The 10 most famous artists of all time, according to the We Love Art community (2024)

We Love Art has asked many of the thousands of Art Lover’s who have attended our events or experienced the We Love Artbox with Streamed Class in their homes: “Who is your favourite artist?”. The beautiful thing about art is that it is subjective, so one may love the Mona Lisa whilst be confused at Magritte’s pipe. Or alternatively one may be bored of the Mona Lisa’s wry smile whilst the questions raised by Magritte may be compelling. Who do you think is the most famous artist ever? Do you agree with our list?

Leonardo da Vinci, probably the most important Renaissance artist, is widely recognized as the most famous artist of all time. He’s the genius behind the iconic Mona Lisa painting masterpiece, after all. It was painted sometime between 1503 and 1519 when Leonardo was living in Florence, and it now hangs in the Louvre Museum, in Paris, where it remained an object of pilgrimage in the 21st century. The sitter’s mysterious smile and her unproven identity have made the painting a source of ongoing investigation and fascination. Da Vinci also created a background with aerial views and a beautiful landscape but muted from the vibrant lightness of the subject’s face and hands. The technique Da Vinci used in executing the painting left behind no visible brush marks, something that was said to make any master painter lose heart. It is truly a masterpiece.

The Mona Lisa is an oil painting, with a cottonwood panel as the surface. It is unusual in that most paintings are commissioned as oil on canvas, but the cottonwood panel is part of what has attributed to the fame of the painting. Because of the medium used for the image, the Mona Lisa has survived for six centuries without ever having been restored–a trait very unusual when considering the time period of the piece.

Among his famous masterpieces, there are also the Last Supper and The Lady with an Ermine. The Last Supper is the most reproduced religious painting of all time and his Vitruvian Man drawing is regarded as a cultural icon as well.

Even nowadays, his works are not fully understood and he still serves as inspiration for many, many aspiring artists.

Beyond painting, although he had no formal academic training, da Vinci was also a scientist and inventor and he created plenty of drawings of the human body and many modern technologies found in the world today. Leonardo’s paintings and preparatory drawings together with his notebooks, which contain sketches, scientific diagrams, and his thoughts on the nature of painting compose a contribution to later generations of artists.

Vincent Willem van Goghwas a Dutchpost-impressionistpainter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history ofWestern art. In just over a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They includelandscapes,still lifes,portraitsandself-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressivebrushworkthat contributed to the foundations ofmodern art. His paintings include:Starry Night, Cafe Terrace at Night,Sunflowers,Self Portrait and many more.

He painted Starry Night in 1889 during his stay at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Blue dominates the painting, blending hills into the sky. The little village lays at the base in the painting in browns, greys, and blues. Even though each building is clearly outlined in black, the yellow and white of the stars and the moon stand out against the sky, drawing the eyes to the sky. They are the big attention grabber of the painting.

Starry Nightis one of the most recognised pieces of art in the world. It is absolutely everywhere, too. It can be seen on coffee, mugs, t-shirts, towels, magnets, etc. Honestly, it sometimes feels as if the painting’s fame has exceeded that of its creator. It is a magnificent piece of art. That Starry Night resonates with so many people is a testament to how its beauty is timeless and universal.

He was not commercially successful, and his suicide at 37 came after years of mental illness, depression and poverty. The name of van Gogh was virtually unknown when he killed himself: only one article about him had appeared during his lifetime. However, within the span of a century, van Gogh has become perhaps the most recognised painter of all time. The unprecedented prices his works have attained through auction and the attention paid to forgery scandals have only increased van Gogh’s stature in the public imagination.

Pablo Ruiz Picassowas a Spanish painter, sculptor,printmaker,ceramicistandtheatre designerwho spent most of his adult life in France. The son of an academic painter, José Ruiz Blanco, he began to draw at an early age. In 1895, the family moved to Barcelona, and Picasso studied there at La Lonja, the academy of fine arts. Regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding theCubistmovement, the invention ofconstructed sculpture, the co-invention ofcollage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore.

His style developed from theBlue Periodto the Rose Period to the pivotal work Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), and the subsequent evolution ofCubism.Picasso’s collaboration on ballet and theatrical productions began in 1916. Soon thereafter, his work was characterised by neoclassicism and a renewed interest in drawing and figural representation. He was exceptionally prolific throughout his long lifetime. The total number of artworks he produced has been estimated at 50,000, comprising 1,885 paintings; 1,228 sculptures; 2,880 ceramics, roughly 12,000 drawings, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs.

