The similarities between academics and artists

Presents four analogies between academics and artists; links to a white paper on the art of academic writing that provides five perspectives: writing as sculpting, writing as drawing, writing as painting, writing as music, and writing as acting

Anne-Wil Harzing - (updated Wed 30 Sep 2026 11:09)

Artist: Jos Harzing, Title: Mother with children and dog, Material: Polyester, Year: 1963, Location: Station restaurant Driebergen-Zeist. New location: my home office; immortalised in my recent videos. [After renovation, the station was about to throw it away; the sacrilege!] 

Writing is an art form, but can the same be said of academic writing? In our white paper - The art of academic writing - Christa Sathish and I, provided five different perspectives on academic writing: 

We concluded that academics might be more content with their chosen careers if they were able to re-focus on academic writing as a form of artistic expression and academic passion rather than as a simple "box-ticking" exercise for their CV.

However, beyond their creations, academics themselves also share some other similarities with artists. In this video on why academia can still be a great career, I compared academics and artists in terms of careers. At the end of our white paper, we identified four other analogies. As not many readers make it to the end of white paper, I have reproduced them here.

Academics and artists come in different types

We can distinguish different types of artists and academic writers. There are those who mainly see their activity as "work" that they simply have to do for a living, to keep their job, get promotion, or become famous. And then there are those that see it as a realisation of their "creative passion". We typically have a more idealistic view of artists than of academics. In reality, however, both groups often have to compromise, even if they would prefer to work out of pure creative passion.

Many artists take on commissioned work that might not exactly set them on fire. They do it just to "pay the rent". Many academics publish work that doesn’t excite them (anymore) just to get their line managers of their backs. Both artists and academics might use this to "buy time" to work on projects they are really passionate about.

Moreover, both artists and academic writers are likely to spend part of their time on other activities such as teaching (see picture below), something they may variously see as invigorating, be indifferent about, or may thoroughly dislike.

Jos Harzing teaching children in a community arts centre (1975)

Both artists and academics steal each others' work

First, both artists and academics have been known to steal each other’s work. We just have different words for it: forgery vs. plagiarism. Interestingly, whilst some artists have been jailed for forgery, we are not aware of any academics suffering the same faith, though some have been fired from their jobs. Maybe that’s because forging artists copy someone else’s work wholesale and then try to pass it off as the original artist’s work, whereas academics typically plagiarise only parts of someone's work and try to pass it off as their own.

Both artists and academics are exploited by others

Both artists and academic writers are likely to see other people profit from their creative work. For artists, this may be gallery owners or agents who are taking a huge chunk of the sales price of their artworks. For academics, it is publishers who get our academic writing, peer review, and editing work for free, and subsequently make huge profits out of it by selling our own work back to us at inflated prices. Yes, madness isn't it?

Both artists and academics work beyond retirement age

Finally, as their work is their passion, artists often work until well beyond the official "retirement age". Many theatre artists have been known to "die in their harness". Unless arthritis sets in, drawing and painting can be done until an advanced age too, as can singing and playing an musical instrument.

Sculpting is a little more physical. Even so, after his retirement from teaching Jos Harzing still worked on his sculptures once a week (see pictures below). He had his last exhibition in the year he turned eighty, more than seventy years after he made his first sculptures. You can find a book about his sculptures that Anne-Wil created for his 80th birthday and updated for his 90th birthday here.

Jos Harzing working on a piece for his last exhibition (2012)

Similarly, many academics like their research and writing so much that they continue to do some form of paid work until their early or mid-seventies. Some continue for much longer, either in part-time positions or as emeritus professor. In fact, because they can give up teaching and administration after their official retirement, some academics become even more productive in their creative endeavours. Others spend the final decades of their lives mentoring and advising the next generation of academic writers.

In sum

There are many similarities between academic writers and artists, both in terms of their career (see video below) and in terms of their day-to-day work practices. Whatever the analogy used, we encourage all academic writers to see our writing not as "tick boxes" on our CVs, but as an art form expressing our academic creativity and passion. Doing so ensures our writing brings joy to our professional and personal lives and makes a positive contribution to the world around us.

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Copyright © 2026 Anne-Wil Harzing. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Wed 30 Sep 2026 11:09

Anne-Wil Harzing is Emerita Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.

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