Historical mobility, creative output, and age of prominent visual artists, composers, and authors.

This article reviews research from the past 15 years on the historical long-term mobility and clustering of prominent visual artists, composers, and authors, focusing on how location and age relate to creative output. It highlights that creative workers tend to migrate primarily to cultural clusters—cities with wealth, artistic freedom, infrastructure, and competitive markets—which foster knowledge spillovers, tacit knowledge exchange, and rivalry that can enhance creativity. Empirical findings show marked clustering in cities like Florence, Paris, New York, Vienna, and London across different periods, with peak mobility often occurring in early adulthood and creative output peaking between ages 25 and 40. Studies also indicate that residing in major creative clusters, such as London for authors or Paris and New York for visual artists, is associated with measurable productivity gains, though establishing causality remains challenging due to data limitations and endogeneity concerns.