In journalism, there is an old saying, "Follow the money." This is a proven method of tracking malfeasance in politics.
I have found that in writing biographies of artists and writers, following the money is important in a different way. Keeping track of my subject's income and how much she spent on significant purchases is one way of assessing the relative smoothness or bumpiness of her life at any given time—which in turn often had an influence on the direction of her work and the difficulty of producing it.
Few of us are able to conduct our lives without worrying about money, and the people I write about were no different. Financial concerns weighed heavily on them. A biography, as opposed to a literary study or artist's monograph, is about the whole of the person's life, not just The Work. Biographers are concerned with how our subjects lived, which involves researching and writing about virtually every aspect of a personal life and the ancillary aspects of making a living that depend on favorable treatment from publishers, theatre management, film producers, agents, and art galleries.
Writing about money issues, along my subjects' health, leisure pursuits, relationships, and daily irritations and pleasures, is a way of making the people I write about come alive as human beings. They may be towering figures in their fields, but in other ways they are not so different from us. And it is on that basis that we can best appreciate how they soared above their difficulties to make the work we revere.
© Cathy Curtis 2025