"Do we need to know the person to know or understand the work?"

Today at Presessional course , we had a debate about "Do we need to know the person to know or understand the work?" 
My opinion is that you can appreciate the Art work without knowing the Artist , but if you want to understand the work you should get some information about the artist , like his background and inspirations. So you can understand deeply what the artist did it , and may why the artist chose the colors and shapes.

p.s. Like Kandinsky you can appreciate his your , think that is beautiful, creative. But if you know his background you are going to realize that we studied music before being a painter and this is a big influence in his work.