The medium in which Picasso made his most important contribution was painting. In his paintings, Picasso used colour as an expressive element, but relied on drawing rather than subtleties of colour to create form and space.

Among his most famous works are theproto-CubistLes Demoiselles d’Avignon(1907), andGuernica(1937), a dramatic portrayal of thebombing of Guernicaby German and Italian airforces during theSpanish Civil War.

Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.

In 1961, the artist married Jacqueline Roque, and they moved to Mougins. There Picasso continued his prolific work in painting, drawing, prints, ceramics, and sculpture until his death April 8, 1973.

Oscar-Claude Monetwas a French painter and a founder of FrenchImpressionistpainting. When Claude, the eldest son of Adolphe Monet, a grocer, was five years old, the family moved to theNormandycoast, nearLe Havre, where his father took over the management of his family’s thriving ship-chandlering and grocery business. This event has more than biographical significance, for it was Monet’s childhood, spent along the beaches, and theintimateknowledge he gained of the sea and the rapidly shifting Norman weather, that would one day give rise to his fresh vision of nature. By the age of 15, Monet had made something of a name for himself with his charcoal caricatures of various Le Havre locals. The pieces, which he sold for 10-20 francs each, were signed “O. Monet” (His first name is Oscar; Claude is his middle name).

In 1861, at the age of twenty, Monet was drafted into he First Regiment of African Light Cavalry. His father, despite having the means, declined to purchase the 2,500 franc exemption from conscription when Monet refused to give up painting. Monet served for one year in Algiers until he contracted typhoid; his aunt then stepped in to remove him from the army on condition that he would complete a formal art course. While no works from his time in Algeria survive, Monet later reflected that “the impressions of light and colour that I received there…contained the germ of my future researches.”

He was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of theImpressionistphilosophy of expressing one’s perceptions before nature, especially as applied toplein airlandscape painting(painting outdoors). The term “Impressionism” is derived from the title of his paintingImpression,(Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to theSalon de Paris.

Monet’s ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. His long career as a painter was spent in the pursuit of this aim.

From 1883, Monet lived inGiverny, where he purchaseda house and propertyand began a vast landscaping project which included lily ponds that would become the subjects ofhis best-known works. He began painting thewater liliesin 1899, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature and later in the series of large-scale paintings that was to occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life.

Monet died of lung disease on December 5, 1926 at the age of 86. According to his wishes, he had a small and simple funeral.

Johannes Vermeerwas a DutchBaroque Periodpainterwho specialised in domestic interior scenes ofmiddle classlife. Among his most famous works are theGirl With a Pearl Earring,The Milkmaid and View of Delft. During his lifetime, he was a moderately successful provincialgenre painter, recognised inDelftandThe Hague. Nonetheless, he produced relatively few paintings and evidently was not wealthy, leaving his wife and children in debt at his death.

Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, and frequently used very expensivepigments. He is particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work.

“Almost all his paintings,” Hans Koningsberger wrote, “are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his house in Delft; they show the same furniture and decorations in various arrangements and they often portray the same people, mostly women.”

Beginning in the late 1650s and lasting over the course of about one decade—a remarkably brief period of productivity, given the enormity of his reputation—Vermeer would create many of his greatest paintings, most of them interior scenes. No other contemporary Dutch artist created scenes with such luminosity or purity of colour, and no other painter’s work was infused with a comparable sense of timelessness and human dignity.

His modest celebrity gave way to obscurity after his death. He was barely mentioned inArnold Houbraken‘s major source book on 17th-century Dutch painting (Grand Theatre of Dutch Painters and Women Artists) and was thus omitted from subsequent surveys of Dutch art for nearly two centuries. In the 19th century, Vermeer was rediscovered byGustav Friedrich WaagenandThéophile Thoré-Bürger, who published an essay attributing 66 pictures to him, although only 34 paintings are universally attributed to him today.Since that time, Vermeer’s reputation has grown, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatestpainters of the Dutch Golden Age.

Similar to other major Dutch Golden Age artists such asFrans HalsandRembrandt, Vermeer never went abroad. Also, like Rembrandt, he was an avid art collector and dealer.

Edvard Munchwas a Norwegianpainter. His best known work,The Scream, is probably one of the most widely recognised paintings of all time, due to its iconic evocation of the feelings of angst and fear. Some even go as far as naming the painting the Mona Lisa of anxiety.

His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dread of inheriting a mental condition that ran in the family. Studying at theRoyal School of Art and DesigninKristiania(today’s Oslo), Munch began to live a bohemian life under the influence of nihilistHans Jæger, who urged him to paint his own emotional and psychological state (‘soul painting’). From this emerged his distinctive style.

