The 21 Most Stylish Art World Couples of All Time: From Frida and Diego to Basquiat and Suzanne Mallouk Inline

May 15, 2015

Photographed by Jonathan Becker, Vogue, February 2003
1/21
Who: John Currin and Rachel Feinstein
Known for: His paintings combine kitsch with an Old Master–like technique; her sculptures have the aspect of fairy tales.
The Look: Currin has rugged good looks; Feinstein is a latter-day Pre-Raphaelite with a closet full of Marc Jacobs.
Photographed by Cecil Beaton, Vogue
2/21
Who: Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe
Known for: He was an “art-world titan [and] pioneer photographer” who documented the birth of the new century with his camera and fostered new talent in his gallery. She was famous for her large flower paintings. In 1945 Vogue described her as “the foremost woman painter of this country.”
The Look: Restrained American elegance

Photo: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images
3/21
Who: Salvador and Gala Dalí
Known for: He created such marvels as dripping clocks and lobster phones. Also inspired was his alliance with Gala, an intellectual Russian and muse to Surrealist and Dada artists who was once married to the French poet Paul Éluard.
The Look: Señor tolerated amorphism in his painting but not in tailoring, sporting a waxed mustache and, frequently, a cane. He once photographed his striking, dark-haired, iron-willed wife and muse in Elsa Schiaparelli’s infamous shoe hat
Photo: Jason Bell, Vanity Fair, April 2006
4/21
Who: Elliott Puckette and Hugo Guinness
Known for: One of Brooklyn’s most feted art couples, both are obsessed with line: Hers is airy and calligraphic; his bolder strokes are more rustic.
The Look: Puckette, a golden-haired southern belle, likes a feminine look, while Guinness cultivates a tweedy British air.
Photographed by John Bryson, Vogue, August 15, 1959
5/21
Who: Designers Charles and Ray Eames
Known for: Though the name Eames might immediately conjure images of chairs, this designing duo with the Midas touch succeeded in giving a mid-century American spin to toys, fabric design, architecture. . . .
Style: Collegiate prim with panache

Photo: © AGIP/AD/Everett Collection
6/21
Who: Pablo Picasso and Françoise Gilot
Known for: The “greatest living artist” met his match in Gilot, a French painter who lived with the Spaniard for ten years and bore him two children.
The Look: Her enviable bone structure complemented his laid-back Riviera style.
Photo: Patrick PIEL/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
7/21
Who: Ilona Staller (Cicciolina) and Jeff Koons
Known for: She’s a porn star and Italian parliamentarian turned art muse. He’s the incredibly influential artist who has created house-size flowering puppies, stainless steel balloon dogs, and Michael Jackson sculptures, who described himself as “a media man.”
The Look: When dressed (their nudity was captured in art) the couple (whose union has dissolved) went in for Miami Vice–style pastels.
Photo: Chris Morphet/Redferns
8/21
Who: Gilbert & George
Known for: The natty duo, partners in life and art, have been described as “a two-headed monster.” Multi-media artists, their stained-glass-like Jack Freak pictures are among their best-known work.
The Look: Savile Row gentleman

Photo: Monique JACOT/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
9/21
Who: Niki de Saint-Phalle and Jean Tinguely
Known for: Her work—like the beloved Nan sculptures and the Tarot Garden—is colorful, playful, childlike; his kinetic sculptures are machine-like, abstract.
The Look: French bourgeois gone boho
Photo: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Whitney Museum of American Art
10/21
Who: Tom Sachs and Sarah Hoover
Known for: She’s a gallerist with an eye for contemporary art; he made a splash with “bricolage sculpture[s],” like a Chanel-branded chainsaw and Tiffany-wrapped McDonald’s packaging.
The Look: Hoover likes leggy or long and lean looks; Sachs is more offbeat, pairing, for instance, his NIKECraft Mars Yard shoe with a tuxedo.
Photo: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images
11/21
Who: Painter Lucian Freud and Lady Caroline Blackwood
Known for: Vogue dubbed the painter, known for his portraits, “master of the flesh;” she wrote lauded novels.
The Look: Freud, whose biographer has described him as “wolfishly handsome;” and having a “fatal attraction for upper-class woman” immortalized debutante Blackwood’s fair-haired, wide-eyed appeal on canvas.

Photo: Yann Gamblin/Paris Match via Getty Images
12/21
Who: Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Known for: Wrapping trees, buildings, islands for large-scale environmental works of art
The Look: Jeans-ittude—and Jeanne-Claude’s flaming red hair
Photo: Martha Holmes/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
13/21
Who: Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner
Known for: Both Abstract Expressionist painters, his drip paintings caused a sensation.
The Look: Paint-spattered utilitarianism
Photo: Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images
14/21
Who: Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns
Known for: American masters, both, Rauschenberg’s range extended from Pop-like prints to monastic white paintings; Johns’s obsession was oil-painted Americana.
The Look: A skinny-tied Mad Men look minus the Madison Avenue polish.

Photo: Mireya Acierto/Getty Images
15/21
Who: Helen and Brice Marden
Known for: He’s painted colorful, big-scale, doodle-like abstractions; and together the couple, who met at sixties hot-spot Max’s Kansas City, had two daughters and opened a boutique hotel.
The Look: Vivid, printed, and patterned
Photo: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
16/21
Who: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo
Known for: Her vivid paintings were autobiographical; his murals monumental.
The Look: Kahlo’s high-necked blouses and floor-sweeping skirts often referenced traditional Mexican dress.
Photo: David M. Benett/Getty Images
17/21
Who: Grayson and Philippa Perry
Known for: Mrs. Perry is an authoress and psychoanalyst; Mr. Perry makes ceramics when he’s not stepping out in cross-dress as his alter-ego, Claire.
The Look: OTT gender-bending sartorial excess

Photo: Richard Young / Rex Features/Courtesy Everett Collection
18/21
Who: Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson
Known for: He broke free of Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground to forge a successful solo career; she is a pixie-cropped performance artist with a penchant for the violin.
The Look: Downtown meets rock ’n’ roll
Photo: Rose Hartman/Archive Photos/Getty Images
19/21
Who: Francesco and Alba Clemente
Known for: He’s known for portraits, which are romantic, bordering on spiritual. She’s played muse to Robert Mapplethorpe and Alex Katz, as well as her husband, and still finds time to design costumes for the stage.
The Look: She has the elegance of a Renaissance countess; whether he’s wearing jeans or a tux, what mesmerizes are his penetratingly blue eyes.
Photo: Courtesy of 1stdibs.com
20/21
Who: Willem and Elaine de Kooning
Known for: He created lush Abstract Expressionist paintings, among them a famous series of women; among the portraits she painted was one of President Kennedy.
The Look: American Workwear

Photo: Duncan Fraser Buchanan
21/21
Who: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Suzanne Mallouk
Known for: He electrified the downtown art world with Expressionist paintings that incorporated graffiti and African motifs; Mallouk, his muse or the “Widow Basquiat” as she is referred to in a recent memoir by Jennifer Clement, was loyal through the painter’s short and eventful trajectory. The downtown gal with a Sphinx-like beauty met the painter when she was working as a bartender at a dive bar.
The Look: Her dark-eyed exotic beauty complimented Basquiat’s eclectic and individual style—from suits to college tees—all topped by his distinctive dreds.