Artists Who Only Became Legendary After They Died

Art is fickle. Need evidence? These artists received little to no recognition while they were alive. But that doesn’t mean that their works and acts of genius will go forgotten.

Emily Dickinson

While she was alive, Emily Dickinson published 10 poems. After her death, her family discovered forty hand-bound volumes containing 1,800 poems. Her work was published posthumously.

Her first collection was published four years after her death and it was met with wild success.

Edgar Allan Poe

Unlike Franz Kafka or Emily Dickinson, Poe was published extensively during his lifetime. The publishing industry, however, was struggling at the time and Poe often had to plead for money.

A lot of other literary figures also personally disliked Poe and called him “vulgar.” Even after his death, one of his literary rivals published an unflattering obituary about him.

After his death, however, his work stood on its own and is now seen as classic literature.

Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier worked as a nanny for 40 years. In her spare time, she was a photographer and took over 150,000 photographs. Her work, however, was unknown and unpublished. After her death, a collector put some of her photos online and they went viral.

Her photographs have since been exhibited around the world.

Stieg Larsson

This famous “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” author died suddenly of a heart attack in 2004. He was only 50-years-old. He had planned to write 10 books in the series, but had completed only three. None were published prior to his death.

After their publication, he posthumously became the second best-selling fiction author of 2008.