Artists' biographies and their work are under a certain tension - an issue that this volume approaches via the biographies of well known 20th century artists (including Jean Cocteau, Marilyn Monroe, Thomas Bernhard and Václav Havel). Here, not only the public life (a work of art itself by virtue of its publicity) is taken into account, but also the reception in biographic texts, movies, and other media. The overview from the fields of literature, music, and the visual as well as performing arts, presented for the very first time by this volume, allows for an abstraction from the respective production conditions and opens our eyes to shared artist concepts. Furthermore, it exposes the meaning that factors pertaining to gender and ethnicity bear for the construction of an artist's life.