Holiday Quiz

1

It took the Museum of Modern Art almost two months in 1961 to discover that a painting by a famous artist was hanging upside down in the exhibition. Which artist was it?

Jackson Pollock

Pablo Picasso

Henri Matisse

Answer: "Le Bateau" by Henri Matisse was hung upside down by MoMA.

2

Which important painter contributed to the construction of the Panama Canal?

Diego Rivera

Paul Gauguin

Max Pechstein

Answer: Paul Gauguin made this stopover in Panama on his trip to the South Pacific.

3

How many words does Pablo Picasso's full birth name consist of?

5

11

23

Answer: His birth name consists of 23 words: Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso.

4

Which artist's wife married the brother of the new woman for whom the artist had left her?

Max Beckmann

Max Pechstein

Franz Marc

Answer: Max Pechstein left his wife Lotte to marry Marta, the daughter of an innkeeper in Leba. Lotte married Hermann, Marta's brother, shortly afterwards.

5

Which artist was so depressed by his lack of success that he tried to commit suicide as a young man by jumping off a bridge?

Vincent van Gogh

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Claude Monet

Answer: In 1868 Claude Monet jumped into the Seine in desperation, but was rescued.

6

Who was the first living artist whose art was exhibited at the Louvre?

Edouard Manet

Georges Braque

Henri Matisse

Answer: It was Georges Braque who was commissioned in 1953 to execute ceiling paintings in the Louvre.

7

Which artist has not created stained glass windows for a church?

Marc Chagall

Henri Matisse

Pablo Picasso

Fernand Léger

Answer: Picasso did not practice glass painting.

8

Which of these Old Master painters already knew the principles of photography and used them to create his paintings?

Albrecht Dürer

Caravaggio

Johannes Vermeer

Answer: All three! Dürer and Vermeer used a camera obscura, Caravaggio used photo-technically reactive salts on his painting surfaces to sketch outlines.

9

Which artist has always celebrated his birthday twice a year?

Jackson Pollock

Joan Miró

Alexander Calder

Answer: It was Alexander Calder. According to his birth certificate, he was born on July 22, but his mother always claimed that this was a mistake by the authorities and Calder was born a month later, on August 22. Therefore Calder always celebrated his birthday on both days of the year.

10

Which artist did NOT put his paintings outdoors to let the weather "work" on them?

Sigmar Polke

Edvard Munch

Jörg Immendorff

Answer: Only Polke and Munch used this artistic "technique".

11
Which of these artists did NOT die before his 30th birthday?

Jean Michel Basquiat

Egon Schiele

Keith Haring

Answer: Keith Haring, he became 32 years old. Basquiat died at 27, Schiele at 28.

12

Which of these artists has committed more than one homicide?

Caravaggio

Raphael

Cellini

Answer: Benvenuto Cellini murdered at least three people, Caravaggio committed only one homicide, and Raphael did not kill anyone.

13

Which of these famous artists dressed like a beggar and wore shoes made of dog fur?

Vincent van Gogh

Michelangelo

Markus Lüpertz

Answer: As Vasari reports in his “Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects” it was Michelangelo who wore completely neglected clothes and the famous dog fur boots.

14

Which artist was suspected of having cast a living human being into one of his works of art?

Fernando Botero

Auguste Rodin

Jeff Koons

Answer: Auguste Rodin’s male nude "L'âge d'airain" seemed much too realistic to his contemporaries for there not to be a real human body in it.

15

Which artist liked to have a green chili with eggs and garlic for breakfast?

Georgia o'Keeffe

Frida Kahlo

Louise Nevelson

Answer: It was Georgia o'Keeffe

16

Which artist, who suffered from insomnia, read old cookbooks in bed to get tired?

Francis Bacon

Henry Moore

William Turner

Answer: It was Francis Bacon.

Francis Bacon owned about 40 cookbooks in his small apartment on the second floor of a former coach house in South Kensington, which he stacked between the bathtub and the refrigerator. The artist also used some of them as palettes. Bacon was probably not a particularly talented cook, but he studied the illustrations of food with enthusiasm and was fascinated by the colour, texture and suggestive power of food.

17

Which of these artists has been put in prison?

Pablo Picasso

Otto Dix

Egon Schiele

Answer: all three!

Picasso was suspected in 1911 of having stolen the Mona Lisa from the Louvre,

Otto Dix was arrested by the Nazis in 1939 on suspicion of planning an attack on Hitler and

Egon Schiele was accused in 1912 of having sexually harassed a minor.

However, all three were released because the accusations turned out to be not true.

18

Which artist kept an anteater as a pet?

Roy Lichtenstein

Salvador Dalí

Man Ray

Answer: It was Salvador Dalí who also kept other exotic animals, such as an ocelot. With both animals he also went "for a walk " occasionally in Paris.

19

Which artist was married to a porn star, who was politically very active?

Damian Hirst

Julian Beak

Jeff Koons

Answer: Jeff Koons married the porn star Ilona Staller, better known as Cicciolina, in 1991 and depicted the couple's love life very explicitly and in great detail in large-format photographs and sculptures. The marriage broke up already in 1992. After her previous withdrawal from the pornography business, Staller also became actively involved with the Italian party Partito Radicale, which she represented in the Rome Parliament from 1987 to 1992.

20

Which of these famous artists was NOT rejected by an art academy at the beginning of his education?

Henri Matisse

Emil Nolde

Marc Chagall

Paul Cézanne

Paul Klee

Wassily Kandinsky

Franz Marc

Answer: Franz Marc was the only one of these artists to be accepted immediately.

21

Which famous artist designed the iconic Rolling Stones symbol, the open lips with the tongue stretched out?

Roy Lichtenstein

Andy Warhol

David Hockney

Answer: It was Andy Warhol, in his design for the legendary album "Sticky Fingers" from 1971.

22

Which of these famous artists, who all had a love affair with her, was Gala, the great muse of the Surrealists, not married to?

Paul Eluard

Max Ernst

Salvador Dalì

Answer: Max Ernst

23

Which famous artist created one of his works for a window display?

Alexander Calder created a mobile for a hat store in Barcelona.

Chaim Soutine painted the window of a butcher's shop in Paris.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner created a sculpture for a store for alpine clothing in Davos.

Answer: In 1957 Alexander Calder created a hat mobile for the hat store of his friend Joan Prats in Barcelona.