Retiring as an Artist | Open Thread

We talk so much here about an artist's "career," borrowing the term from more conventional work histories, which for the average person has a beginning and (hopefully before they die) an ending and a chance to enjoy the fruits of their labor, but we've also spent time discussing how artists keep making art despite whether or not their "career" is doing well (by which, of course, we mean whether or not they're able to support themselves via sales of their art). We've also recently discussed whether or not late work by an artist can be expected to be better than their early work, which only reinforces the notion that an artist is expected to be a worker for life.

But why?

The simple response would be because many feel that being an artist is a "calling" rather than just a vocation. It's their identity and there's nothing else they'd rather do. But as MFA programs and simply expectations in the market place keep nudging artists toward a more "professional" approach to their careers, why shouldn't artists also be able to eventually relax and enjoy retirement?

The Guardian's Jonathan Jones recently took on these questions in his post titled "Real artists never retire – or do they?":

Is retirement an option for creative artists? The film director Steven Soderbergh recently announced that he plans to retire from movie-making once his next two films are finished. A folly? A whim? A PR stunt? Who knows, but he sounded sincerely tired of it all in the interview I read.

This startled me, because Soderbergh, while working in Hollywood, has gained a reputation as a serious film artist. And retirement rarely seems to interest serious artists – least of all visual ones.

Lucian Freud and Cy Twombly are still painting, and still doing powerful work, in old age. Nor is the career longevity (and physical longevity) of artists just a product of modern healthcare. In the 16th century, both Michelangelo and Titian lived very long lives and both worked brilliantly into their last years. Titian's late works are his greatest of all and several scintillating masterpieces were left unfinished when he died. Michelangelo also left an incredible unfinished masterpiece – when death obliged him to lay down tools, he was the architect of St Peter's.

If great artists work well beyond retirement age, it is surely because, especially for a painter, writer or similarly skilled worker, it can take a lifetime to learn all the skills. Only then can you work with total freedom: hence the striking phenomenon of "late" styles.

I suspect you could make the last statement about people in lots of fields though. An editor's skills improve with time as do a baker's, I suspect. A police detective surely becomes more effective the longer he/she has spent studying criminal behavior first hand. And I personally feel much more comfortable visiting a doctor who's older than I am than one who's not (I call it my Marcus Welby issue). But no one expects any of these folks to keep working past the retirement age, unless they choose to.

Jones carries on with something I never knew, though:

There is at least one startling exception to the rule that real artists never retire: Shakespeare. He made his money in London then retired to his native Stratford, like Prospero relinquishing his magic in The Tempest. But then Shakespeare is an exception to every rule and the ultimate biographical enigma.

Consider this an open thread on whether artists should be expected to keep working until they pass away or whether retiring as an artist is the same well-deserved reward it is in other fields.