“I wasn’t happy,” Redford admitted in a 1998 interview with The New Yorker. “I was drinking, and talking all the time about going to Europe, dreaming about Utrillo and Matisse and Braque. I wanted to be in that place, where they’d been. I’d wanted out of L.A., but Colorado wasn’t far enough.”

So, in 1956, he dropped out of school and moved to Europe, seeking new opportunities to learn about the world.

“Around the time I went to Europe, I got interested in who I was,” Redford continued. “I felt as though a film had been ripped from my eyes. I’d done sports, I’d done trouble, and suddenly something clicked into place. I went everywhere with a pad, sketching, drawing pictures, making notes. A consciousness is what happened to me.”