9 Artists Share the First Museums They Ever Visited

Most famous artists have been cultivating their talents from an early age, and not just by finger painting. Before they made names for themselves in the art world, they were introduced to the real masters by visiting museums with their families. A lot of this early exposure served as the first sources of these artists' inspirations.

We got in touch with a handful of contemporary art stars, including Marina Abramovic, Shepard Fairey, Adam Pendleton, eL Seed, and others, and asked them to describe their first experience in a museum. From the British Museum in London to the Louvre in Paris, find out where the greats got their start with this list of 9 Artists Share the First Museums They Ever Visited.

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"The first museum I ever visited was the Museum of Natural History in NYC on a grade school field trip. My primary recollection from the trip was the immensity of the giant blue whale they have hanging there. Standing under that thing, I realized that I was a fleck of nothing, a blip on the radar of the cosmos. I mean, I didn't use those exact words at age nine, but goddamn that whale made me feel tiny."

"The first museum I ever visited was the National Museum of Belgrade when I was 10 years old. I visited it with my mother. We saw the exhibition of Impressionist painters, and I was so surprised. I had only seen photographs of these paintings in Russian books on glossy paper and in a wrong color resolution. The colors appeared so vivid and strong in the books. In the museum, all the colors were faded. This was my first confrontation with reproduction versus reality."

"I don't think this qualifies as a museum memory necessarily, but when I was young, my mother worked near the Rockefeller Empire Plaza in Albany. It had a pretty amazing public collection of Abstract Expressionism work in the underground corridors, linking impressive towers above that I would wander through on days when there was no school. Looking back, it seems a little crazy that there were works by Rothko, Bontecou, Held, and Tworkov hung in public passageways, secured by only a stanchion or a metal railing next to a coffee shop or deli.

The Modernist architecture of the Empire Plaza did make the space feel like a museum, or perhaps it was the art. In my memory, the whole thing seems fragile and illusory, as if those paintings and sculptures couldn't have really been there in those low, broad concourses filled with hurried people in suits. I had to look up the collection, and of course the works are still there and part of 'the greatest collection of modern American art in any single public site that is not a museum.' I'd say that depends on how one defines a 'museum.'"

"In the late '70s, I recall being taken aback by a large red sculpture entitled Phoenix in the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts's sculpture garden. I can't recall an indoor museum exhibition from my youth, but that Alexander Liberman sculpture resonated. Those welded, clustered, and cylindrical shapes that are painted red stuck out to me, and I'm still impressed with it."

"When I was a child, I spent part of every summer in Washington, D.C. The first memories I have of museums were the dinosaur skeleton room at the Smithsonian and the moon rock display at the Air and Space Museum. The moon rock is in an amazing monolithic case that is brightly lit and set up so you can touch it. I would love to do a show there one day."

"When I was 10, in 1980, we took a family trip to NYC. My parents wanted to do the usual touristy stuff like see Annie on Broadway, go to the top of the World Trade Center, etc.. all of which was fine, but unremarkable. Because I liked to draw, my parents thought it would be good to go to the Whitney Museum to check out some art.

Growing up in Charleston, S.C., I knew very little about 'contemporary' art, but I had extensive experience with duck and Magnolia paintings. I didn't know what to expect from the Whitney, which made my discovery of Chuck Close's nine-foot-tall Philip Glass painting an absolute revelation. What Chuck was able to do with a paintbrush was the most powerful and beautiful alchemy I had ever seen. I stared at the painting from every angle and different distances for a LONG time.

I went back to South Carolina with the goal of learning to draw and paint as well as Chuck Close. I have achieved neither, but I did cultivate the patience and discipline to learn many approaches to art-making that work for me. In 1988 I made my heartiest attempt at a Chuck Close-esque drawing based on one of my photographs of a decaying building. I completed the drawing and then decided that there is only one Chuck Close, and I should make some screen-prints. I met Chuck a couple years ago, and he seemed genuinely moved by my story of discovering his art at the Whitney. He pointed to my Obama poster on his wall...pretty fuckin' cool!"

"The first museum I ever visited was the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia. The VMFA houses the modern and contemporary art collection of Sydney and Frances Lewis, which includes impressive examples from artists like Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, and Brice Marden. I didn't realize it at the time (around 12 or 13), but now I realize how rare it was for me to have such easy access to such important examples of 20th century art outside of a city like New York or Los Angeles."

Sam: "Museums weren't really attractive to me as a young person. I felt they were pretty boring; however, I did get to see Christo and Jeanne-Claude cover the Miami Islands in pink floating material. It was a moment of pure awe for me. I was four years old, and it really opened up my brain to a magical, surreal realm—my first art spectacle. I feel the scale and natural beauty of this project really influenced my life."

Tury: "I grew up in Cuba where museums are mostly dedicated to overstating and mythicizing the role of the heroes of the Revolution. My earliest recollection of a real art museum is when I first visited the British Museum in London, where the Rosetta Stone is. I was definitely more impacted by being exposed to McDonalds for the first time on that same trip. I gained like 25 pounds in two weeks—still trying to get over that."

"Since I was born and raised in France, the first museum I ever visited was the Louvre in Paris when I was a kid. I went with my school. For most of us, it was a boring school trip. I regret that nobody ever encouraged us to get interested into art and art history. When I look at this time of my life with nostalgia, I feel that I've missed something. Doing my art today, I just hope that I will be able to feed this desire and interest for art into my kid's heart."