Profession: artist

Landseer studied under Fuseli and Haydon. Dickens and Thackeray were among his friends. His first visit to Scott (who was unfortunately away) led to his chance discovery of the Highlands; on a later visit, according to Scott, he “drew every animal in the house” (as well as Scott himself). Faraday was a correspondent.

Breton noticed Masson’s first exhibition, invited him to join the surrealist group and later expelled him. Ernst and Miró were close friends — Miró’s studio was next door, and became a meeting point for Jacob, Péret, Dubuffet, Hemingway, Stein, Desnos, Artaud, Queneau among others. He was encouraged to make his first sculpture by Giacometti, did stage designs for Barrault, drew illustrations for Bataille and co-founded ‘Minotaure’ with him. Lacan was his brother-in-law (following Bataille); Limbour and Leiris friends from his first arrival in Paris, who wrote about his work. Calder and Tanguy lived nearby in the U.S.

Matisse (a fellow-student) and Vlaminck (who shared a studio) were both close friends. Among the radical artists and poets of Montmartre, he was close to Apollinaire, Picasso, Salmon and Jacob; he illustrated Apollinaire’s and Jacob’s work and was drawn by Laurencin. Diaghilev commissioned ballet designs from him. Braque (another lasting friend) had a studio in the same building. Auric was close to him, Balthus regarded him as a father-figure, and Reverdy, Giacometti, Cendrars, Renoir, Poiret and Lifar were all welcome guests in his home. Vlaminck and he, having patched up a quarrel, were courted in Nazi Germany.

Ingres, an important influence, told the 21-year-old to draw lines. He met Manet copying at the Louvre, and was introduced by him to Renoir, other Impressionists and Zola at their regular café. Cassatt as well as Manet became close friends, Cassatt clearly influenced by him. He was one of Mallarmé’s many artist friends, and intermittently close with Gauguin, but his own anti-semitism led him to break off with Cézanne and Renoir at the time of the Dreyfus affair. Sickert, whom he mentored, was described as one of his few friends and many admirers. Valadon persuaded him, almost blind, to leave his apartment.

Tinguely, Saint Phalle, Arman and Christo were among his Nouveau Réaliste artist friends. His friendship with Tinguely (and a meal with another friend) led to the residues of meals providing the basis of his ‘tableaux pièges.’ Tinguely also introduced him to Klein, Beuys and Vautier; Beuys, Vautier, Saint Phalle and Arman all made work for the gallery Spoerri ran above his restaurant. Maciunas published work of his, Hausmann was one of his correspondents, and when Roth moved to Iceland, letters to and from Spoerri became his main link with the art-world.

He worked in Rodin’s studio but left to escape his shadow. Apollinaire, Pound, Léger, Rousseau, Matisse and Steichen were among his Paris friends, and Picasso a foe; Picabia, and especially his countryman Tzara, among the Dadaists he mixed with. He attended Stein’s salons, met de Chirico through Apollinaire, befriended Modigliani through a shared belief in carving, played his violin with Satie and asked Ray for advice on photography. Steichen was responsible for first taking his work to the US (where Customs famously insisted it couldn’t be art), and where Brancusi got his close friend Duchamp to sell on his behalf.

The archetypal Impressionist. He credited Boudin and Jongkind (a friend as well as tutor) with opening his eyes, and met Renoir, Pissarro and Sisley as a student. Renoir and he developed the essential Impressionist vocabulary for landscape, painting together beside the Seine. Cézanne, Morisot, Renoir, Pissarro and Sisley — along with Monet — formed an artists’ limited company, and showed their work in Nadar’s studio. He and Valéry visited each other, and he introduced Mallarmé to Whistler. Courbet witnessed his first marriage, Degas was an especially close friend. Zola was among regulars at the same café; another, Manet, called him the Raphael of water.

Nash was a fellow-student (and billiard-player) and continuing artistic colleague; Graves married his sister. William Nicholson was his father, Pryde his uncle. Hepworth was the second of his three wives, their relationship central to the internationalisation of British abstraction. They were encouraged by Hélion, who invited them to join his group Abstraction-Création, and while in France met Mondrian and other significant artists. Mondrian, along with fellow-exiles Moholy-Nagy, Breuer and Gabo, became a neighbour as well as friend in London. Gabo edited a magazine with him and eventually followed Hepworth and him to Cornwall.

Moore was a fellow-student in Leeds and London, and a lasting close colleague. Nicholson was her second husband; their relationship was central to British modernism’s connection with the European mainstream. Together they visited Mondrian, Hélion and others in Paris, Hélion inviting them to join his group Abstraction-Création. Holidaying with Calder in Normandy, they met Braque and Miró. Mondrian and Gabo, neighbours in London, watched Disney films with them (Moholy-Nagy and Breuer were other friends and colleagues living nearby). As WWll approached, Gabo eventually followed Hepworth and Nicholson to Cornwall.