Artists with careers cut short.
Vincent van Gogh 37
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 36
Amedeo Modigliani 35
Eva Hesse 34
Keith Haring 31
Egon Schiele 28
Jean-Michel Basquiat 27
August Macke 27
Jeanne Hébuterne 21
Longer list and more info can be found here.
Jeanne Hébuterne, French artist, best known as the frequent subject and common-law wife of artist Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920).
When Modigliani died Hébuterne’s family brought her to their home but Jeanne, totally distraught, threw herself out of the fifth-floor apartment window the day after Modigliani’s death, killing herself and her unborn child. She was only 21.
Paul Gauguin
Living in French Polynesia, being supported by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard, Gauguin got into legal trouble for taking the natives’ side against French colonialists. He was charged with libeling the governor, fined 500 francs and sentenced to a month in prison. Suffering from syphilis and alcoholism he died in May 1903 of an overdose of morphine before he could start the prison sentence. He was 54 years old. (Wiki)
Auguste Rodin (12 November 1840 – 17 November 1917)
‘The world famous 77 year old French sculptor Auguste Rodin froze to death in an unheated attic in Meudon, France. In 1923, Marcell Tirel, Rodin’s secretary, published a book alleging this and that Rodin had applied to the government for quarters as warm as those wherein his statues were stored, but the government turned him down. It is said that other officials and friends promised coal for heating but never sent it.’
Dorothea Tanning 101 (+ 5 months)
Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses) 101 (+ 3 months)
Georgia O’Keeffe 98
Marc Chagall 97
Willem de Kooning 92
Pablo Picasso 91
Andrew Wyeth 91
Joan Miró 90
Lucian Freud 88
Michelangelo 88
Claude Monet 86
Hans Hofmann 85
Henri Matisse 84
Salvador Dalí 84
Edward Hopper 84
Norman Rockwell 84
Edgar Degas 83
Cy Twombly 83
Mary Cassatt 83
Francis Bacon 82
Constantin Brâncusi 81
Marcel Duchamp 81
Edvard Munch 80
August Renoir 78
Wassily Kandinsky 78
Auguste Rodin 77
Joseph Mallord William Turner 76
Odilon Redon 76
Childe Hassam 75
Winslow Homer 74
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger 74
Roy Lichtenstein 73
Piet Mondrian 71
Thomas Eakins 71
Richard Diebenkorn 70
John Singer Sargent 69
Leonardo da Vinci 67
Paul Cézanne 67
Mark Rothko 66
William Merritt Chase 66
Alberto Giacometti 64
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn 63
Peter Paul Rubens 62
Paul Klee 60
Andy Warhol 58
Gustav Klimt 55
Paul Gauguin 54
Franz Kline 51
Frida Kahlo 47 - overdose of pain killers, she had suffered for years from back pain due to injuries received when she was 18.
Arshile Gorky 44 - Hanged himself.
Jackson Pollock 44 - Crashed his car while driving under the influence.
Dora Carrington (1893–1932) British painter, 39, suicide, shot herself after the death of her companion, Lytton Strachey.
John Minton (1917–1957) British painter, 39, suicide, overdose of barbiturates
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) Dutch painter, 37, gunshot wound
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) French painter, 36, complications due to alcoholism and syphilis
Amedeo Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920) 35 meningitis, exacerbated by poverty and addiction to alcohol and narcotics
Eva Hesse (1936-1970) German/American sculptor, 34, brain tumor
Henry Alexander (1860-1894) American, 34, suicide, swallowed oxalic acid
Léon Bonvin (1834-1866) French watercolorist, 32, suicide, hanged himself from a tree after a Parisian dealer rejected his paintings
Rembrandt Bugatti (1884-1916) Italian sculptor, 32, suicide, gassed himself
Georges Seurat (1859-1891) French painter, 32, infection
Elizabeth Siddal (1829-1862) British painter, 32, Laudanum overdose
Giorgione (1477/8–1510) Italian, 32 probably the Black Death
Keith Haring (1958-1990) American, 31, AIDS related complications
Christopher Wood (1901-1930), British painter, 29, suicide, jumped under a train
Hugh Ramsay (1877-1906), Australian painter, 29, illness
Egon Schiele (1890-1919), Austrian painter, 28, Spanish flu epidemic of 1918
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), American painter, 27, heroin overdose.
August Macke (1887-1914), German painter, 27, WWI at the front in Champagne, France
Richard Gerstl (1883–1908), Austrian painter, 25, suicide, hanged and stabbed himself
Francesca Woodman (1958-1981), American photographer, 22, suicide, jumped out a window
Jeanne Hébuterne (1898-1920), French painter, 21, suicide, jumped out a window
![Mark Rothko with his wife, Mary Alice, and Christopher, circa 1968.
After twenty-four years together Rothko and his wife separated on New Year’s Day 1969. He subsequently moved into his East 69th Street studio.
On February 25, 1970, Rothko’s assistant found the artist lying dead on the floor in his bathroom in a pool of blood. He had cut his arms with a razor blade. He was 66 years old. [h]
“A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token. It is therefore a risky and unfeeling act to send it out into the world.”
- Mark Rothko, 1947](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxszpmByJ01r1bfd7o1_1280.jpg)
Mark Rothko with his wife, Mary Alice, and Christopher, circa 1968.
After twenty-four years together Rothko and his wife separated on New Year’s Day 1969. He subsequently moved into his East 69th Street studio.
On February 25, 1970, Rothko’s assistant found the artist lying dead on the floor in his bathroom in a pool of blood. He had cut his arms with a razor blade. He was 66 years old. [h]
“A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token. It is therefore a risky and unfeeling act to send it out into the world.”
- Mark Rothko, 1947
In a new biography on van Gogh authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith assert that van Gogh died as result of a gunshot he received in a scuffle with two local teenage boys and not from a self inflicted wound. The altercation was supposed to have taken place in a nearby walled farmyard and not the cornfield as previously believed. “The owner of the gun was a nasty boy named Rene Secretan, who was given to to teasing Vincent mercilessly.” Apparently this new version of the artist’s death explains many of the details around the story such as “the angle of the shot, the disappearance of the gun and other evidence, and the long hike that the wounded van Gogh would have had to make to return to his lodging” (the farmyard was much closer than the cornfield). Also Vincent’s curious statement on his death bed, “Do not accuse anyone. It is I who wanted to kill myself.”
Of course it’s only speculation and many experts disagree but it’s nonetheless an interesting new theory on van Gogh’s death. Also, it’s worth noting that Neifeh and Smith’s book is over 900 pages of well researched information and the theory on Vincent’s demise is only a tiny part of the total work. src1 src2 src3
John Peter Russell, Portrait of Vincent van Gogh, 1886
August Macke (1887 – 1914) self-portrait, 1906
A leading member of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). His career was cut short by his early death (age 27) at the front lines in Champagne, France during World War I. His final painting, Farewell, depicts the mood of gloom that settled after the outbreak of war.
