An Artist’s Gathering, Viggo Johansen, 1903
When British dramatist Samuel Foote, in his play, The Author, conjured the image of the reclusive writer – born in a cellar and living in a garret – he sowed the seed for a cliché that’s still going strong more than 250 years later. But while some creative souls have spent their lives largely in solitude, many painters – Claude Monet, Jean-François Millet and Otto Modersohn among them – found inspiration in the company of others.