The Coolest Artist BFFs of All Time

There's something satisfying about seeing really cool people hanging out together. Maybe it's the fact that we can imagine chilling with them. Or maybe it just makes us feel good to confirm that two people we consider cool also consider each other cool. In fact, there's a whole Tumblr dedicated to Awesome People Hanging Out Together, where movie stars, artists, politicians, musicians, and just about everyone in pop culture you admire spends time together. The same goes for our favorite artists, but their hangouts serve as explosions of creative energy. Whether they're really good bros, actual brothers, or even lovers, these are The Coolest Artist BFFs Of All Time. We wish our friends were this cool.

RELATED: 15 Game-Changing Creative Duos
RELATED: The 20 Coolest Artist Couples

In 1887 the two great post-Impressionist painters met and became fast friends. Soon, van Gogh invited Gauguin to stay with him in Arles, France, hoping to live out his dream of forming an artist's collective. Unfortunately best friends don't make the best roommates, and when they weren't busy painting portraits of each other, things got heated between Gauguin and van Gogh. Supposedly, van Gogh pulled a razor on his so-called friend and then ran off to a brothel and cut off his ear. Gauguin found him unconscious and brought van Gogh to the hospital, but the episode was too much for him, and he never saw his friend again. There may, however, be another side to the story. According to The Telegraph, Gauguin may have cut off van Gogh's ear with a sword, and van Gogh made up a lie to cover up his friend's mistake.

image via

German Dadaist artist Hannah Hoch met Dutch painter Piet Mondrian in Paris in 1924. He was one of her many famous post-war avant-garde friends, and although the two got along, their work was anything but similar. Hoch's busy collages, filled with clippings of words and images, seem to be the opposite of Mondrian's minimalist abstract works. Hoch is quoted saying about Mondrian, "Everything in his life was reasoned or calculated. He was a compulsive neurotic and could never bear to see anything disordered or untidy. He seemed to suffer acutely, for instance, if a table had not been laid with perfect symmetry." If your friends can't tell you the truth, who can?

image via

This friendship is strong enough to move mountains, and that's basically what husband and wife Christo and Jean-Claude do. Their massive installations include decorating New York's Central Park with 7,000 bright orange gates, swathing the Miami islands in giant pink tutus, and stringing the biggest curtain ever created across a valley in the Rocky Mountains. There is nothing that this pair can't do.

image via

These identical twin brothers got interested in graffiti when they were teenagers. Since then, the Spanish natives have trimmed down their style to a signature red, black, and white visual code. According to the bio on their site, "They finish one another's sentences much like they continue their lines on mural walls and work in sync without hesitation." If that isn't brotherly love, we don't know what is.

image via

To be fair, these two greats were more frenemies than friends, but their competitive relationship worked to fuel the two artists in the end. According to a 1999 article in Slate when the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Tex. staged a show on Matisse and Picasso, the two artists had a love-hate friendship. Supposedly, Picasso always wanted Matisse's attention, but Matisse ignored him until he needed Picasso's fame to inspire his own work. Even if they weren't natural friends, they did come together in the end.

image via

While Krasner has always been overshadowed by her husband's work, we can't help but smile over this pair of abstract artists. The two got married in 1945 and moved to East Hampton, N.Y. to support each other in a time when both their work was underappreciated. A real friend helps you when you're down and sticks with you when they're up, as Pollock did with Krasner.

image via

These two powerhouse photographers, known as Inez and Vinoodh, came together in 1986 after they met a fashion design school in Amsterdam. Since then, they have created daring, experimental shoots, as well as high-end fashion photos. Their work has appeared across the covers of international magazines around the world. We're intimidated by this friendship.

image via

Jasper Johns may never have risen to his American flag fame without help from his long-time lover, Robert Rauschenberg. In 1958, four years after he met Rauschenberg, his lover introduced him to gallery owner Leo Castelli. Castelli went on to give Johns his first solo show. Throughout their careers, the two modern artists looked to each other for inspiration.

When MoMA failed to mention that the two men were lovers in a recent show on Johns and Rauschenberg, the art world was confused and angered. As Mark Joseph Stern wrote for Slate about the show, "It’s a nice narrative, as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go nearly far enough. Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns were lovers during this six-year period of collaboration, and their relationship had a profound impact on their art."

image via

These two contemporary black artists have risen to fame in today's art world. Both of their bodies of work deal with identity, race, and gender. For a photo shoot last year, Thomas asked Biggers to dress up as a black and white dandy, painting him half one color and half the other. The photos were shown at the International Center of Photography earlier this year. If dressing up for a strange photo shoot isn't something you do with friends, then what is?

image via

The second twin street artist duo on our list (is this a thing?), Os Gemeos hail from Brazil. Their work has appeared all over the world, and their various projects include murals, set design, props, and multiple collaborations. When they work together, the twins are often communicating without words. Curator Pedro Alonzo, who has worked with Os Gemeos in the past, says of the twins, “I was skeptical of their telepathy until I saw it happen… They share their inner world, and they want to share parts of it with the rest of us.” That's true (almost scary) friendship.

image via

Bearden and Lawrence are two of the most important 20th century black painters. Both lived in Harlem and were influenced by the vibrant culture of jazz that surrounded them. Bearden's cousin by marriage, painter Charles Henry Alston, started studio space in Harlem with Henry Bannarn. Lawrence was one of the artists who worked in this studio space. Besides this roundabout connection, the two are often paired together today in shows and exhibitions. It seems that they will forever remain connected.

image via

Frida and Diego were a true power couple. In the mid-1900s, they dominated Central American art and were famous for their passionate but turbulent marriage. Frida took the bold move to approach Diego at the Public Ministry of Education where he was painting a mural. Encouraged by Diego, who apparently used the pickup line "You got talent," Frida emerged as an artist on her own. Although they were always supporters of each other's work, their marriage was riddled with problems and affairs. Frida cheated with men and women, Diego with Frida's sister. Hey, friendships can be tough.

image via

One of the strangest friendships in the art world has to be that of the Surrealist bromance between Salvador Dalí and Man Ray. The two oddball artists collaborated on photo projects. Man Ray even had Dalí pose for him at one point. We'd like to imagine that their friendship was exactly how it is depicted in Midnight in Paris.

image via

Lady Gaga and Marina Abramovic were recently spotted arm-and-arm like giddy schoolgirls at the Watermill Center Summer Benefit. Everyone wanted to know what these to ladies were gossiping about, and we didn't have to wait long. The following week, a video of Gaga doing the "Abramovic Method"—basically a super weird form of meditation involving nudity and giant crystals—stormed the Internet. We cannot wait to see what this strange duo is up to next.

image via

In 1980, Basquiat and Warhol met at a dinner party. When the Pop Art king saw Basquiat's work, he was blown away. Three years after their initial meeting, Basquiat and Warhol collaborated on a series of paintings. The poster for their show in 1985, an image of the two art heavyweights in boxing gloves, became the image that epitomized their relationship. In Victor Bockris's book Warhol: A Biography, he describes the two artists as necessary for each other's success: "It was like some crazy art-world marriage and they were the odd couple. The relationship was symbiotic. Jean-Michel thought he needed Andy's fame, and Andy thought he needed Jean-Michel's new blood. Jean-Michel gave Andy a rebellious image again." This was a perfect artist friendship.

image via