Profession: artist

Haring and Basquiat knew each other through the downtown New York graffiti movement. Basquiat collaborated on a series of paintings with Warhol, one of his idols: after an initial 3-way collaboration had been orchestrated, also involving Clemente, the two continued working and partying together in a close if strained relationship. Schnabel knew Basquiat as new presences on the New York art scene, and after his death from a speedball overdose, made a film about him.

Hélion resisted his more commercially-minded friend Simenon’s urgings to sell his early works. He and Torres-García worked together on a magazine Hélion had founded. Duchamp, Ernst and Tzara became friends in Paris: also Éluard, Matta and Tanguy. He founded an artists’ group (and another magazine) with van Doesburg: this evolved into Abstraction-Création, involving Arp, Gleizes, Delaunay, Mondrian and Pevsner. He met Lipchitz, Miró and Nicholson after returning from his first visit to the U.S.

Dubuffet’s work made him one of the twentieth century artworld’s more interesting unclassifiables. Limbour and Queneau were schoolfriends in Le Havre. Valadon, Dufy and Jacob were early friends in Paris, Léger and Gris further acquaintances. He regularly visited Masson’s studio, and made several recordings with Jorn, a fellow-artist given to experimenting with sound. Limbour introduced him to Paulhan, who in turn introduced him to Ponge and Éluard. Prévert and Artaud were also friends (despite Prévert’s choice of Brassaï for a cover). He met Tanguy in the U.S., and travelled to Switzerland with Paulhan in search of art by outsiders, art brut.

Not much seems to have been recorded about friendships in Ingres’ life. He entertained Liszt in Rome, presenting a drawing of him to Liszt’s mistress; a talented violinist, he also met Mendelssohn and Paganini in Italy, and took Gounod (who sketched him) under his wing. Mérimée met him at a Paris salon, Géricault in Rome. Ingres studied with David, and first met Gros in David’s studio. While few of Ingres’ own students are now much remembered, he advised the young Degas (who admired him more than anyone) to concentrate on line.

Johns lived in the same building as Rauschenberg with whom he sustained a close personal as well as artistic relationship. They both took part in Kaprow’s ’18 Happenings in 6 Parts.’ Rauschenberg introduced Johns to Cage; they organised a concert of Cage’s music in 1958, because they felt it was neglected. Cage introduced Johns to Cunningham, with whom he collaborated extensively (he also collaborated with Beckett). He corresponded with the aging recluse Hausmann; Huelsenbeck introduced him to Tinguely. He and Rauschenberg met Duchamp frequently from 1960, once celebrating Christmas at a Chinese restaurant.

Fuseli (then known by his original name, Füssli) and Abildgaard met as young artists in Rome; he was inspired by Fuseli’s reaction against neo-classicism and his taste for a less tamed kind of mythological imagery. Thorvaldsen, Friedrich, Carstens, Lund and Eckersberg were among his students.

Picabia, Léger, Gris and Delaunay were regular members of the Sunday discussion group Villon — along with his brothers Duchamp and Duchamp-Villon — hosted at his home in Puteaux. Villon’s neighbour Kupka was a frequent visitor too, as were Apollinaire and Laurencin, Gleizes and Metzinger. Many of these remained long-term friends (although Kupka grew increasingly embittered). Villon met Toulouse-Lautrec in the late 1890’s, sharing a taste for Parisian night-life and a trade designing posters; the older Toulouse-Lautrec was an early formative influence.

Modigliani was a close friend when Lipchitz came to Paris, to study then to work as an artist. Brancusi was his studio neighbour, through whom he came to befriend Rivera, Picasso, Jacob and others; getting to know Picasso and his work radically influenced Lipchitz’s own direction. He introduced his two friends and fellow Jews Modigliani and Soutine to each other. Stein wrote a pen-portrait of him, while he more conventionally did three of her. Chanel commissioned him, while he commissioned the then little-known Le Corbusier to design a villa for him in Paris.

Celebrated naïf painter. Signac and Jarry were the first to encourage him — Jarry, also from Laval, had met him around the time he retired to paint full-time. Delaunay and Apollinaire became friends and supporters. Picasso hosted a famous banquet for him, in some mixture of admiration and jest: Apollinaire and Laurencin were there (Rousseau had painted them, as he also did his friend Loti), also Jacob, Salmon and others. Léger, admiring his approach to painting, visited his studio many times. After his burial in a pauper’s grave, Delaunay and Picasso paid for a headstone, into which Brancusi carved Apollinaire’s elegy.