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Tehching Hsieh
Taiwanese Performance Artist
Movements and Styles: Performance Art, Process Art, Conceptual Art
Taiwanese-born artist Tehching Hsieh's long-term and grueling performances focused on the mere act of living as a form of art.
Carmen Herrera Updated
Cuban-American Painter
Carmen Herrera created powerful Concrete, Op, and Hard-Edged abstractions, while amazingly selling her first piece at age 89.
Brice Marden Updated
American Painter
Movements and Styles: Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism
Marden bases his art upon a wide range of experiences, often distilling his memories to a single key moment of inspiration.
Rebecca Horn Updated
German Sculptor, Filmmaker and Performance Artist
Rebecca Horn is a German installation artist most famous for her body modifications such as Einhorn - a body-suit with a very large projecting horn.
Perugino
Italian Painter
Movements and Styles: Early Renaissance, High Renaissance
Perugino masterful paintings featured powerful compositions, brilliant colors, and an understated depiction of figures.
Nicolas Poussin Updated
French Painter
Poussin practiced classical treatment of scenes from the Bible, history, and mythology in his Baroque paintings.
Vija Celmins
Latvian-American Visual Artist
Movements and Styles: Conceptual Art, Photorealism, Pop Art, Minimalism
Vija Celmins's paintings of oceans, spider webs, views of the night sky, warplanes, and everyday household objects entice viewers to appreciate both the wonder and meaning of their surrenoundings.
Peter Hujar
American Photographer
Peter Hujar is now widely acclaimed for his black and white portraits of New York's bohemian East Village community, taken between the late 1960s and early 1980s. While an overview of his work reveals Hujar's mastery of other photographic genres - notably animal portraiture, and nocturnal street-photography - it was for his ability to tease out the psychological vulnerability of his sitters that set him apart from his contemporaries. Given that they were gay men whose lives were often cut short by the 1980s AIDS epidemic, many critics and historians focus on differences between Hujar's humanist outlook and the more formal/studio-based style of Robert Mapplethorpe. Unlike Mapplethorpe, Hujar refused to court publicity and remained wholly indifferent to the commercial demands of the New York art market. Admired by fellow artists for staying true to his artistic convictions, Hujar is also celebrated for a darkroom prowess that lends his images a truly rarefied print quality.
Chaim Soutine Updated
Lithuanian Painter
Movements and Styles: Expressionism
Chaïm Soutine's innovative palette and visible brushwork translated his inner torment into images of the familiar.
Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis
Lithuanian Painter and Composer
Movements and Styles: Symbolism, Art Nouveau, Abstract Art, Synesthesia
Over a short but prolific career, Čiurlionis created a powerful body of work including musical compositions and abstract and semi-abstract paintings.
Johannes Vermeer Updated
Dutch Painter
Vermeer's painting career was devoted to exploring tender moments of everyday life, documenting private spaces and environments.
August Macke
German Painter
August Macke was a German painter and a leader in the Expressionist group The Blue Rider. A close friend of Franz Marc, Paul Klee and Robert Delaunay, Macke's paintings were more Post-Impressionist and Fauvist in style, but were very expressive in terms of color and mood.
Children's Art and Child Art Movement
Child Art - that is, art produced by children - only started to attract the serious attention of artists and academics in the late nineteenth century.
August 26, 2024
Ivan Aivazovsky Updated
Russian Painter
Movements and Styles: Romanticism
The legendary Ivan Aivazovsky's maritime subjects are powerful, iconic, and romantic depictions of the late Russian Empire naval prowesses.
Yinka Shonibare
British-Nigerian Artist
Artist Yinka Shonibare examines contemporary identity through the loaded and complex lens of post-colonialism.
Postcolonial Art
Postcolonial artists navigate issues of national and cultural identity in the wake of colonialism's influence.
Michael Andrews
British Post-War Painter
Movements and Styles: School of London
Michael Andrews weaved complex psychological and environmental themes into haunting portraits and expansive landscapes.
