If These Walls Could Talk: Inside the Homes and Studios of 7 Artists

If you’ve ever stepped inside the home or studio of a legendary artist– you’ll quickly discover how their dwelling place informs their work and vice versa. Just below, Komos explores a handful of intimate abodes from urban New York to remote Spain and beyond. And what’s more: you can still visit the properties, getting an intimate glimpse into how icons like Joan Miró and Georgia O'Keeffe lived and worked.

Salvador Dali House: Back in the day, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and his wife, Gaia, took the bones of a 1930s fishing hut, transforming it into a rambling labyrinth of alcoves and secret passageways. Staying true to Dali’s aesthetic are a can’t-miss white alabaster egg perched on a terracotta roof, and in the front entryway, a big stuffed polar bear draped with necklaces and canes. In his atelier is a collection of brushes, tools, and one unfinished painting. “It’s a real biological structure. Each new pulse in our life had its new cell, its room…” Dali once said of his dwelling (he would know too; he summered there for 52 years). Address: Platja de, 17488 Port Lligat, Girona, Spain 

Louise Bourgeois House: Chelsea, New York.

The narrow, 19th-century Manhattan townhouse remains much the way the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois left it. Doubling as her home and studio, rooms are filled with sketches, maquettes, and tubes of paint; not to mention scattered hairbrushes and half-used nail polish bottles. Although she was reclusive in her later years, Bourgeois hosted a salon series called ‘Sunday, Bloody Sundays’ (a title she picked from U2’s Bono) where up-and-coming artists showcased their work in her living room. The artist — allegedly not one to mince words— was said to also critique the presentations. Address: 347 West 20th Street, NYC

Donald Judd: SoHo, New York 

Back in 1968, when SoHo was an up-and-coming artist’s community – the sculptor Donald Judd, bought a derelict, 5-story, cast-iron building turning it into his private residence, studio, and “permanent installation” space. Today, it remains the only single-use building in the neighborhood. Inside are works by Judd, alongside gifts from fellow big-name friends – Claes Oldenberg, Frank Stella, Dan Flavin, and Marcel Duchamp. Walls of windows and natural light are the main focal point, but it’s clear Judd favored simple adornments too: wooden tables, bare lightbulbs, and a mattress on the floor. The artist’s remote home in Marfa, Texas picks up much of the same sparse and practical ethos. Address: 101 Spring Street, NYC

Georgia O’Keeffe: Abiquiú, New Mexico

It’s no secret, that the modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe always loved New Mexico. Her adobe home in Abiquiú, purchased in 1945, is simple and practical. A living room dotted with mid-century pieces – Florence Knoll’s Womb Chair, Alexander Girard pillows, a McIntosh stereo, and a small adobe-colored dining room with a wooden table, Navajo rug, and a Noguchi lamp (a gift by the artist himself). Outside are animal skulls of all shapes and sizes, shells, bones, and large rocks (many of which inspired O'Keeffe's paintings). Address: 21120 U.S. 84, Abiquiú, NM 87510

Musee Auguste Rodin: Meudon, France

Just on the outskirts of Paris sits sculptor Auguste Rodin's brick-and-stone Louis XIII villa where a workshop doubled as a place for his most significant creations.  Grand flora-filled gardens are filled with several of Rodin’s most prized works: The Walking Man, The Thinker, and The Kiss. Perhaps the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who was once Rodin's secretary, summed it up best: “The effect of this vast hall filled with light, where all these dazzling white sculptures seem to gaze out at you from behind high glass doors, like creatures in an aquarium…” Address: 19 boulevard des Invalides, 75007 Paris

Finca Mas Miró: Mont Roig del Camp, Spain

The artist Joan Miró spent his summers at this sprawling estate near Barcelona. Undoubtedly, the artist was also inspired by grounds – dotted with a farm, a chapel, and sunny fields with striking eucalyptus trees. Miró’s unassuming studio with its Catalan vaulted ceiling and clay floor, still contains several of the artist's sketches; a collection of stained brushes and paint bottles, and a used paint smock hanging on the back of the chair. Address: s/n, 43300 Mont-Roig del Camp, Tarragona, Spain

House of Claude Monet: Giverny, France

Claude Monet, the iconic French Impressionist painter lived in the charming French village of Giverny for over four decades. A quintessential country home with iconic emerald shutters, Monet was artistically drawn to the surrounding, 5-acre gardens – complete with a Japanese water lily pond, bridge and weeping willow tree. Translation: walking around the property feels like being transported into a Monet painting. Inside, the 19th-century interiors smack a colorful artist’s easel: bright cheery pinks, seafoam blues, and canary yellows. Address: 84 Rue Claude Monet, 27620 Giverny, France