KERA Arts Story Search

Think Audio: What You Never Knew About Famous Artists

by Jerome Weeks 29 Sep 2008 4:51 PM

Elizabeth Lunday is the author of The Secret Lives of Great Artists: What Your Teachers Never Told You About Master Painters and Sculptors, which includes intriguing, seamy and just plain curious trivia about the 35 artists whose lives she recounts. Some of the biographical facts are not so secret (Caravaggio murdered a man). Others, on […]

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Elizabeth Lunday is the author of The Secret Lives of Great Artists: What Your Teachers Never Told You About Master Painters and Sculptors, which includes intriguing, seamy and just plain curious trivia about the 35 artists whose lives she recounts. Some of the biographical facts are not so secret (Caravaggio murdered a man). Others, on other hand, cast interesting side lights:

Michelangelo had such repellant body odor that his assistants couldn’t stand working for him.
Henri Rousseau was convicted of bank fraud.
Gabriel Dante Rossetti’s favorite pet was a wombat that slept on his dining room table.
Georgia O’Keeffe liked to paint in the nude.

Lunday talks to Krys Boyd on Think:

About Jerome Weeks

Jerome Weeks is the Senior Arts Reporter/Producer for KERA. Previously at The Dallas Morning News, he was the book columnist for 10 years and the drama critic for 10 years before that. His writing has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, American Theatre and Men’s Vogue magazines. View more about Jerome Weeks.