This study is an historical exploration of interviews of eight renowned artists of the 20th century conducted by Peppino Mangravite (1896-1978) in the summer of 1955. The artists interviewed include Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore, Georges Braque, Georges Rouault, Marc Chagall, Giorgio de Chirico, and Giorgio Morandi. Mangravite asked these artists their thoughts on art, life, and education. With the mission to gather advice from leading European artists and university professors on the establishment of a new arts center at Columbia University as well as to interview the artists to be preserved for posterity at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Mangravite collected fascinating perspectives from these artists. An analysis of the types of questions Mangravite asked and the responses they elicited revealed insight into the following three topics: the artists' perspectives on art education of the time, a deeper understanding of what is an artist-educator, and most importantly, the analysis substantiated the hypothesis that Mangravite was successful in his contacts and conversation with the eight artists because he himself was an artist-educator, thus giving support to the importance of having the dual identity. / text