History Main / StarvingArtist

* ''Creator/DickFrancis'': Varies from book to book. It Subverted in ''Shattered'', where Gerry Logan does quite well at his business. Played straight in ''Longshot'' (up to and including the leaking garrett.) In ''To the Hilt'' and ''In the Frame'', the artists live unconventional lives, but are far from financially strapped. Contrast with ''Reflex'' where the art (photography) is pure hobby.[[/folder]]

* Stuart from ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' is a graduate of the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design and a talented illustrator, considering the quite stunning sketch of Penny he did back in season one. He's also spent most of the series' run stuck in PerpetualPoverty, as [[LocalHangout the comic store he runs]], which is also his primary source of income, tends to barely allow him to make ends meet. [[ThrowTheDogABone Occasionally his luck does improve, though.]]

* Lillian Marie Disney who is the wife of Walt Disney, started out as this. She was the youngest of ten children, and her family was poor. They even set aside money for food to buy her art supplies.

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* In ''Anime/{{Doraemon}}'', the title character and Nobita go back in time to help a starving artist at least once, and on another occasion tried to use time travel to buy the works of a now famous (and obscenely rich) painter. [[spoiler: They ended up buying a painting made by Nobita's father, who apprenticed under the artist as a college student.]]

** Also note that Kafka actually had pretty well-paying and thoroughly bourgeois job as an insurance agent, which he, however, felt to be empty and unfulfilling, thus turning his passion to writing.

* The protagonists of the Literature/JasonKeltner mysteries start out as a starving musician, a starving artist, and a starving actor, and get drawn into mysteries when Jason is set up to take the fall or otherwise fail. Years later they become comfortable on steady commercial work; far from starving, but also far from what they envisioned as success.

* ''Literature/TheAmyVirus'': The reason why Cyan's father discourages her drumming and songwriting hobbies, and doesn't want her older sister Tam to go to Rhode Island School of Design for college, is because he believes that being a doctor is the only way to make a living in the current 2010s US economy. However, this belief also demonstrates one of the ways Daniel [[ControlFreak enforces his control over his family]]. Not only is he insistant that they attend Caltech, his Alma Mater, despite being other good colleges out there, he goes so far as to confiscate any of Cyan's music and instruments to keep her from practicing her hobby. Also, in Tam's case, she's planning on averting this by majoring in Industrial Design at RISD, which would help her find a very good career where she can use her artistry.

* One VictimOfTheWeek in ''Anime/SailorMoon Super S'' was this trope. He was starving because his drawings were ''too'' realistic for people to believe them accurate (think self-delusion or inflated ego). When he collapses in front of Usagi, she takes him home and (for only the second time) cooks curry. In spite of its horrid appearance, he joyously scarfs it down. Few later he's "hired" by Vesves, who has targeted him under the disguise of a RichBitch; when he refuses to make a portrait of her on the grounds that there's something fake in her beauty and he won't paint it, she attacks him.

* Subaru in ''Manga/MyRoommateIsACat'' is this because he's a ShutIn who gets so fixated on trying to meet his deadlines as a writer that he forgets to eat (or sleep). RealityEnsues and he ends up passing out due to lack of food the first time we see this. He winds up reflexively eating a bowl of Haru's catfood after she becomes so worried about him that she pushes it over to him after he collapses. All his friends and neighbors comment on how underweight he looks, too. As the series progresses, he becomes better at taking care of himself.

* Yusuke Kitagawa from ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'' is an artist who's literally starving, not because of any lack of skill or interest in his art, but because his mentor/adoptive father Madarame steals all the credit and profit from his work and leaves him overworked and poor. Even after Madarame is taken down by the Phantom Thieves, Yusuke [[RunningGag is still seen constantly eating in the background and gets excited at the mention of food.]]

* The Swedish edition of ''Magazine/MADMagazine'' ran a comic in the early '80s set in Konstfack, the University Of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. One of the classes shown was teaching the students this trope, such as surviving an entire week on a glass of ketchup and painting your semester final project, a mouth-watering oil painting of a three-course dinner made out of food-scented wax after a month of starvation. Needless to say, the students taking that class are somewhat worse for wear.

* Kia Freeborn from ''Anime/HeatGuyJ''. He works several odd jobs, while trying to become a famous guitarist. Incidentally, Kia once ''did'' lead a very comfortable and pampered life (also, Kia is ''not'' his birth name), until his father (a famous musician) fell victim to the SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll trope, and eventually left his wife when he got TheMistress pregnant, and started a new life with ''her'', leaving Kia and his mother in the lurch.
** Another character is a (supposedly talented) poet who borrowed money from TheMafia, ostensibly to work on his poems and make a better life for himself and [[YamatoNadeshiko his girlfriend]], but ended up [[TheGamblingAddict gambling it all away]] and having a huge debt to pay back. He tries pleading with Clair to allow him to either get an extension on the repayment or get the debt forgiven. Clair agrees, on the condition that the poet write him a poem that's to his liking. (None of the poems are, needless to say. To be fair, they were pretty painful to listen to, but it's unlikely that Clair, being the SmugSnake that he is, would have forgiven the debt even if the poet ''had'' written genuinely wonderful poems.) The poet gets a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech from Clair and is (literally) thrown out the door where his girlfriend is waiting.

* Satoru Fujinuma is one in ''Manga/{{Erased}}''. He's had one hit manga, but has mostly been in a slump, with his editor telling him that his stories don't seem to connect for some reason. He works part time as a pizza delivery driver to help make ends meet in the meantime.

