I’ve just finished reading an interesting book, ‘A Criminal History of Mankind’ by Colin Wilson. In it the author makes the above claim, is it true?
I imagine the words ‘calculated’ and ‘first-degree’ leave a little definitional wiggle-room.
Thanks in advance!
Hitler, John Wayne Gacy and numerous other murderers painted. So that particular assertion doesn’t even make it past the starting gate.
Carlo Gesualdo, a Renaissance composer of madrigals, murdered his wife and children. Strike two.
Gu Cheng, a Chinese poet, murdered his wife with an axe then killed himself in 1993. Strike three.
If we’re not taking “artist” to mean someone who works specifically in the visual arts, John Wilkes Booth was a legitimately gifted artist, one of the foremost Shakespearean actors of his day.
Bobby Beausoleil was a rock musician and actor, when he became part of Charles Manson’s “family,” and was convicted of the murder of Gary Hinman (apparently at Manson’s direction).
Yeah, I think that the author’s blanket statement is full of crap.
I was thinking of that, too, but perhaps “calculated” and “first-degree” leave some wiggle room there, but I don’t know much about the circumstances. Given that he hanged himself afterwards, I have a feeling it may not have just been a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing.
Phil Spector, Robert Blake, Charles Manson, OJ Simpson.
Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols murdered his girlfriend Nancy Spungen (although he died before going to trial). This may stretch the definition of “composer” but he is is co-credited as writer on a few of the Sex Pistols’ songs (and Spungen’s murder was probably not calculated).
Robert Blake was not convicted of murder, and the exact circumstances regarding who actually pulled the trigger on his wife is not known. (I don’t think murder is ever justified, but his wife was, frankly, a predator. Blake was also an idiot for getting sucked into her scam.)
Charles Manson didn’t personally kill anyone.
Possibly Caravaggio.
Caravaggio is arguably one of the greatest painters ever, but was also known to be volatile and violent. At the height of his fame he killed a man in a brawl and was sentenced to death for murder. After a lengthy period on the lam he was eventually pardoned, but during this time he hardly kept his head down and almost killed another man in a brawl and was subject to an attempt on his life.
OJ Simpson was a poet, artist or composer?
“Artist” from the standpoint of being an actor in movies and TV shows, at least. One might argue that being an athlete is a form of performance art, but in this case, I don’t think that you’d have to.
Benvenuto Cellini killed a rival goldsmith, and basically got away with it because he was an admired artist and managed to get pardoned by the pope.
Possibly less calculated (and hence possibly not first-degree murder), his brother killed a member of the Roman watch, but was then mortally wounded by another member of the watch. Benvenuto then killed the second man, even though by Benvenuto’s own admission he had been acting in self-defense. Since Benvenuto himself admitted it wasn’t blood revenge, in the eyes of the legal system it was murder.
Some online references also say he shot an innkeeper dead but I don’t know the details of that incident.
Richard Dadd was a Victorian artist who brutally murdered his father, though this is possibly not first degree murder due to Richard Dadd’s mental illness (he was convinced his father was actually the Devil). He spent the rest of his life in mental institutions, where he created some rather spectacular art.
Colin Wilson was a writer of science fiction and fantasy who occasionally dabbled in “real” world events…like ghosts, demons, the paranormal and sensationalized/lurid pieces of history. I would take his “facts” with a large grain of salt.
The “wiggle room” is rather interesting, because fundamentally very few people kill in a calculated way. They might calculate after the event to obscure the evidence, but often the murder itself is a spur-of-the-moment act of passion, rage, and/or mania. If you pick any profession that has only a very small number of people in it (“composer” is quite different to “musician”) and you will likely have a rather difficult time finding a match. There are only a few working professionally at any one time and that means that you would need to delve into history, where the records are a lot poorer.
There has probably been no puzzle designer that has ever committed a calculated, first-degree murder, for example. Similarly for chick sexer or food technologist, they’ll probably come out clean. It says less about those professions than it does about how people murder each other.
I used to work with food technologists. Homicidal loons, the lot of them. 
Also: Jeffrey Dahmer, at the time of his arrest, worked at a chocolate processing plant (though, IIRC he was a factory worker, and certainly not a trained food technologist.)
Muybridge, if you count a photographer as an artist.
But even a moment of pondering should have you rolling your eyes at the author’s claim.
The assertion might be more interesting if limited to people who actually made a living as painters (or composers or poets). In other words, eliminating murderers who dabbled in the arts as a hobby.
Did Hitler ever manage to support himself via his paintings? I don’t recall.
For that matter, certainly he was a genocidal dictator, but did he ever personally commit murder?