Artists' Letters: Leonardo da Vinci to David Hockney

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I will explore artists letters primarily for their representativity, collective relationships, overlapping social and cultural contexts, agency, and uses of narrative and rhetoric. In “Life is Beautiful” (pictured above), comforting words are spelled out using knives—objects often associated with violence. Hunt’s professional economics included a quality factor—a few big major pictures done well, he reasoned, would gain him a reputation, and high-quality engravings of his work would increase sales in England and abroad. Their prominence, as well as their kindness to artists, made them magnets for artists’ letters compiled in their vast archives.

Of course, text and art have been intertwined for centuries—think of medieval illuminated manuscripts, with their elaborate illustrations. Many of the letters I cite here also reveal that while some artists had networks of patrons and critics supporting them, many Victorian artists, especially those who are now obscure, struggled to gain a foothold in the artworld and art market. When you get closer to one of his sculptures and see what it’s made of, you find your expectations have not been met. Brown also coached Stephens on exactly how to report that Frederic Shields was not doing any Manchester murals but that Brown was doing them all, a decision still in process when Brown wrote Stephens.

With a penchant for all things vintage-y, de Haan is a letterer, illustrator, painter, crafter and needle-worker. Artists wrote out of their own agency, even when pleading for attention from a critic, in the belief that they had to intervene in their own public image and in the representation of their works. Unfortunately, after the coins were left unguarded for the public to interact with, some of them were stolen, which prompted the police to swipe up the remaining coins and take them away less than 20 hours after the opening.

His project A Love Letter for You saw him paint over 50 rooftop murals in Philadelphia in collaboration with Philadelphia Mural Arts.

To make it easier for you to follow, I grouped them by the 15 typography artists that made it all possible. A well-known typography artist who has worked with brands like Starbucks, The Washington Post, Peugeot, and MasterCard, Craig Ward doesn’t shy away from telling the stories behind his work on his blog . Today, the ancient art form is still as popular as ever, with many artists rendering handwriting in beautiful flourishes of ink.