List of Artists

Click on a name to find out a little about the artist.

Josef Albers Thomas Hart Benton Gian Lorenzo Bernini Umberto Boccioni Sandro Botticelli Rosa Bonheur Mary Cassatt Paul Cézanne John Constable Gustave Courbet Salvador Dalí Jaques-Louis David Eugène Delacroix Donatello Albrecht Dürer

M. C. Escher Etienne Maurice Falconet Daniel Chester French Casper David Friedrich Buckminster Fuller Frank Gehry Francisco Goya Christian Jank Thomas Jefferson Wassily Kandinsky Koko the Gorilla Leonardo da Vinci Kazimir Malevich Edouard Manet Henri Matisse

Michelangelo Robert Mills Piet Mondrian Claude Monet Henry Moore Edvard Munch Isamu Noguchi Georgia O'Keefe Frederick Law Olmsted Pablo Picasso Jackson Pollock Raphael Rembrandt van Rijn Frederic Remington Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Norman Rockwell Auguste Rodin Peter Paul Rubens John Singer Sargent Georges Seurat J. M. W. Turner Jørn Utzon Vincent van Gogh Diego Velázquez Andy Warhol Jean-Antoine Watteau James McNeill Whistler Grant Wood Christopher Wren Frank Lloyd Wright

Josef Albers 1888-1976 Albers was a Modern Non-Objective painter who spent most of his time painting colored squares, one inside another. Click here to return to the list.

Thomas Hart Benton 1889-1975 One of the most famous modern American painters, Benton produced vivid murals of Midwestern life that still adorn some public buildings. Click here to return to the list.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini 1598-1680 Bernini was a Baroque painter, sculptor, and architect. He was renowned for his expressive statues of people in action, including saints and mythological figures. Click here to return to the list.

Umberto Boccioni 1882-1916 One of the most important Futurists, Boccioni was a painter and sculptor. His abstract artwork portrayed a strange, fast-paced future where machines and people are sometimes hard to tell apart. Click here to return to the list.

Sandro Botticelli 1445-1510 Botticelli was a famous Renaissance painter who often painted scenes from Greco-Roman mythology. His works have the serenity typical of the Renaissance, but lack the sense of depth that many other Renaissance paintings have. Click here to return to the list.

Rosa Bonheur 1822-1899 Bonheur was one of very few women to make a living at painting before the twentieth century. When she painted a picture of a horse show, she had to dress up as a man to get in! Bonheur often worked with animals, which she painted in realistic detail. Click here to return to the list.

Mary Cassatt 1844-1926 Mary Cassatt was an American painter who settled in Paris and became life long friends with the Impressionist painter Edward Degas, who strongly influenced her work. She is well known for her paintings of children and domestic scenes. Click here to return to the list.

Paul Cézanne 1839-1906 Like the Impressionists, Cézanne painted mostly calm, realistic scenes with blurry details and vivid colors. Because he painted sharper outlines than the Impressionists, and slightly distorted shapes, he is considered a Post-Impressionist painter. Click here to return to the list.

John Constable 1776-1837 Constable is best known for his attractive, realistic paintings of landscapes and clouds. Click here to return to the list.

Gustave Courbet 1819-1877 Usually considered the founder of Realist painting, Courbet believed that painting should honestly reflect what the artist really saw - not just the appearance of a scene, but its feeling as well. He was frequently accused of being arrogant and cynical. Click here to return to the list.

Salvador Dalí 1904-1989 Dali was the best known Surrealist artist. He painted, and sometimes sculpted, bizarre dreamlike images. The most famous one is sometimes called "Melting Clocks". Click here to return to the list.

Jaques-Louis David 1748-1825 David was by far the most important of the Neo-Classical painters. His paintings brought back the Renaissance ideals of clarity, balance, and sharp perspective, and added dramatic action and bright color. David supported the French Revolution, and his artwork included both Classical and political themes. He was the founder of the pompous Empire style of art. Click here to return to the list.

Eugène Delacroix 1798-1863 Another politically inspired French painter was Delacroix. His paintings were darker and more chaotic than David's, and showed explicit violence and suffering. Click here to return to the list.

Donatello 1386-1466 An important sculptor and artist of the early Renaissance, Donatello became famous for his graceful statue of David and also for making one of the first equestrian (horse with rider) statues since Roman times. Click here to return to the list.

Albrecht Dürer 1471-1528 Dürer was a versatile artist of the Northern Renaissance who produced a great number of woodcuts, engravings, drawings, and paintings in both color and black and white. In addition to portraits, landscapes, religious subjects, and animals, he created some bizarre images that look like a mixture of the Middle Ages and science fiction. Click here to return to the list.

Maurits Cornelis Escher 1898-1972 Escher was a graphic artist who specialized in creating optical illusions and impossible perspectives. Most of his works were black-and-white woodcuts or lithographs. Click here to return to the list.

Etienne Maurice Falconet 1716-1791 A famous French Rococo sculptor, Falconet was perhaps best known for his bronze statue of Peter the Great on a rearing horse. Many of his other works were destroyed during the French Revolution. Click here to return to the list.

