Famous Pipe Smokers

Famous pipe smokers form a broad gallery of portraits showing that the pipe is not merely a tool for smoking tobacco but also a powerful bearer of image. Many well-known figures, from scientists to novelists, from generals to film stars, are remembered by their pipe; and some of the most enduring examples of this image belong not to real people at all, but to fictional heroes.

This entry summarizes the relationship between the pipe and public identity through examples that can be verified with sources.

Two Portraits From Science and Art

In 1950, at 71, Albert Einstein accepted lifetime membership in the Montreal Pipe Smokers' Club. On that occasion he said he believed pipe smoking "contributes to a calm and objective judgment in human affairs" — a widely quoted line, though it is a personal opinion of the speaker and his era, not a scientific finding. The physicist's pipe, its mouthpiece worn through from long use, is preserved today in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington.

In a letter to his brother Theo in December 1875, Vincent van Gogh wrote of rediscovering in his pipe "an old, faithful friend." Three weeks after the incident in which he cut off part of his ear, in January 1889, he painted himself with his pipe: "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe" is considered the best-known record of the painter's bond with his pipe.