Northern Renaissance Updated
North of the European Alps an artistic, literary, and philosophical movement spread that was influenced by the Italian Renaissance's art and ideas.
Frank Stella Updated
American Painter and Printmaker
Frank Stella transformed the gestural brushwork and existential angst of Abstract Expressionism into works that offered dynamism, tactility, and scale.
Alma Thomas
African-American Painter
Alma Thomas made a unique and vital contribution to the development of mid-to-late 20th century American abstraction.
Indigenous Art of the Americas
The art of Indigenous North, Central, and South American cultures spans millennia and served various spiritual and social functions.
Jesus Rafael Soto
Venezuelan Sculptor and Painter
Soto was a Venezuelan Op and Kinetic artist, a sculptor and a painter who created penetrables - interactive sculptures which consist of thin, dangling tubes.
Maggi Hambling
British Painter and Sculptor
Hambling earned her praises for vivid portraits; sublime land and seascapes; and a number of enigmatic memorial sculptures.
Deconstructivist Architecture
Deconstructivist architecture defined the cutting-edge in late-20th - early-21st century design with spectacular asymmetrical exteriors.
Francis Alÿs
Mexico based Belgian Conceptual and Performance Artist and Painter
Alÿs's famous performances included walking a mechanical dog down city roads or pushing a block of ice through on a hot city day highlight his uniquely imaginative approach to art.
Georges de La Tour
French Artist
Georges de La Tour's brooding candlelit scenes are incredible highlights of the Baroque period.
James Luna
Luiseño, Puyukitchum, Ipai, and Mexican-American Performance Artist, Installation Artist, and Photographer
James Luna disassembled and challenged myths about Native American cultures.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
Native American Artist
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is one of the most influential contemporary Native American artists, and one of the first Native American women to gain a foothold in the contemporary artworld.
Oscar Niemeyer
Brazilian Architect
Niemeyer has been championed as one of the greatest contributors to the development of modern architecture - particularly in building Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.
Social Practice Art
Social Practice Art projects range widely but share a commitment to making positive social contributions while placing people at the core.
February 1, 2024
Fluxus Updated
Fluxus was described as a fusion of gags, games, Vaudeville, Cage, and Duchamp. Like the Futurists and Dadaists before them, fought the authority of museums.
January 30, 2024
Paula Rego Updated
Portuguese-British Painter, Illustrator and Printmaker
Movements and Styles: Surrealism, School of London, Feminist Art
Paula Rego exposes fantasy and reality, strength and suppression, and the personal and the political in her powerful paintings.
Elizabeth Catlett
African-American and Mexican Printmaker and Sculptor
Movements and Styles: Identity Art and Identity Politics
Elizabeth Catlett confronted the themes of race, gender, and class inequalities through stylish bronze, wooden, and terracotta sculptures.
Memento Mori and Vanitas
Memento Mori art works often remind the viewer of their own mortality, and Vanitas still-life works contain symbols of death.
December 29, 2023
Emily Kame Kngwarreye
Aboriginal Australian Batik Artist and Painter
Emily Kame Kngwarreye is one of Australia’s most important Indigenous artists known for fabric art and canvas paintings.
John Trumbull
American Painter
Movements and Styles: Neoclassicism
John Trumbull is mostly celebrated today for his portraits and history paintings of the leaders and events connected with the American Revolution.
Augusta Savage
American Artist and Sculptor
Movements and Styles: Harlem Renaissance, Modern Sculpture
Augusta Savage was a sculptor, educator, activist, and patron of the arts, who played a significant role during the Harlem Renaissance.
I.M. Pei
Chinese-American Architect
Movements and Styles: The International Style, Brutalism
I.M. Pei is a very well-known Chinese-American architect, and disciple of Bauhaus architects like Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Marcel Breuer. His iconic works include Boston's JFK Library, the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
Medieval Art
Medieval art reflected the heritage of the Roman Empire, the early Christian church, and the cultures of Northern Europe.