Daniel Chester French 1850-1931 This American sculptor is famous for the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial. Click here to return to the list.

Casper David Friedrich 1774-1840 Friedrich was one of the leading Romantic painters. His landscapes were not charming, but rather awe-inspiring, and often showed human figures as insignificant against the majesty and power of nature. Click here to return to the list.

Buckminster Fuller 1895-1983 As one of the most original thinkers of the Twentieth Century, Buckminster Fuller invented three-wheeled cars, a new way of mapping the globe, and new kinds of buildings, including the geodesic dome. He also wrote many books and was one of the first proponents of recycling. Click here to return to the list.

Frank Gehry 1929-? Among architect Frank Gehry's many strange, twisted-looking buildings, the most famous is the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum in Spain, which looks a little bit like a huge metal boat. Click here to return to the list.

Francisco Goya 1746-1828 Unlike many other Romantic painters, Goya painted few landscapes (though he painted many portraits). Many of his paintings were dark and morbid, depicting such things as executions. Click here to return to the list.

Christian Jank 1833-1888 An otherwise obscure architect, Jank designed a famous castle in the Alps for Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria. That castle would later serve as a model for many "fairy tale" castles in movies and fiction. Click here to return to the list.

Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826 Although better known for his political achievements, Jefferson was also a skillful Neoclassical architect who designed several well-known buildings in a modified Greco-Roman style. Click here to return to the list.

Wassily Kandinsky 1866-1944 Kandinsky was one of the pioneers of Non-Objective art. His canvases were colorful, energetic, and sometimes complex but usually contained no recognizable images. Click here to return to the list.

Koko the Gorilla 1971-? Koko is a captive gorilla who has been taught to use sign language and to paint. Her works are simple splashes of color - a little like those of some human painters. Click here to return to the list.

Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519 One of the great minds of the Renaissance, da Vinci was an inventor, architect, sculptor, anatomist, astronomer, writer, musician, and engineer, but he is perhaps best remembered for his paintings. Orderly, graceful, and realistic, these are a fine example of high Renaissance art. One of them, "The Last Supper", is badly deteriorated because da Vinci used an experimental kind of paint that he had invented. Click here to return to the list.

Kazimir Malevich 1878-1935 The pioneer of geometric abstract art, he is best known for his use of sharp, straight lines and angles - some of his paintings contained nothing but geometric shapes. Click here to return to the list.

Edouard Manet 1832-1883 Manet generally painted images of ordinary scenes with realistic proportions, lighting and color, but with a slightly soft-focused technique similar to the Impressionists who followed him. Click here to return to the list.

Henri Matisse 1869-1954 The leading Fauvist painter, Matisse produced distorted, strangely colored images of ordinary subjects, without much detail or perspective. Click here to return to the list.

Michelangelo 1475-1564 In addition to being the most famous sculptor of the Renaissance, Michelangelo was a talented painter and architect. His paintings of Biblical scenes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, his statue of David, the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, and the Pietà - a statue of Mary holding Jesus' dead body - are among his most famous creations. Click here to return to the list.

Robert Mills 1781-1855 American Neoclassical architect Mills is best known for designing the Washington Monument. Along with Thomas Jefferson he was one of the most important leaders of the dignified Federal style in architecture. Click here to return to the list.

Piet Mondrian 1872-1944 Although Mondrian painted in many different Objective styles in the early part of his career, he is mainly known for his later works which consist entirely of simple red, yellow, and blue shapes (usually squares) in an irregular grid of straight lines (usually black) on a white background. Click here to return to the list.

Claude Monet 1840-1926 Monet was the founder of Impressionism. His paintings, mostly of landscapes and tranquil outdoor scenes, have a soft-focused look with blurry outlines, gentle lighting, and harmonious colors. Click here to return to the list.

Henry Moore 1898-1986 Moore's many large statues have a rounded, half-melted look to them. Not all of them are truly Non-Objective but none have much detail. Many have holes and hollow spaces, which were intended as part of the visual effect. Click here to return to the list.

Edvard Munch 1863-1944 J Munch's paintings are mostly morbid, such as the luridly-colored "The Scream" for which he is famous. They are Objective, but not very realistic, with forcefully painted, distorted figures, simple coloration, and little detail. Click here to return to the list.

Isamu Noguchi 1904-1988 A Japanese-American, Noguchi designed sculptures, parks, gardens, and even furniture in America, Japan, and elsewhere. His sculptures were elegant abstracts; one of them doubles as a playground slide! Click here to return to the list.

Georgia O'Keefe 1887-1986 Georgia O'Keefe was a famous Surrealist painter. Many of her paintings were of flowers, but they were painted in a flowing, dream-like way with brighter-than-life colors. She also painted other objects - often animal skulls, bones, and shells - with simple yet strange backgrounds. Click here to return to the list.

Frederick Law Olmsted 1822-1903 Landscape designer Olmsted was responsible for many parks in the United States, including Central Park in New York City, and also for many college campuses and the grounds of some private estates such as the Biltmore. Click here to return to the list.

Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 Picasso was the founder of Cubism, a style of art in which figures and objects are greatly distorted and broken up into geometrical components with sharp boundaries. Perspective is also distorted, and lighting and color are simplified. Cubism is still Objective art, though, because the figures and objects are still quite recognizable. Click here to return to the list.

Jackson Pollock 1912-1956 Like many Non-Objective painters, Pollock started off making Objective art (recognizable images of real things) but is known only for his purely Non-Objective paintings. His favorite technique was to drip the paint onto a canvas on the floor. Click here to return to the list.

Raphael 1483-1520 Raphael was the most famous Renaissance painter after Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. His paintings show the balance, harmony, clarity, and realistic perspective that are characteristic of the Renaissance. One of the most famous depicts a fictional encounter between Plato and Aristotle in "The School of Athens". Click here to return to the list.

Rembrandt van Rijn 1607-1669 Dutch painter Rembrandt's style resembles that of the Renaissance, but with the dramatic lighting effects of the Baroque period and without the "posed" appearance of much Renaissance (and Neoclassical) art. Ironically, one of his best known pieces was kept for years in a smoky room and became so darkened with soot that people started calling it "The Night Watch" - even though the original scene was broad daylight. Yet Rembrandt's masterful use of lighting is still visible underneath the soot. Click here to return to the list.

Frederic Remington 1861-1909 In painting and sculpture, Remington depicted the Old West of America. His realistic artwork helped to shape twentieth century ideas about the legendary last decades of cowboys and Indians. Click here to return to the list.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1841-1919 Like his friend and fellow Impressionist Claude Monet, Renoir painted using soft outlines with expert use of color and lighting. Unlike many other Impressionists, Renoir usually included people in his paintings of ordinary scenes. Click here to return to the list.

Norman Rockwell 1894-1978 American painter Rockwell, an expert realistic painter, is famous for his many cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post, which portrayed everyday American life in a sentimental yet humorous way. Click here to return to the list.

Auguste Rodin 1840-1917 Perhaps the most important modern sculptor, Rodin created remarkably life-like images of human beings in natural, dynamic poses, charged with emotion. Even the seated statue "The Thinker" is powerfully expressive, conveying the sense of someone who is totally absorbed in thought but might leap into action at any instant. Click here to return to the list.

Peter Paul Rubens 1577-1640 Rubens was a Baroque painter known for the energy and drama of his paintings. His paintings of voluptuous women have given us the word "Rubenesque", but he also painted many religious, historical, and vigorous action scenes along with portraits and landscapes. Click here to return to the list.

John Singer Sargent 1856-1925 Sargent was a great Realistic portrait painter; some of his works can still be seen in the Biltmore in North Carolina. Click here to return to the list.

Georges Seurat 1859-1891 Seurat's paintings were somewhat similar to the Impressionists, but he developed the novel technique called "Pointillism" - painting with millions of tiny dots instead of brush strokes - which made them more precisely controlled and gave them a unique texture. Click here to return to the list.

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775-1851 A Romantic painter, Turner created nautical scenes showing the immense power of the sea, as well as other impressive portrayals of nature's unpredictable strength. Click here to return to the list.

Jørn Utzon 1918-? Utzon is the architect of the world-famous Sydney Opera House, with its unique superstructure that resembles sails full of wind. Click here to return to the list.

Vincent van Gogh 1853-1890 The later work of van Gogh, who was perhaps the best of the early Expressionist painters, is distinguished by his forceful brush strokes, vivid imagination, and often melancholy or sinister images. Even in his earlier Post-Impressionist period, van Gogh could make a vase of sunflowers look gloomy. Click here to return to the list.

Diego Velázquez 1599-1660 A typical and influential Baroque painter, Velázquez developed techniques to add a sense of spatiousness to his canvases. He painted many portraits, and went against the usual practice by not being any more flattering to royalty than to street bums. Click here to return to the list.

Andy Warhol 1928-1987 Warhol was one of the founders of Pop Art. He produced a great number of images of popular every day objects, such as soup cans, and even films. Once he made a movie which was simply eight hours of someone sleeping! He is famous for saying, "In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." Click here to return to the list.

Jean-Antoine Watteau 1684-1721 Watteau painted charming imaginary scenes in a gentle, playful Rococo style with soft outlines and colors. Click here to return to the list.

James McNeill Whistler 1834-1903 Whistler was a Realist painter who specialized in scenes and portraits with what he considered harmonious combinations of colors, such as his famous portrait of his mother wearing a black dress in a gray room. Click here to return to the list.

Grant Wood 1891-1942 Although Wood created many images of Midwestern life, he is really known only for his painting "American Gothic", which is one of the most widely parodied images in American culture. Click here to return to the list.

Sir Christopher Wren 1632-1723 Wren designed a large number of English buildings, mostly churches, in a style that blended Renaissance and Gothic architecture. Click here to return to the list.

Frank Lloyd Wright 1867-1959 One of the most original American architects, Wright designed buildings with unusual shapes and very strong (often horizontal) lines; they were intended to fit harmoniously into their surroundings. Click here to return to the list.