Top 10 Reclusive Artists

[bholas]

While some celebrities and artists embrace the attention their fame brings them, others shy away from the spotlight and choose to lead lives of solitude away from the constant examination of the press. Ironically, this often only inspires an evidaen more cultist devotion from their fans, and encourages the media to speculate about their whereabouts and reasons for wanting to remain unknown. As a result, some of these people become the victims of wild rumors and accusations, while others develop eccentric, almost mythic reputations. The following are ten of the most famous of these artists, both living and dead, who chose to opt out of being a public figure.

10. Cormac McCarthy


cormac mccarthy 235x300Best known for books like The Road, All the Pretty Horses, and Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy is an author who is widely considered to be one of the greatest living American writers. On top of being known for his books, McCarthy also has a reputation for being one of the most reclusive and inaccessible figures in literature. For many years, no one in the literary community knew what he looked like or where he lived, as he never gave interviews and declined all speaking engagements. In one famous story, McCarthy even neglected to show at a literary banquet held in his honor. In recent years, though, McCarthy has started to move out of the shadows. He made an unexpected appearance at the Academy Awards when No Country For Old Men, based on his book, won Best Picture, and in 2007 he shocked the literary community by appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show after she selected The Road for her book club. Since then, though, he has again dropped off of the map, and continues to live quietly somewhere in New Mexico.

Similar Threads:

• Oil on canvas artists

[bholas]

9. Terrence Malick


Director of the classic films Days of Heaven and Badlands, Terrence Malick is one of the most mysterious figures in American cinema. A Harvard graduate and former Rhodes scholar, Malick studied philosophy in college, and even taught briefly at MIT before leaving to study film. In 1972, Malick made the film Badlands starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, which cemented his reputation both as a considerable talent and as someone who preferred to avoid the spotlight. He followed this up with Days of Heaven in 1978, before completely withdrawing from the film world and moving to France. For twenty years, Malick was not heard from, and most people believed he had retired from making movies, but in 1998 the director returned with The Thin Red Line, which was followed in 2005 by The New World. Malick is currently working on his fifth film, but he remains something of an enigma. His film contracts still state that no current pictures of him can be released to the press, and he has made only a handful of public appearances during his long career.

[bholas]

8. Bill Watterson


Bill Watterson is the artist behind the beloved comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, which ran in newspapers across the country for ten years. During this period Watterson was known for being relatively publicity-shy, but it wasn’t until he retired in 1995 that he truly withdrew from public life. Watterson moved back to his hometown of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, stopped giving interviews, and refused almost all attempts to license his famous characters. Since then, a number of writers and journalists have attempted to track down the reclusive cartoonist, with little success. Two major Cleveland newspapers sent reporters after him on different occasions, but both came up empty-handed. In 2005, famed journalist Gene Weingarten went to Ohio and got in touch with Watterson’s parents. He asked them to pass along a message to Bill, and claimed he would wait in a hotel for Watterson to get back to him no matter how long it took. A day later, Weingarten was contacted by Watterson’s editor who, saying there was no chance Bill would ever come, convinced him to give up the search.

[bholas]

7. Harper Lee



To **** a Mockingbird is one of the greatest and most widely examined novels of the 20th century, but its author Harper Lee remains something of a recluse. Lee published the book in 1960 to immediate acclaim, and after working for some time with writer Truman Capote, seemingly dropped off of the map. In the years since, she has seldom given interviews and made few public appearances outside of literary functions. More importantly, outside of a few essays and written statements, she has never published another book. She supposedly began a second novel sometime in the 70s, but abandoned it shortly thereafter. In recent years, Lee has begun to make a few more public appearances, most notably in 2007, when she appeared at the White House to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She still declines most speaking engagements, though, famously stating that “it’s better to be silent than to be a fool.”

[bholas]

6. Emily Dickinson


Emily Dickinson is remembered as one of America’s greatest poets, but during her lifetime she was a notorious recluse, almost never leaving her house or even her bedroom. Dickinson grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, and after spending a short time attending seminary at a nearby college, returned to her parents’ home until her death in 1886. She was considered to be something of an eccentric by her neighbors, as she almost never left her home and would only speak to visitors from behind her closed front door. Still, despite her reclusiveness, Dickinson was a prolific writer, and along with her poetry she maintained several correspondences with other poets and friends through writing letters. Only a few of her poems were ever published during her lifetime, and it was not until she died at the age of 55 that her sister Lavinia discovered a locked trunk filled with over 1,800 short poems (see one of her love poems). Lavinia became obsessed with getting her sister’s work published, and finally succeeded in 1890. Since then, Dickinson’s work has never been out of print, and she continues to be one of the most celebrated literary figures of the 1800s.