December 18, 2023
Society of the Spectacle
The idea "Society of the Spectacle" aimed to shatter materialistic illusions using art such as confrontational performances and even psycho-geographical walks.
November 22, 2023
Lawren Harris
Canadian Artist
Harris is one of Canada's most important and influential landscape artists and principal figure in the Group of Seven.
Black Arts Movement
The Black Arts Movement combined themes of revolutionary politics with the works of Black artists seeking to express empowerment, pride, and liberation.
November 10, 2023
Amédée Ozenfant
French Painter and Designer
Movements and Styles: Cubism, Purism, Abstract Art
Ozenfant was a French painter and writer who is widely regarded for his innovative approaches to Cubism and being the co-founder of Purism.
Robert S. Duncanson
African-American Painter
Duncanson was a major African-American landscape artist who became a torchbearer for future generations.
Santiago Calatrava
Spanish/Swiss Architect and Structural Engineer
Movements and Styles: Modern Architecture, Postmodernism
Calatrava built on a series of attention-grabbing, neo-futuristic buildings and asymmetrical bridges that grace numerous locations across the globe.
Hank Willis Thomas
American Photo-Conceptual Artist and Sculptor
Combining skills as a photographer with a deep interest in visual culture and history, Thomas provided a new take on familiar imagery, such as a corporate logo.
Bob Thompson
American Painter
Movements and Styles: Expressionism
Bob Thompson, in an intensely productive period, defied the standards for pure abstraction by creating vividly colored, phantastical paintings.
Laura Wheeler Waring
American Painter and Educator
Waring is one of the foremost Black female artists of the first half of the twentieth century American art.
Dan Graham Updated
American Sculptor, Photographer, Performance, Installation, and Video Artist
Dan Graham works in many media, and is best known for his walk-in pavilions, which are steel and glass sculptures that create interactive environments.
Joan Mitchell Updated
American Painter and Printmaker
Movements and Styles: Abstract Expressionism, Action Painting
Joan Mitchell is known for the compositional rhythms, bold coloration, and sweeping gestural brushstrokes of her large and multi-paneled paintings.
Gilbert Stuart
American Painter
Movements and Styles: Neoclassicism, Grand Manner Portraiture
Stuart was one of America's first great portraitists and painted the new republic's first six presidents, as well as many other important public figures.
Elle Pérez
American Photographer
Born and raised in the Bronx, Elle Pérez (they/them) uses photography to document their gender non-conforming and racial minority communities.
William Henry Fox Talbot
English Photographer, Inventor, Mathematician, Chemist, Botanist, Archaeologist, and Linguist
Talbot was a British inventor who created the calotype process, a pioneering invention in early photography. Talbot also furthered the use of photography as an artistic medium.
Carrie Mae Weems
American Photographer and Installation Artist
Carrie Mae Weems' art and photography represents authentic African American experience and questions identity stereotypes.
Philip Johnson
American Architect
The modern architect Philip Johnson developed the International Style and left his mark on 20th century cityscapes.
Nick Cave
American Sculptor, Performance Artist, and Dancer
Working in fashion, performance, and fine art, Nick Cave explores both his identity as a gay black man, and the wider social context of marginalised peoples of the world.
Art and “Insanity”
The relationship between art and "insanity" (a term now considered out-of-date) has changed over time in the minds of artists, critics, medical professionals.
August 18, 2023
Francesco Borromini
Swiss-Italian Architect
Movements and Styles: Baroque Art and Architecture
Borromini was one of the most innovative architects of the seventeenth century, and helped define the Roman Baroque style.
Zao Wou Ki
Chinese-French Painter
Having swapped Shanghai for Paris, Zao Wou-Ki's became one of the most important and dynamic artists on the world stage.
Synesthesia
A "union of the senses”, synesthesia refers to the experience of experiencingone sense through another: it might involve seeing sound, hearing music, or smelling color
August 10, 2023
Auguste Rodin Updated
French Sculptor
Movements and Styles: Symbolism, Realism, Impressionism
Auguste Rodin achieved the reputation of the father of modern sculpture with his iconic and powerful bronze portraits.
