Does art require a social life?

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You can be pretty asocial and be a great artist/writer/musician/etc., but if you want to master your art, you can't really just do it in a vacuum. Part of becoming great at something is learning what not to do, and you do that by observing your peers and gaining instruction. Part of that can be self-driven - reading and analyzing lots of books, exploring art, etc. But to get good at anything, you need to be in a feedback rich environment.

H P Lovecraft is one of the most anti-social great writers I can think of off the top of my head. He basically locked himself inside a house and rarely stepped outside for almost 20 years. But during that time, he was constantly sending his stories into magazines, working with editors, giving advice to young writers, and actively corresponding with other writers via mail.

The most important part of practice is the part where you're alone, intensely concentrating on figuring out how to get through each problem and step (independent practice). But once you've gone through some of those practice sessions, it's useful to have someone tell you where you might be going wrong. It's useful to try to avoid picking up bad habits, which can accumulate from not getting any feedback.

Good question. Art does not require a social-life; yet socializing with other people involved in art-classes/art-excursions are encouraged. If art-programs have that small group of people, and an awesome art-instructor, this can prove to yield beneficial experiences.

Last year, I had joined a writer's group, and I can say, never before have I experienced the explosion of creativity my writing has seen. Without this group, I definitely would not have gotten published (especially since we all as a group had each contributed a short story to an anthology, in which my story is included ). Exposure to other writers who give both criticism and encouragement has been invaluable.