Henry Miller (1891-1980) spent as much time painting as drawing. When impoverish and living in Big Sur, California, he bartered his watercolours for food, clothing and fuel. He said: ”Paint as you like and die happy”.
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) made caricatures and sketches, many of which were self-portraits like the one above, drawn after smoking hashish.
Vladimir Mayakovsky )1893-1930) called this rare pen and ink drawing, done in 1928. MAN STRIDDING TOWARDS THE SUN.
Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) drew Arthur Rimbaud repeatedly during their two-year friendship. In 1873, drunk on absinthe, Verlaine shot Rimbaud in the hand. He spent several years in prison as a result and they never saw each other again.
Mikhail Bulgarow (1891-1940) made this drawing of the household devil, Rogash, in 1928.
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) “Love Letter” from DESSINS, first published in 1928.
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) made this sketch in his diary, in 1924: “ I write this very decidedly out of despair over my body and over a future with this body…”
Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) made this drawing of Gertrude Stein although the two writers did not get on. Of their first meeting Barnes later wrote: “D’ you know what she said of me? Said I had beautiful legs. Now what does that have to do with anything?”
Federico García Lorca (1893-1936) drew, painted and made puppets; the inscription on this drawing, which shows the influence of surrealism, reads: “Only through mystery do we live, only through mystery.”
Jacques Prévert (1908-1977) made this drawing in payment for a meal at ‘Trois Canettes’ in Paris.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) illustrated and painted an enormous amount; this drawing (1910) accompanied a letter to his son William with an added P.S of “Wish you were here to share a bath with me”
James Thurber (1894-1961) was well-known as a cartoonist and writer. This drawing accompanies A PORTRAIT OF AUNT IDA, a story about a woman who loves catastrophes and has prophetic dreams of “tall faceless women in black veils and gloves”.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) became a painter at the age of sixty-seven when he found he could no longer simply cross out a word on a manuscript without the scribble becoming an elaborate design. He said: “My pictures are my versification in lines”.