George Romney
British Painter
Romney was one of the most popular British portrait painters of the late eighteenth century.
Gran Fury
American Activist Art and Design Collective
Movements and Styles: Activist Art, Queer Art, East Village Art
The New York-based art collective Gran Fury used their savviness in media, art, and design to create public artworks that responded to the AIDS crisis.
Kitagawa Utamaro
Japanese Painter
Movements and Styles: Ukiyo-e Japanese Woodblock Prints
Utamaro emerged as one of the greatest masters of late eighteenth-century Japanese art and helped define the golden age of the woodblock printing technique.
Charles Burchfield
American Painter
Burchfield depicted scenes of the natural world and the urban environment that he brought to life through shifting weather patterns, light, and even sound.
John Marin
American Painter
Movements and Styles: Modernism and Modern Art, Abstract Art
One of the first American artists to explore abstract painting, John Marin created a gestural and fractured style that captured conflicting forces of urban and natural environments through his impactful impressions of the skyscrapers and bridges of Manhattan, and the sea, sky, and mountains of New England. An acknowledged influence on the New York School, his standing as a modernist reached its highpoint in the mid-1940s when a Look magazine poll declared him: “America’s Artist No. 1.”. Although he remains perhaps best known for his watercolors, in his later career Marin showed his versatility by crossing over effortlessly into oil painting.
Ghirlandaio
Italian Painter
Movements and Styles: Early Renaissance, Portrait Painters
The Early Renaissance master Ghirlandaio is known for his stylish, detailed frescos and aristocratic portraits.
Punk and Post-Punk Art
Punk was a late 1970s cultural movement that represented a near-complete reset for the way art, music, film, journalism, and style was made and understood.
Conceptual Art Updated
Conceptual artists prized ideas over the art-making artistic processes - ideas that manifested themselves in documents, installations, or various ephemera.
Pipilotti Rist
Swiss Video and Installation Artist
Pipilotti Rist has garnered international acclaim for her immersive multi-channel and spatial video installations.
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva
Portuguese-French Abstract Painter, Illustrator, Ceramicist
Vieira da Silva blurred the lines between abstraction and representation and became one of the most important modern Portuguese artists.
Doris Salcedo
Colombian Sculptor and Installation Artist
The Colombian artist Doris Salcedo has been at the forefront of artmaking that seeks to provide space for mourning, grieving, and memory.
Abstract Art
Controversial, empowering, and hugely influential to the present day, abstraction allowed artists to explore new ways of expressing themselves.
Harriet Hosmer
American Sculptor
Hosmer was one of the leading American sculptors working in the Neoclassical style.
Giambologna
Flemish-Italian Sculptor
A master of Italian Mannerist sculpture, Giambologna is most loved for his dynamic marble portraits, and exquisite bronze statuettes.
Manuel Felguérez
Mexican Painter and Digital Artist
Movements and Styles: Abstract Art, Assemblage, Digital Art
Manuel Felguérez was the first and important Mexican artist to broach the possibilities of geometric and gestural abstraction.
Hannah Ryggen
Swedish-Norwegian Textile Artist
Movements and Styles: Expressionism, Textile Art, Folk Art, Collage
Hannah Ryggen producing modernist textile murals that told stories of love, life, war, death, and hope in a potent visual language.
Caravaggio Updated
Italian Painter
The intensity of Caravaggio's dramaticly lit paintings was matched only by his tempestuous lifestyle.
JR
French Photographer and Street Artist
Movements and Styles: Street and Graffiti Art
Jean-René, better known simply as JR, is a master of contemporary graffiti and street art.
Arthur Rimbaud
French Poet
In a burst of youthful creativity, Rimbaud formulated a radical and influential approach to writing poetry. His life and art would inspire artists for generations.
