People

Botticelli Is Buried at the Feet of His Muse—and 9
Other Unusual Stories Behind Famous Artists’ Final
Resting Places
Can you guess which artist's ashes were surreptitiously buried under the cloak of night?
Katie White, October 30, 2019

Fancy a walk among the gravestones this Halloween eve? Here are a few suggestions.
(Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)“I always thought I’d like my own tombstone to be blank,” Andy Warhol once
quipped. “No epitaph and no name. Well, actually, I’d like it to say‘figment.'” While Warhol didn’t get his wish (as you’ll see below), death does
become a kind of funerary performance piece for some artists. From scripted
ceremonies to show-stopping tombstones, the last rites for a number of arthistorically important figures offer fascinating insights into their lives andlegacies.
If your interest in art extends beyond (or let’s say to) the grave, you’re in luck.
Just in time for Halloween, here’s our guide to the 10 most unusual arthistorical tombs.

Antonio Canova (1757–1822)

Italian neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova’s funerary monument basilica di Santa Maria
Gloriosa dei Frari, Basilica dei Frari, Venice, Italy. Courtesy of Flickr.

Date of Earthly Departure: October 13, 1822
Eternal Resting Place: Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Basilica dei Frari, Venice(at least some of him)
Deathly Details: Though the fervor for the Italian neoclassical sculptor has
diminished in the nearly 200 years since his death, Canova enjoyedunparalleled artistic celebrity in his time—as evidenced by the elaborate(and frankly sort of bizarre) tomb erected for him by a group of his students.
The monument itself is derived from designs Canova made for the tomb ofTitian, but with symbols that reference his own association with Freemasonry,
like a pyramidal entrance. Oh, and to make things even stranger, we shouldnote that the only part of Canova entombed here is his heart. His deathapparently invoked a relic-crazed zeal that resulted in the divvying up of therest of his body.

Andy Warhol (1928–1987)

Andy Warhol’s tombstone at St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery, Bethel Park,PA. Courtesy of Flickr.

Date of Earthly Departure: February 22, 1987
Eternal Resting Place: St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery,
Bethel Park, Pennsylvania
Deathly Details: The spirit of death hovered over all of Andy Warhol’s career.
From the Pop icon’s “Death and Disaster” series to his attempted
assassination, his life seemed a long flirtation with the grim reaper. And while
one might expect his grave site to be something of a colorful culmination ofthis preoccupation, Warhol’s burial place in a Catholic cemetery alongside
his parents seems the opposite of attention-grabbing—at least at first glance.
For those in the know, however, Warhol’s cult of fame lives on. His grave site
is live-streamed 24-hours a day(https://www.earthcam.com/usa/pennsylvania/pittsburgh/warhol/) by theSt.John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church.

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954)

Frida Kahlo’s urn at her home, Casa Azul, in Mexico City. Courtesy of Flickr.

Date of Earthly Departure: July 13, 1954
Eternal Resting Place: a frog-shaped urn at her home in Mexico City Deathly
Details: After a tragic bus accident nearly killed her in her teenage years,
Frida Kahlo’s brief life was marked by surgeries, illnesses, and immense
physical suffering. Her last diary entry before she died at the age of 47 read:“I hope the exit is joyful—and I hope never to return—Frida.” Anticipating
her death, Kahlo requested that her ashes be placed in a frog-shaped preColumbian urn and kept at her beloved home, Casa Azul, where they remain
on display to this day.

Patricia Cronin (b. 1963)

Patricia Cronin’s Memorial to a Marriage (2011) at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York.
Courtesy of Flickr.

Date of Earthly Departure: Fingers crossed for a far-off future
Eternal Resting Place: Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx
Deathly Details: Patricia Cronin has got to be a project manager’s dream.
While many artists have been bequeathed with elegiac monuments manyyears after their deaths, Cronin has already got her sepulchral future all set.
In 2011, the artist installed a bronze version of Memorial to a Marriage, asculpture that depicts her and her wife, the artist Deborah Kass, embracing inbed, at a cemetery in the Bronx. The seemingly Etruscan-inspired tomb will
mark the couple’s resting place whenever the time comes (hopefully a longtime from now).

Ricardo Menon (1952–1989)

Tombstone designed by Niki de Saint Phalle for her studio assistantRicardo Menon at Cimetière Montparnasse, Paris. Courtesy of Flickr.

