To enter into an artist’s home is indisputably the most personal and sacred way to connect with their work, even if there is none on view. While exploring their catalogue raisonné or taking in a career retrospective exhibition can help illuminate common themes or patterns in their body of work, it could never compare to stepping inside the place where they laid their head at night. Many artists foundations these days are careful to preserve or restore the homes and studios where these creatives lived, and for good reason—what better way to understand how they lived, either at birth or later in life? If we’re lucky, these abodes have been preserved to reflect the time period in which the artist lived and worked and give context clues about how that environment reflects in their work: Were they rich or poor, did they work by oil lamp or en plein air? Below, we’ve gathered 11 of the world’s most famous artists homes that you can still visit today, while providing instructions on how to get there.
