Like the boot room at Anfield, or the unremarkable Detroit house that became Motown Records’ hit factory, the artist’s studio is where the magic happens. But the strange alchemy that turns mark-making into a spellbinding work of art is only the half of it. Sometimes, there is sex in the studio, too. The Dutch golden age painter Gerard de Lairesse hired two sisters as models in his home town of Liège, but did a runner in 1664 after locals discovered that he’d been having an affair with not one but both of them. And when there wasn’t sex, the studio might witness the crazed infatuation of an artist like the Austrian expressionist Oskar Kokoschka. He commissioned a lifesize doll modelled on his ex, Anna Mahler, and made more than 80 paintings, drawings and photographs of it in his workroom.
There could also be violence and death in the studio. The sculptor Bernini swung a crowbar at his brother Luigi in their workplace at St Peter’s, Rome, cracking several ribs, after discovering that Luigi was sleeping with his mistress. The early art historian Vasari wrote of Michelangelo, “He was constantly flaying dead bodies, in order to study the secrets of anatomy.” He got through at least 30 cadavers.
