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John Baldessari, John Sidney
John Baldessari Photography John Sidney

8 famous artists who dramatically destroyed their own artworks

Nosotros look at why John Baldessari burnt his art and baked cookies with the ashes, Francis Bacon slashed his best paintings, and Robert Rauschenberg erased a piece of work past Willem de Kooning

During the mid-20th century, the 'art of destruction' emerged as a theme in the work of many celebrated artists. Although this tendency has existed for centuries – Claude Monet allegedly slashed at least 30 of his water lily canvases – the 20th century heralded a new age for creative motorcar-destruction. Divers by creative person Gustav Metzger in the 1960s, 'machine-destructive' fine art reflected the recent violence of the 2nd World War, the ideological nihilism of existential philosophy, and the ascension tensions of nuclear warfare during the Cold War.

Conceptual artists sabotaged, ruined or destroyed their artworks, either as a deliberate, artistic strategy, or every bit a upshot of malaise, anxiety, or displeasure with their piece of work. To destroy an art object was not only radical but iconoclastic – a gesture that disavowed the artwork as a material object that could potentially sell for vast amounts of money.

Gimmicky artists, from Gerhard Richter to Banksy, have followed in the footsteps of their predecessors. Ironically, some of these artists accept proved that destruction isn't always defeatist, or for the purposes of sheer vanity, but allows for liberation, which in plough, inspires new bounds of creativity.

JOHN BALDESSARI

Named the 'godfather of conceptual art', John Baldessari passed away on ii January 2020, at the age of 88. An artist who irreversibly changed the landscape of American conceptual art, he worked across all artistic mediums, from installation to video art to emojis.

In 1970, he decided to destroy his entire 'body of piece of work' created betwixt 1953 and 1966. Rather than throwing them away, he took them to a crematorium. Afterwards, Baldessari stored the ashes in a bronze urn (in the shape of a book), which he placed on his shelf. He too bought a bronze plaque inscribed with the nascency and death dates of his deceased works, as well as the recipe to brand the cookies.

"Cremation Projection" was not merely applied merely strategic – Baldessari was commenting on the cyclical procedure of the creative process, which could be conceptually 'recycled'.

"At i point I made cookies out of the ashes", Baldessari reflected, "only one person I always knew ate one."

By erasing his by oeuvre, Baldessari cleared his creative slate. The post-obit year, he gave instructions for a work titled "I Will Not Make Any More than Boring Fine art" – an oath to never create dull piece of work once more.

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG

In 1953, Robert Rauschenberg arrived at the house of abstruse expressionist Willem de Kooning, who – at that time – was one of America'due south most respected and highest-earning artists. And then, a footling-known artist, Rauschenberg asked de Kooning whether he could erase i of his works.

Reluctant at first, de Kooning eventually agreed. He offered the 27-year-erstwhile Rauschenberg a pencil, ink, charcoal, and graphic sketch. Over the following two months, Rauschenberg 'erased' the artwork. When finished, he retitled it "Erased de Kooning Drawing" (1953)

Echoing the readymades of Marcel Duchamp and precipitating the arrival of appropriation art, Rauschenberg'south gesture ignited conversations about the limitations of fine art (specifically, can art be created through 'erasure'?), too as questions virtually authorship.

JASPER JOHNS

In late 1954, at the age of 24, Jasper Johns destroyed all of his work. Later in life, he would reflect that it was time "to stop becoming and to be an artist... I had a wish to decide what I was... what I wanted to do was observe out what I did that other people didn't, what I was that other people weren't."

Only as Baldessari establish a new vision after destroying his work, the obliteration of John'southward practice boosted his creativity – as if freed from the intellectual shackles of his former self.

Not long afterwards, Johns dreamed of painting an American flag. Soon after, he made his dreams a reality and conceptualised his well-nigh famous work, "Flag", 1954.

AGNES MARTIN

In 1967, the Canadian-born painter Agnes Martin – ane of the few female members affiliated with abstract expressionism – decided to destroy her earlier works. Known equally a cogitating and serenity adult female, her modular, muted paintings reflect a desire for quiet.

Before dedicating her free energy to the motif of lines, bands, and the grid (her trademark) she experimented with biomorphic abstraction: stake-hued paintings influenced by organic, or geometric forms. Her mature style developed in the 1960s and moved towards restrained abstraction.