Travel brought new influences and outlets. In Paris, he learned much fromPaul Gauguin,Vincent van GoghandHenri de Toulouse-Lautrec, especially their use of colour. In Berlin, he met Swedish dramatistAugust Strindberg, whom he painted, as he embarked on his major canonThe Frieze of Life, depicting a series of deeply-felt themes such as love, anxiety, jealousy and betrayal, steeped in atmosphere.

The Screamwas conceived in Kristiania. According to Munch, he was out walking at sunset, when he ‘heard the enormous, infinite scream of nature’. The painting’s agonised face is widely identified with theangstof the modern person. Between 1893 and 1910, he made two painted versions and two in pastels, as well as a number of prints. One of the pastels would eventually command the fourth highest nominal price paid for a painting at auction.

As his fame and wealth grew, his emotional state remained insecure. He briefly considered marriage, but could not commit himself. A breakdown in 1908 forced him to give up heavy drinking, and he was cheered by his increasing acceptance by the people of Kristiania and exposure in the city’s museums. His later years were spent working in peace and privacy. Although his works were banned in Nazi Germany, most of them survived World War II, securing him a legacy. Many sources agree that Munch’s work is the beginning of the expressionist movement that spread through Germany and on to other parts of the world. The Scream is very often seen an icon of modern art, a Mona Lisa for our time.

Salvador Dalíwas a SpanishSurrealistartist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship and the striking and bizarre images in his work.

Born inFigueres,Catalonia, Dalí received his formal education in fine arts at Madrid. Influenced byImpressionismand theRenaissancemasters from a young age, he became increasingly attracted toCubismand avant-garde movements. He moved closer to Surrealism in the late 1920s and joined the Surrealist group in 1929, soon becoming one of its leading exponents. From 1929 to 1937 he produced the paintings which made him the world’s best-knownSurrealistartist. He depicted a dream world in which commonplace objects arejuxtaposed, deformed, or otherwise metamorphosed in a bizarre and irrationalfashion. Dalí portrayed those objects inmeticulous, almost painfully realistic detail and usually placed them within bleak sunlit landscapes that were reminiscent of hisCatalonianhomeland. Perhaps the most famous of thoseenigmaticimages isThe Persistence of Memory(1931), in which limp melting watches rest in an eerily calm landscape.

Dalí lived in France throughout theSpanish Civil War(1936 to 1939) before leaving for the United States in 1940 where he achieved commercial success. He returned to Spain in 1948 where he announced his return to the Catholic faith and developed his “nuclear mysticism” style, based on his interest in classicism, mysticism and recent scientific developments.

Dalí’s artistic repertoire included painting, graphic arts, film, sculpture, design and photography, at times in collaboration with other artists. He also wrote fiction, poetry, autobiography, essays and criticism. Major themes in his work include dreams, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, science and his closest personal relationships.

To the dismay of those who held his work in high regard, and to the irritation of his critics, hiseccentricand ostentatious public behaviour often drew more attention than his artwork. His public support for theFrancoist regime, his commercial activities and the quality and authenticity of some of his late works have also been controversial. His life and work were an important influence on other Surrealists,pop artand contemporary artists. There are two major museums devoted to his work: TheDalí Theatre-Museumin Figueres, Spain and theSalvador Dalí Museumin Florida. TheSalvador Dalí Desertin Bolivia and theDalí crateron the planetMercuryare named for him.

Andy Warholwas an American artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in thevisual art movementknown aspop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression,advertising, andcelebrity culturethat flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting,silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best known works include the silkscreen paintingsCampbell’s Soup Cans(1962) andMarilyn Diptych(1962), the experimental filmChelsea Girls(1966), and themultimediaevents known as theExploding Plastic Inevitable(1966–67).

Born Andrew Warhola in the neighbourhood of Oakland in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Warhol’s parents were Slovakian immigrants. Warhol initially pursued a successful career as acommercial illustrator. After exhibiting his work in severalgalleriesin the late 1950s, he began to receive recognition as an influential and controversial artist. HisNew Yorkstudio,The Factory, became a well-known gathering place that brought together distinguishedintellectuals,drag queens, playwrights,Bohemianstreet people,Hollywoodcelebrities and wealthy patrons.

