The Influence And Cons Of Modern Art

Being a successful modern artist has proven to be a difficult if not impossible feat. However, there are many artists who have gained success, becoming a modern icon embedded in society’s history and mind. Artists like Paolo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Georgia O’Keefe and Frida Kahlo have firmly established themselves in the art canon. This begs to ask the questions: why are they icons? What makes them icons? How did they become icons? Former director of the Tate Gallery in London, Sir Alan Bowness, in his lecture titled “The Condition of Success: How the Modern Artist Rises to Fame” argues that there are four specific conditions and stages to become iconic: “peer recognition, critical recognition, patronage by dealers and collectors, and finally public acclaim” (39). Others argue that becoming an icon is simply chance and unpredictable, while some like the English painter and critic Walter Sickert think that artistic innovation plays a huge part in the success of an artist asking in his “The Complete Writings on Art,” “Have they so wrought that it will be impossible henceforth, for those who follow, ever again to act as if they had not existed” (253). In addition to this, it can be argued that an art icon needs to be intelligent, educated and business minded. The canon of modern art icons extends across genres, however, excludes many great photographers focusing on the works of painters and sculptors like those mentioned above. One photographer deserving of recognition as an