1967 brought about bang-up rupture in Martin's life. Not merely did she feel the sudden expiry of her close friend, the artist Ad Reinhardt, but she as well suffered from a reject in mental health, which would eventually lead to schizophrenia in her 40s. She retreated from New York and left for New United mexican states where she followed the principles of eastern philosophy: Zen Buddhism and Taoism.

Martin's decision to negate her old style could be read as a purifying of her quondam life as she embarked on a new journey, albeit 1 characterised past descending mental wellness. Her displeasure for her older work was and so great, that she commented that if collectors wanted to "sell them back to me, I'd fire them".

GEORGIA O'KEEFE

Towards the end of Georgia O'Keeffe's life in the 1980s, she purged works of art she no longer liked. Merely she as well destroyed photographs past her former husband, Alfred Stieglitz.

Among many paintings, she attempted to bury "Red and Green 2" (1916), an early on watercolour that she documented as "destroyed" in her personal notebooks. Only publicly displayed in one case, in New York in 1958, O'Keeffe's work – despite her attempts to remove it – resurfaced at a Christie'due south sale in November 2015.

FRANCIS Bacon

Later on Francis Bacon's death in 1992, hundreds of destroyed canvases were found in his cluttered studio in South Kensington. In total, 100 slashed canvases were retrieved from his abode.

Known for his masochistic tendencies and emotionally-charged works, the bicycle of creation and destruction was central to Bacon's torturous, creative process. He allegedly referred to his fine art every bit an 'exorcism' – a cathartic, painful release of raw emotion. And once described the violent awarding of his paint as "to do with an attempt to remake the violence of reality itself."

One of the destroyed works found in his studio "Gorilla with Microphone" used his repeated motif of a glass box, inside which a cardinal figure was cutting out, leaving two white, negated spaces.

According to Jennifer Mundy, Bacon reflected that some of his destroyed works were amongst his best. He found information technology difficult to 'finish' a work, and "his canvases often became so clogged with paint that they had to be discarded. He also routinely destroyed works he was not pleased with."

NOAH DAVIS

Noah Davis was a "prodigiously talented" LA-based painter who founded the Surreptitious Museum. He tragically died anile 32 from a rare form of cancer in 2015, though he left an impressive artistic legacy.

A visionary and efficient painter who followed the mantra of 'less is more than', one of his closest friends, Henry Taylor, described him as an artist who "was constantly growing".

According to Bennett Roberts (the co-founder of Roberts & Tilton) "The only problem with Noah, was that he would call me and say, 'Come to the studio, I painted 10 neat new paintings.' He was very fast when he was working. I'd go in there and just be mesmerised. 'These are unbelievable, can we get them to the gallery? I'll photograph them.' Two days after, he would say, 'Oh, deplorable, I painted over every ane of them.'"

BANKSY

Banksy'south self-shredding artwork dominated the headlines in 2018. When his nearly recognisable work, "Daughter With Balloon", sold for over £1 million at a London Sotheby'southward auction, the artwork promptly began to self-destruct. Unbeknown to onlookers, the creative person had previously installed an automatic shredding device into the frame of the motion-picture show.

Shortly subsequently, Banksy uploaded a video of the scandalous moment on his Instagram account, with the caption "Going, going, gone…" Ironically, the destruction of the work was left incomplete; the piece of work was supposed to shred entirely but stopped halfway through. To the surprise of many, the artwork increased in value after its public decimation.

In homage to Picasso, Banksy remarked: "The urge to destroy is likewise a creative urge"

LOUISE Bourgeois

One of the most prolific artists of the twentieth century, Louise Bourgeois left her New York townhouse in a country of bohemian disarray subsequently her expiry in 2010. Known for her chronic feet, erratic moods, and sudden outbursts of creativity, the artist's shut friend and assistant, Jerry Gorovy once remarked, "If she worked, she was OK. If she didn't, she became anxious... and when she was anxious she would set on. She would boom things, destroy her work."

If Bourgeois disliked a small sculpture she'd been working on, she was known to push button it off the cease of her kitchen tabular array and watch information technology smash and intermission into small fragments.