Date of Earthly Departure: September 21, 1989
Eternal Resting Place: Cimetière de Montparnasse, Paris
Deathly Details: Second only to Père Lachaise Cemetery in the numberof creative geniuses it boasts as permanent residents, Cimetière deMontparnasse is the chosen resting spot of Baudelaire, Sartre, andBrancusi, to name a few. But among all of these, the most eye-catchingtombstone is certainly a dazzling white cat designed by the artist Niki deSaint Phalle for her dear friend and decade-long studio assistant Ricardo
Menon. Menon worked with the French artist on her ebullient sculpturalwonderland, the Tarot Garden, in Tuscany, and cared for Saint Phalle asshe endured debilitating arthritis. Before Menon’s death from AIDS in1989, Saint Phalle promised to make him a tombstone in the shape of acat, the animal she most associated with him for its mysterious beauty.

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917)

Pierre Choumoff, Rodin’s funeral (November 24, 1917). Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Date of Earthly Departure: November 17, 1917
Eternal Resting Place: Beneath his cast of his sculpture The Thinker atwhat is now the Musée Rodin, Meudon, France
Deathly Details: Rodin’s most famous sculpture, The Thinker, garnered
great acclaim as a societal symbol went it was first exhibited on amonumental scale Paris in 1904. But for the artist, the sculpture must haveassumed a more tragically romantic significance as well. Just two weeks
after Rodin married Rose Beuret, his lover of 53 years, she died onFebruary 14, 1917 (yes, Valentine’s Day). She was buried in the grounds of
his chateau in Meudon, France, and there, Rodin erected a smaller versionof his Thinker. A few months later, Rodin died as well. He was buried
alongside her.

Michelangelo (1475–1564)

Michelangelo’s tomb at Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. Courtesy of Wikimedia
Commons.

Date of Earthly Departure: February 18, 1564
Eternal Resting Place: Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence
Deathly Details: When Michelangelo died in Rome at the age of 88, he’dbeen in a self-imposed exile from his beloved Florence since the 1530s,
when Alessandro de’ Medici (whom Michelangelo considered a tyrant) had
been made the first duke of Florence. Soon after Michelangelo was laid torest in Rome, Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici decided to make amends and had
the artist’s body brought back to Florence for a state burial andcommemoration. In his honor, this monumental and decadent tomb,designed in part by Giorgio Vasari, was erected at the Church of Santa
Croce. Crowning the monument are figures representing painting,sculpture, and architecture, each weeping over the death of theRenaissance master. Michelangelo rests in good company, with Galileo
entombed just a few steps away.

Agnes Martin (1912–2004)

The Agnes Martin Gallery in the Harwood Museum of Art, with benches by Donald
Judd. Courtesy of the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos.

Date of Earthly Departure: December 16, 2004
Eternal Resting Place: The courtyard of the Harwood Museum of Art,Taos, New Mexico
Deathly Details: Agnes Martin’s life in the New Mexico desert has takenon nearly mystical associations—but, if her burial is any indication, thesouthwestern town is also where she found some very loyal friends. In1993, the artist created a special suite of paintings for Taos’s Harwood
Museum of Art, and, before her death in 2004, asked that she be buriedin the museum courtyard. That request, however, was forbidden by New
Mexico state law. That’s why, in the spring after her death, a group ofMartin’s devoted friends gathered past dark and, with a ladder, scaled
the adobe walls of the museum. In the moonlight, they buried her ashes
under an apricot tree, where they remain to this day.

Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)

Botticelli is bured at Chiesa di San Salvatore in Ognissanti, Florence. His burial place ismarked by the circular emblem on the floor, while the banner emblem marks the burial
place of noblewoman Simonetta Vesspucci. Courtesy of Flickr.

Date of Earthly Departure: May 17, 1510
Eternal Resting Place: Chiesa di San Salvatore di Ognissanti, Florence
Deathly Details: Have you ever marveled at the ethereal beauty of Venus
in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and wondered whose likeness inspired it?
Many suspect the figure is based on Italian noblewoman Simonetta
Vespucci, of whom the 15th-century master was deeply enamored(others say that’s wishful thinking, as she’d been dead for a decade by
the time he painted the picture). Regardless, Botticelli adored Vespucci,and before he died, asked to be buried at her feet. When he died in his60s, his request was granted.

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968)

Marcel Duchamp’s headstone at Rouen Cemetery. Courtesy of Flickr.

Date of Earthly Departure: October 2, 1968
Eternal Resting Place: Rouen Cemetery, Roeun, France
Deathly Details: The Dada artist had a quick wit—even in death. After anight spent dining with photographer Man Ray and art critic RobertLebel, Duchamp collapsed from a heart attack in his studio just past one
in the morning. The devout atheist was buried at Rouen Cemetery inFrance and his tombstone bears the epitaph, “D’ailleurs, c’est toujours
les autres qui meurent” or, “Besides, it’s always the others who die.”Find this article in: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artists-graves-unusual-and-elaborate-1691752