* Many real life painters lived near poverty and depicted their harsh living circumstances in their work: Creator/VincentVanGogh, Creator/HenriDeToulouseLautrec, ...

* The Swedish edition of ''Magazine/MADMagazine'' ran a comic in the early '80s set in Konstfack, the University Of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. One of the classes shown was teaching the students this trope, such as surviving an entire week on a glass of ketchup, and painting your semester final project, a mouth-watering oil painting of a three course dinner made out of food-scented wax after a month of starvation. Needless to say, the students taking that class are somewhat worse for wear.

* Another Swedish example is the satirical comic ''ComicBook/ArneAnka'', which is partially biographical and based on the artists life as a Starving Artist in the early 80's, though unlike him, the main character Arne is a poet and writer rather than an illustrator. Arne's best friend Krille is a bit more successfull, being a semi-successfull director, but still often had money issues.

* ''Film/WithnailAndI'' has the protagonists.

* Jerry and Joe from ''Film/SomeLikeItHot'' are poor musicians in Chicago who have to sell their coats to make ends meet.

* Two old actors are sitting on a bench. One says: "How long has it been since you had a job?" The other actor says "Thirty two years -- how about you?" The first actor says, "That's nothing. I haven't had a job in forty years!" The other says, "One of these days we've got to get out of this business!"

* ''Scenes de la Vie de Boheme'' is a novel by Henri Murger about 4 different starving artists that was inspiration for ''Theatre/LaBoheme''.
* The title character of Creator/FranzKafka's ''The Hunger Artist'' not only doesn't make much for his completely under-appreciated art form, he represents this trope in the most literal way imaginable by using self-starvation as his medium. Kafka himself was an example.
** Though Kafka's art wasn't his livelihood, and he never even attempted to publish his works, and ordered them destroyed in his will - a clause which thankfully wasn't fulfilled.
** Also note that Kafka actually had pretty well-paying and thoroughly bourgeous job as an insurance agent, which he, however, felt to be empty and unfulfilling, thus turning his passion to writing.

* The protagonists of the Literature/JasonKeltner mysteries start out as a starving musician, a starving artist and a starving actor, and get drawn into mysteries when Jason is set up to take the fall or otherwise fail. Years later they become comfortable on steady commercial work; far from starving, but also far from what they envisioned as success.

* Richard in ''Series/CarolineInTheCity'', scraping by on being Caroline's colorist while waiting for his break. One episode addressed it directly, when a doodle he made and accidentally sent in with Caroline's comic generated some interest, Richard flat-out refused. Richard said he didn't want to sell out; Caroline wondered if he wasn't just in love with the whole romantic idea of the Starving Artist.

** The episode "Vincent and the Doctor" focused on the starving artist Creator/VincentVanGogh. As mentioned in the RealLife section, Van Gogh's paintings never sold well when he was alive, and the episode focuses heavily on the man's mental health on account of this, his depression, and his psychic visions which makes him seem crazy.

* in the ''Series/InsideNo9'' episode "Tom and Gerri", Gerri is an actress who's been unemployed for several months and owes her boyfriend a lot of money (which causes tension between them.) She's reduced to auditioning for the part of "D-Day Doris" in a play touring retirement homes, because she can't find any other work.

* ''Theatre/MySisterEileen'' and TheMusical ''Theatre/WonderfulTown'' have Ruth Sherwood, an aspiring young writer whose stories don't come back only when she can't pay the return postage, and her sister Eileen, a would-be actress. They don't get much choice in what food they eat, and have difficulty coming up with money for subway and bus fares.

* One example in particular is Creator/VincentVanGogh, who used the very little money he made to buy art supplies and lived on coffee and absinthe. As if his mental health wasn't bad enough, poor nutrition made his physical health that much worse.
** This was [[DoingItForTheArt chiefly a personal decision]], though, as he largely lived on the support from his brother Theo, a quite successful art dealer, and didn't want neither to inconvenience his brother too much, nor [[TrueArt compromise his artistic integrity]] for [[MoneyDearBoy more financially rewarding styles and themes]]. Had he agreed to make his art [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible more accessible to the public of the time]], he wouldn't have this much of financial problem.

* Music/NickDrake spent much of the latter part of his life living with his parents off of a £20-a-week retainer from Creator/IslandRecords. Eventually that stopped too.

* In his younger years Creator/JulesVerne was this, after he dropped from studying law, devoting himself to literature and Parisian boheme, and his father, a wealthy provincial lawyer who hoped that he would inherit a family practice, cut the financial support. To feed himself and his new family, Verne had to turn to stock exchange, where he had to make a living as a stock broker until he had a big break with the ''Literature/FiveWeeksInABalloon''. Just as with Kafka above, while he was quite successful at this job, he hated it immensely.

* Many webcomic artists and indie game developers tend to be this (or support their job with a steady job like retail). The few artists one hears about spending several years of pure work on something generally aren't as starving as one thinks. For instance, the creator of ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}'', Creator/JonathanBlow, was able to spend the two years working on just ''Braid'' because he was able to spend 200K of his own money on the project.

* Passpartout: The Starving Artist Simulator is a game about, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a starving artist]] in France with an unhealthy addiction to fine wine and baguettes. The player has to draw the paintings themselves in order to pay their bills. No [[QuickTimeEvent quick time events]], no puzzles, not even a template! You have to draw from scratch, and a machine-learning AI judges your work accordingly based on pictures from the internet and your previous work.

* The WebVideo/KeyOfAwesome parody of "Somebody That I Used To Know" has an entire band of them.