Jean-Michel Basquiat

My life in art: How Jean-Michel Basquiat taught me to forget about technique

Basquiat may have had no formal training, but his visceral work communicates with absolute clarity and urgency his own experience of life, writes Will Gompertz

Will Gompertz
12 February 2009

I've just taken delivery of an extraordinary work of art. It's a contemporary homage to John Everett Millais's famous Ophelia. I think mine is way better than Millais's original, which, although technically brilliant, is a tad formal for my taste. Which isn't that surprising. Millais was a senior member of the art establishment – a serious and important man. The artist who painted my version has never had a job, and has absolutely no truck with all that establishment glad-handing. He's far more interested in chocolate ice cream and bedtime stories.

My life in art / How Willem de Kooning played Cupid

 

Willem de Kooning in his studio

My life in art: How Willem de Kooning played Cupid

The last thing I wanted to do on a romantic break in Amsterdam was traipse around a gallery - until I discovered the poetry of a De Kooning landscape

BIOGRAPHY

Will Gompertz
Friday 21 November 2008

The artist Willem de Kooning changed my life. Before De Kooning I had no real interest in art. Constable was for the top of cake tins and Warhol seemed no more than a competent graphic designer. I took a very literal view of art, whereas I found movies, music and books transformative – all of which would have been quite normal if I was 12-years-old, or even 17. But I wasn't: I was 25. I had managed to live a quarter of a century without art making any notable impression on me. And, to be honest, the circumstances which started this late journey were only brought about through ulterior motives.

 

Top dog ... Balloon Dog (Yellow), 1994-2000

My life in art: I was bitten by Jeff Koons's dog

The American artist's giant sculpture of a balloon pooch didn't impress me much until I came face to face with it in Manhattan, writes Will Gompertz

Will Gompertz
Thursday 10 November 2008

I hate fireworks. They're expensive, even more disappointing than a Bob Dylan gig and are gratuitously noisy. The unexpected bangs make me jump and petrify my dog. Last night we went to bed together.

 

My life in art: How Anthony Caro's steel works stole my heart

After encountering Caro's sculptures, I realised metal could be breathtakingly beautiful. And nothing will deter me from sharing this with my family ... or the world

Will GompertzWednesday 

22 October 2008

All artists are selfish. They have to be. You can't create a masterpiece if you're worrying about whether it's your turn on the kitchen rota. Writing requires a similar single-mindedness, where the needs of the creator come before all else. At least that's what I told my family – wife and four young children – when I recently insisted on a four-hour detour on a drive through France. As far as they were concerned, I was being a prat. I wanted to go and look at a bridge.

 

Louise Bourgeois

My life in art: The day Bourgeois moved me to tears

The rage, fear and frustration in Louise Bourgeois' autobiographical art shocked me into understanding what it must be like to be a woman

Will Gompertz

Wednesday, 8 October 2008

I

have been married for 15 years and I think things have gone pretty well. We have four perfectly acceptable children, we all get along OK, and as husbands go, I'm not a bad lot. I'm loyal, I recognise my wife as a superior human being and I even have the odd moment of unselfishness. (I expect such moments to be verbally recognised and physically rewarded.) My wife stays at home to look after the children because returning to the teaching job she loved was made impossible by the incompatibility of teacher's pay and the cost of childcare. The other option – of me becoming a househusband – was categorically not on the table. I don't mind a bit of gentle hoovering, but I do mind babies. They're like drunks: incomprehensible, unreasonable and prone to vomit on you. Anyway she loves it, doesn't she? Well, that's what I had assumed, until an incident a couple of weeks ago that shocked my smug, complacent, delusional self to the core.