Warhol pioneered the development of the process whereby an enlarged photographic image is transferred to a silk screen that is then placed on a canvas and inked from the back. Each Warhol silkscreen used this technique that enabled him to produce the series of mass-media images – repetitive, yet with slight variations – that he began in 1962. These iconic Andy Warhol prints, incorporating such items as Campbell’s Soup cans, dollar bills, Coca-Cola bottles, and the faces of celebrities, can be taken as comments on the banality, harshness, and ambiguity of American culture.

On June 3, 1968,radical feministwriterValerie Solanasshot Warhol andMario Amaya, art critic and curator, at Warhol’s studio. Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived. He suffered physical effects for the rest of his life, including being required to wear a surgicalcorset. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol’s life and art.

He lived openly as agayman before thegay liberation movement. Aftergallbladdersurgery, Warhol died ofcardiac arrhythmiain February 1987 at the age of 58.The Andy Warhol Museumin his native city of Pittsburgh is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist.

René Magrittewas a Belgian-born artist who was known for his work with surrealism as well as his thought-provoking images. After attending art school in Brussels, he worked in commercial advertising to support himself while he experimented with his painting. In the 1920s, he began to paint in the surrealist style and became known for his witty images and his use of simple graphics and everyday objects, giving new meanings to familiar things. With a popularity that increased over time, Magritte was able to pursue his art full-time and was celebrated in several international exhibitions. He experimented with numerous styles and forms during his life and was a primary influence on the pop art movement.

Placing familiar, mundane objects such as bowler hats, pipes and rocks in unusual contexts and juxtapositions, Magritte evoked themes of mystery and madness to challenge the assumptions of human perception. With early works such as The Lost Jockey and The Menaced Assassin, Magritte quickly became one of the most important artists in Belgium and found himself at the centre of its nascent surrealist movement. But when his first one-man show—in 1927 at the Galerie le Centaure—was poorly received, a disheartened Magritte left his homeland for France.

He moved to Paris to be closer to the French Surrealist group. His three years there would be the most prolific of his life. Surrealism, a movement led byAndré Breton, sought to liberate the mind by subverting rational thought and giving free rein to the unconscious. A signal development of Magritte’s time in Paris was his word-paintings, in which he sought to investigate the relationship between text and image, often breaking apart well-worn connections between the two. Magritte also explored other media during this time, making a series of short films that featured his wife, Georgette, as well as experimenting with sculpture.

Despite having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1963, Magritte was able to travel to New York City for a 1965 retrospective of his work at the Museum of Modern Art. After a period of prolonged illness, on August 15, 1967, Magritte died at the age of 68. His work proved to be a primary influence on pop artists such asAndy Warholand has since been celebrated in countless exhibitions around the world. The Magritte Museum opened in Brussels in 2009.

Henri Émile Benoît Matissewas a French artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was adraughtsman,printmaker, andsculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along withPablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in thevisual artsthroughout the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture.

He first started to paint in 1889, after his mother brought him art supplies during a period of convalescence following an attack of appendicitis. He discovered “a kind of paradise” as he later described it, and decided to become an artist, deeply disappointing his father.In 1891, he studied art in Paris at the Académie Julian. Initially he painted still-lifes and landscapes in a traditional style, at which he achieved reasonable proficiency.

His breakthrough as an artist came during the summers of 1904 and 1905, when the bright sunlight of the South of France inspired him to createoptically dynamicworks of bright, clashing colours that led to him, along with artists likeAndré DerainandMaurice de Vlaminck, being derided with the epithetfauves(wild beasts). Known as Fauvism, the work from this period set him on a career-long path that he described as “construction by coloured surfaces.” This approach remained central through the various stages of Matisse’s body of work. Though much of his work—whether anink drawing with a flowing arabesque lineor apainting with flat expanses of unmodulated color—looks as if it might have been executed with effortless ease, Matisse cautioned that this effect was only an “apparent simplicity.” In reality, he laboured exactingly to achieve the “art of balance, of purity and serenity” of which he dreamed.

During the last years of his life, he was a rather solitary man who was separated from his wife and whose grown-up children were scattered. After 1941, when he underwent an operation for an intestinal disorder, he was bedridden much of the time; after 1950 he suffered from asthma and heart trouble. Cared for by a faithful Russian woman who had been one of his models in the early 1930s, he lived in a large studio in the Old Hôtel Regina at Cimiez, overlooking Nice. Often he was obliged to work on his mural-sized projects from a studio bed with the aid of a crayon attached to a long pole. But there are no signs of flagging creative energy or of sadness in his final achievements. On the contrary, these works are among the most daring, most accomplished, and most serenely optimistic of his entire career. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure inmodern art.