From Renaissance courts to modern studios, portraits have been used to record status, commemorate relationships, construct public identities, and preserve the likenesses of people whose names might otherwise have disappeared from history.
Some of art history’s most recognizable faces belonged to people whose lives were almost as fascinating as the paintings themselves. Gertrude Stein reportedly sat for Picasso around 80 or 90 times, while Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I took years to complete and was later caught up in one of the most remarkable art-restitution stories of the 20th century. Grant Wood, meanwhile, did not simply find a farmer and his wife to pose for American Gothic: the figures were modeled separately by his sister, Nan Wood Graham, and his dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby.
The Cool Stories About Art community shared 12 iconic portraits and the real-life people who inspired them. Scroll down to discover who these sitters were and the circumstances in which some of art history’s most recognizable portraits came into being.
