Promiscuous Male Artists
February 10, 2015 2:28 PM   Subscribe

Can you give me examples of male visual artists who are and were known for their gratuitous sexual behavior? Sexuality doesn't matter, and neither does period or style. I'm very curious. Thank you.
posted by CyborgHag to Media & Arts (21 answers total) 13 users marked this as a favorite

 
Picasso.
posted by Melismata at 2:32 PM on February 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


Toulouse-Lautrec was apparently known for more than his paintbrush--- Christopher Moore's historical-based fantasy, "Sacre Bleu" has fun sexy arts hijinks if you're looking for a cute take on it!
posted by The otter lady at 2:33 PM on February 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Terry Richardson.
posted by cecic at 2:37 PM on February 10, 2015


Rodin and Diego Rivera?
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:38 PM on February 10, 2015


Maybe too obvious, but Robert Mapplethorpe. (NSFW, whatever you Google.)
posted by Lyn Never at 2:38 PM on February 10, 2015


If you choose to believe his autobiography, Larry Rivers lived a litany of sexcapades.
posted by Chichibio at 2:46 PM on February 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Gaugin.

Material above cited from The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People, by Irving Wallace, Amy Wallace, David Wallechinsky, and Sylvia Wallace, last published/revised in 2008 but still in print. The book might be worth pursuing you want more of this and need to cite a source.
posted by mosk at 2:58 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Any list of highly sexualized artists has to start with Caravaggio The book Caravaggio, A Life Sacred and Profane is a great read on his life.
posted by Lame_username at 2:58 PM on February 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


Caravaggio, for sure. Whoo boy!
posted by xingcat at 3:11 PM on February 10, 2015


Augustus John was notorious even at a time when artists were supposed to be like that. He was a lock-up-your-daughters man.

Trigger warning for Eric Gill, incestuous child abuser who screwed anything that moved if he could catch it. Seriously, his diary notes the time he screwed his dog. Be warned if you go searching. He was a designer, sculptor and typographer (Gill Sans).
posted by glasseyes at 3:16 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Gustave Courbet
posted by klangklangston at 3:31 PM on February 10, 2015


Oh, and both Ed Weston and Diego Rivera.
posted by klangklangston at 3:32 PM on February 10, 2015


Lucian Freud fathered a whole passel of children with various women.
posted by jabes at 4:04 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Vito Acconci certainly deserves a mention for Seedbed.
posted by Cuke at 4:39 PM on February 10, 2015


People have been wondering about Leonardo da Vinci's sex life for centuries.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 5:36 PM on February 10, 2015


Patrick Nagel was a fixture at Playboy, the magazine, and Playboy, the mansion.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:11 PM on February 10, 2015


+1 on Sex Live of Famous People, it's a treasure trove of this kind of thing. Here's a quote from the book, from Van Gogh, talking about some other artists' sex lives:
Degas "does not like women, for he knows that if he loved them and fucked them he…would become insipid as a painter. He looks on while the human animals, stronger than himself, get excited and fuck…Rubens! Ah, that one! he was a handsome man and a good fucker …Delacroix did not fuck much, and only had easy love affairs, so as not to curtail the time devoted to his work. …Painting and fucking are not compatible; it weakens the brain…If we want to be really potent males in our work, we must sometimes resign ourselves not to fuck much.
I think Gustav Klimt & Egon Shiele had something of a reputation, but I don't remember details.
posted by Bron at 7:23 PM on February 10, 2015


Schiele had a young lover, Wally. She was 17 when they first met and her used her as a model for many of his drawings. He eventually put her aside to "marry up". Schiele was also jailed, accused of impropriety with another young girl, but eventually released. There's some suggestion he slept with his sister in law as well.

Everything ends in tragedy. Wally joins the Red Cross to work as a nurse and dies young of some disease. Schiele's wife dies young, pregnant with their first child. The flu. Schiele follows her a few days later.
posted by Cuke at 7:49 PM on February 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Cellini was a frequent player (for both teams). Vasari liked these sorts of details (probably enough to embroider or invent them, but still) and in his Lives of the Artists claimed, among other things, that excessive sex brought on the fever that killed Raphael in his 30s. He also said of Albertinelli that he was "carnal in the affairs of love and apt to the art of living," and credits Fra Filippo Lippi with being continually insolvent due to spending his income on women and (while still under vows of priesthood) with seducing, abducting, and fathering an illegitimate (talented) son on a girl from a good family.
posted by notquitemaryann at 9:12 PM on February 10, 2015


Rodin, "the Sultan of Meudon".
posted by Kabanos at 10:48 AM on February 11, 2015


Frank Lloyd Wright
posted by Jason and Laszlo at 9:58 AM on February 12, 2015


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