Five Artist Studios That Will Make You Want a Better Home Office

Ralph Steadman is a renowned illustrator known for his distinctive style and his longtime collaboration with writer Hunter S. Thompson.

Steadman was born in England in 1936 and attended East Ham Technical College and the London College of Printing. He was working as a freelance illustrator when he received an assignment to accompany Thompson to the 1970 Kentucky Derby for Scanlan’s Monthly. The resulting article featuring Thompson’s quirky narrative and Steadman’s signature sketches is credited with kicking off the satirical gonzo style of journalism. The pair would work together for the next fifteen years, including on Thompson’s notable 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Steadman’s spindly figures, ink blotted canvases, and whimsical imagery has also graced numerous books, album artwork, advertisements, and performance posters. Among his best-known work, he designed the art for cult 1987 film Withnail and I, won a Francis Williams Book Illustration Award for illustrations to a 1967 edition of Alice in Wonderland, and created the labels for Flying Dog beer.

Diana Al-Hadid is a contemporary artist known for her large-scale sculptures, which draw inspiration from architecture, civilizations of the past and present, and the histories and possibilities of sculptural materials.

Born in Syria, Al-Hadid moved to Ohio when she was five years old. She studied sculpture and art history at Kent State University and received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University.

She produces innovative sculptures and wall hangings in a range of material—fiberglass, polymer, steel, plaster, and more. Her work has been displayed in more than twenty solo exhibitions across the United States and in Europe and is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the San Jose Museum of Art, among other institutions.  In 2018, she completed a series of large mosaics for the walls of the new Penn Station in New York.