982 he became the youngest artist ever to take part in documenta in Kassel. His untitled 1982 skull painting sold at Sotheby’s in 2017 for $110.5 million, then a record for an American artist at auction.
Sophie Calle
Sophie Calle, born in Paris in 1953, never went to art school. After finishing school she spent years traveling, then came back to Paris and began following strangers through the city and photographing them. In one early work, she followed a man all the way to Venice. She showed at the 2007 Venice Biennale and won the Hasselblad Award in 2010.
Henri Rousseau
Henri Rousseau, born in 1844, worked for years as a toll collector in Paris, which earned him the nickname “Le Douanier.” He had no academic training and taught himself by copying paintings at the Louvre. His jungle scenes were mocked by critics, even though he never left France and never saw a jungle. In 1908 Picasso, a fan of his work, threw a banquet in his honor at his Paris studio.
Esther Mahlangu
Esther Mahlangu, born in South Africa in 1935, learned Ndebele wall painting from her mother and grandmother at 10. In 1991 she became the first woman and the first African artist to paint a BMW Art Car, following Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. She painted it freehand, without rulers or stencils. She also runs a school at her home, teaching painting to children from her community.
Wolfgang Laib
Wolfgang Laib, born in Germany in 1950, studied medicine and qualified as a doctor, then decided to make art instead. He never formally studied art. Since 1977 he has collected pollen by hand from plants like dandelion, hazelnut and pine, and sifts it into glowing fields of color. His work has been shown at documenta, the Venice Biennale and MoMA, and in 2015 he received the Praemium Imperiale.
Lonnie Holley
Lonnie Holley, born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1950, is self-taught. He started by carving sandstone, a by-product of the local iron foundries. He later moved on to found objects, paint, wire and ceramics, and in 2012 he released his first album. His work is in the collections of the Met, the Whitney and the Smithsonian.
Grandma Moses
Anna Mary Robertson Moses, born in 1860, had no formal training in art. She started painting seriously at 78, after arthritis made her embroidery too painful. In 1940 she had her first solo show in New York, at 80, and went on to become one of the most famous painters in America.
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Image credits:
Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1987. Photo: Tseng Kwong Chi
Ron Mueck, Courtesy the artist and Thaddaeus Ropac
Sophie Calle, Courtesy the artist and Perrotin
Henri Rousseau, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Esther Mahlangu, Photo: Freddejager, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Wolfgang Laib, Photo: Ramon Haindl for Art Basel
Lonnie Holley, Photo courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History
Grandma Moses, Photo: Ifor Thomas, © Grandma Moses Properties Co., New York
