Using a person's name to stand for their body of work

Solution 1:

Metonymic constructions involving substitution of a person's name for their work is quite common. But there are variations depending on the type of work in question, and how well-known the individual is in the context. Below are some, but not all, of the nuances.

(Many of these observations can be found in Geoffrey Nunberg, p. 14, here.)

Artist's names are often used as count nouns representing instances of their work. For example,

1. There are many Picassos in the Louvre.
2. I've never seen a Michelangelo before.

But this construction is rarer with composers and musicians. For example, we rarely or never say things like:

3. *I've heard three Bachs.

That said, we do make an exception when the work is new. For example,

4. Have you heard the new Lady Gaga?

This kind of construction is also rare for authors of classical or "serious" literature. For example, we would rarely or never say things like:

5. *I've read two Joyces.
6. *I enjoyed three of the four Nabokovs I read.

That said, we regularly do use this kind of construction for more pulpy or serial authors. For example,

7. I was reading a Grisham on the plane.
8. He was reading a Dick Francis in his yard.

For artists, we sometimes use their names as uncountable nouns referring to their style, but some people might find these constructions marked. For example,

9. ?In Picasso, form takes precedence over color, but in Matisse, the two are perfectly balanced.

Lastly, for authors, we often use their names as uncountable nouns referring to their body of work. For example,

10. In Shakespeare, there is a constant consciousness of mortality.
11. There is an undercurrent of playfulness in Kafka.

As far as I know, there is no special name for this kind of metonymy, although Geoffrey Nunberg calls the general class of metonymies artist for work (p. 12, here).

_{NOTE: My claims regarding frequency and markedness are based on native-speaker intuitions, not on corpus data.}