What about artists like Van Gogh and Nick Drake? Neither were considered successful during their lifetimes, unfortunately they both comitted suicide. It is hard to say if either of them felt fulfilled with their work, would they be considered successful now?

Success is acclaim, recognition, awards, and … money.
Fulfillment is pride in your work, satisfaction, contentedness.

I think they can go together, or separately.

Like it or not, money is the way success is judged in our culture. In this case, being a wealthy artist means that you have a large body of work that has sold well. Probably it means major museums have purchased some of your pieces. Large companies have your works in their conference rooms. Other rich people own your work.

There may have been another Picasso, but the world didn’t know him because he didn’t join museum collections or have big galleries carry his work. It’s sort of a “tree falls in the forest” thing.

I do believe that money shouldn’t be the motivation for creating artwork; you won’t be very satisfied with your life if that’s the goal, since that kind of success is less likely than winning the lottery. If you want to get rich, there are lots easier ways!

This can be looked two different ways, 1)Does how much money someone makes from their artistic endeavors determine their level of success? or 2)Is the work of a successful artist created merely for financial gain?

To the real artist neither of these things should matter at all. Success should come from within and should be determined soley by the artist himself/herself on wether the idea was achieved or not. The artist should only seek money in order to allow for more materials or time to create.