Artists Lives - Inspiring Stories of Creative Minds | Perfect for Art Lovers, Students & Aspiring Artists | Great for Motivation & Creative Inspiration" （注：根据SEO优化原则，我添加了相关关键词如"inspiring stories"和"creative minds"，明确了目标受众"art lovers/students/aspiring artists"，并补充了使用场景"motivation & creative inspiration"。标题控制在合理长度，使用管道符分隔不同信息模块，符合电商标题最佳实践。）

Michael Peppiatt has been studying, meeting and writing about artists for almost sixty years. In this brilliant selection of his biographical writing, he introduces us to some of the best-known artists of the modern age, from Vincent van Gogh and Pierre Bonnard to Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

We follow the writer into the studios of some of these individuals, observing their creative process at close quarters, and gaining insight into the way their personal histories have shaped and directed their work, bringing both the art and its maker alive.

Peppiatt meets an elderly but spirited Sonia Delaunay in Paris to hear her revive long-forgotten worlds; visits Catalan artist Antoni Tapies, ‘the alchemist’, and joins him on late-night walks around Barcelona; interviews poet Jacques Dupin, in his pyjamas, on his memories of Giacometti; makes the life-changing acquaintance of Bacon in the bars and clubs of Soho; and gives us a considered opinion on Picasso’s trousers.

These essays are essential reading for anyone wanting to find out more about the lives of some of the great creative figures of modern times, from a writer who is not only an authority on art, but also one of the liveliest and most entertaining observers of artists and their worlds.