Trigger Warning
Great Artists Steal: How Artists Really Get Their Ideas by Debra N. Mancoff Frances Lincoln August 25, 2026, 224 pp.
In 903 BCE, King Solomon observed in the Hebrew book of Ecclesiastes, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” In 1976 CE, George Harrison did again what the Chiffons did in 1963 and was ordered to pay $1.6 million for copyright infringement. Ringo Starr later told a journalist, “There’s no doubt that the tune is similar, but how many songs have been written with other melodies in mind?”
How many works of art have been created with earlier works in mind? It turns out, most of them, as Mancoff documents in Great Artists Steal: How Artists Really Get Their Ideas. Through a series of comparisons between artworks from a variety of painters, periods, and places, the author establishes six overarching elements of clear connection: traditions, learning curve, creative exchange, influence and innovation, meaningful connections, and transformation. For each she presents examples of various artworks and analyzes their components and styles, establishing relationships across time and technique. Consider the following.
The chapter called Learning Curve explores how artists deliberately study the methods of earlier artists, not only in schools and studios, but throughout their creative careers. As the author states, Copying was not viewed as plagiarism but practice.” To demonstrate this process, the reader is invited to examine first The Fighting Temeraire (1839) by J.W.M. Turner, followed by Impression: Sunrise (1872) by Claude Monet. Monet had fled his native France for London in 1870 to escape the violence of the Franco-Prussian War. In London he encountered Turner’s “boldly atmospheric seascapes,” the influence of which is unmistakable in his use of light and treatment of reflection in “Impression: Sunrise.”
In addition to an artist’s explicit study of earlier work, the effects of informal influence and innovation are evident through simple observation of art across periods and places. Who better to illustrate this process than Picasso himself, whose famous quote “Good artists copy. Great artists steal” inspired the book’s title. The influences on his Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) are copious and clear, but perhaps none is more bold that its structural similarity to Les Grandes Baigneuses (1900-1906) by Paul Cezanne. Picasso’s painting even includes a small still life – Cezanne’s signature motif – in the bottom center as a not-so-sly wink to Pablo’s artistic inspiration.
Similarly, the influence of Henri Matisse on Roy Lichtenstein’s later work is loud and proud. The latter’s painting Artist’s Studio: The Dance (1974) not only nods to Matisse’s Dance (1909) in its title but through the images of bold dancing figures with connected limbs. And while the Lichtenstein piece retains his preference for a black and white palette with a primary accent color, Artist’s Studio displays a still life in the foreground, another reference to Matisse.
Most of this may mean little to current consumers of fanfic, hip hop sampling, and Guardians of the Galaxy VII. Yet as W. David Marx makes clear in his book Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century, today’s tradition of reboots and rehashes rather than the reinvention seen across art’s history is imitation without innovation. Mancoff’s examination of art theft reveals its important impacts on both the newly created work and its stolen source in her book’s final chapter, Transformations.
The author asserts that “By altering recognizable motifs, artists invite their viewers to reconsider both past and present. When transformation succeeds, the source material acquires fresh resonance.” To illustrate she offers L.H.O.O.Q. (1919-1920) by Marcel Duchamp, which she describes as a “schoolboy prank.” And so it appears to be, created as it was from a cheap postcard of the Mona Lisa (1503) by Leonardo da Vinci. Duchamp sketched a mustache on da Vinci’s iconic figure, scrawled L.H.O.O.Q. across the image, and signed his own name on the bottom. His intent was to challenge the long-standing rules of art as well as the role of the artist. Thus was Dada born.
Great Artists Steal: How Artists Really Get Their Ideas shows the significance of not only the theft, but the thought for what is to come.