Internet Art
Inspired artists used global connectivity, real-time information sharing, and a visual interface of the Internet to make original creative endeavors.
Donato Bramante
Italian Architect and Painter
Movements and Styles: High Renaissance, Renaissance Humanism
Possibly the greatest Renaissance architect, Bramante represented the symmetrical ideal in his structures that many generations replicated.
John Brewster Jr.
American Painter
Movements and Styles: Folk Art
John Brewster, Jr. was a major portraitist in colonial America. He developed a personal Folk art style that went on to influence other painters.
Karel Appel
Dutch Painter, Sculptor, Muralist, and Poet
Karel Appel was a major post-war painter who looked to the art produced by children, mental patients, and Folk artists for inspiration.
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo
British Architect and Designer
Movements and Styles: Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau
An innovative and socially conscious architect and designer, Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo brought great fluidity and asymmetry into his designs.
Rem Koolhaas
Dutch Architect, Journalist, Scriptwriter, and Architectural Theorist
Movements and Styles: Deconstructivist Architecture
Rem Koolhaas is a globally renowned architect known for buildings, projects, and writings that have revolutionized modern architecture.
Julian Opie
British Sculptor and Digital Artist
Movements and Styles: New British Sculpture, Digital Art, Pop Art
Opie's art is instantly recognizable for a distinctive pared-down graphic style that reflects his fascination with the ways we interact with the everyday world.
Frank O'Hara
American Poet, Writer, Art Critic, and Museum Curator
O'Hara was the "poet laureate" and major supporter of the New York Abstract Expressionist movement.
Jack Levine
American Painter, Draftsman, Printmaker, and Illustrator
Movements and Styles: Social Realism, American Realism
Jack Levine ranks as one of America's most important twentieth century political artists.
Mark Kostabi
American Painter and Musician
Movements and Styles: Pop Art, East Village Art
Mark Kostabi faceless figures are instantly recognizable and comment on diverse topics including love, modern anxieties, technology, and corporate culture.
Leonardo da Vinci Updated
Italian Painter, Designer, Sculptor, Inventor, Scientist, Architect, and Engineer
Leonardo da Vinci was the first prime exemplar of the Renaissance man, and he created iconic artworks are revered to this day.
Michelangelo Updated
Italian Painter, Sculptor, Poet, and Architect
Movements and Styles: High Renaissance, Renaissance Humanism
Michelangelo was a Renaissance polymath genius who made the iconic Pieta and David sculptures, and the paintings of the Sistine Chapel.
Digital Art Updated
In the digital age, artists grasped progressive technologies for their own creative output including utilizing television, computers, and the internet.
February 8, 2023
Edward Clark
American Painter
The African-American Color Field painter Ed Clark developed a sophisticated abstract style that was markedly influenced by the painter Nicolas de Stael.
The Flâneur in Modern Art
The flâneur, an urban spectator, was character type depicted by a number of artists including the Impressionists.
January 19, 2023
Leonard Baskin
American Printmaker, Draftsman, Arts Publisher, Sculptor, Graphic Artist, and Poet
Movements and Styles: Expressionism
Baskin produced intense and impassioned figurative prints and book illustrations, along with sculptures.
Debora Arango
Colombian Painter, Watercolorist, and Ceramicist
Movements and Styles: Expressionism
Arango was one of Colombia's most original and fearless 20th century female painters.
Andrea Fraser
American Performance and Conceptual Artist
A pioneering Feminist and institutional critique artist, Andrea Fraser strikes at the heart of the art world system.
Wolfgang Paalen
Austrian-Mexican Painter
Movements and Styles: Surrealism
Wolfgang Paalen was an important member of the Surrealist group, working closely with Andre Breton. Paalen was best known for developing 'fumage,' a technique by which he used smoke and candle soot to create patterns on canvas.
Dziga Vertov
Russian Filmmaker
Movements and Styles: Documentary Film, Constructivism
Vertov was one of the most acclaimed of the Soviet filmmakers closely aligned with the Constructivist movement.
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