Artists who burned or destroyed their own works

Artists who burned or destroyed their own work :
 * Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510): Giorgio Vasari recorded that Botticelli had burnt many of his paintings in a religious fervor during the great Florentine Bonfire of the Vanities in 1492. Many historians see this as a loss, though his work transformed in style after his spiritual "rebirth."
 * Francis Bacon (1909-92): Francis Bacon was obsessive about which of his paintings he loved and which ones he hated. He grew sick of his friends and admirers keeping his discarded paintings, so instead of throwing them away he would burn them or cut them up. He was notorious for destroying much of his old work.
 * Morris Louis (1912-62): another artist obsessed with perfection and moving forward, Louis destroyed many of his old paintings. In fact, only one of his paintings survives from the period of 1955 to 1957.
 * Simon Hantaï (1922-2008): very little is known about the artist in his early years in Hungary and then later his association with the surrealists including Andre Breton. Very little survives of his early work. He destroyed many of his later works, including many from his Tabula series, as well.
 * Franz Kafka (1883-1924): according to legend, towards the end of his life Kafka left his published and unpublished writings with to two friends with explicit instructions to burn them upon his death. One of them, Max Brod, ignored his request and published his works anyways. And now they're widely considered masterpieces in the literary tradition.