Famous Artists Names You Should Know About

  • By: Artistic Bees
  • Time to read: 14 min.
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Every person has an artistic side to them. You’re probably intrigued by how certain artists were able to rise to the top. Artists and their creations have evolved over time. Some artists, on the other hand, have left lasting legacies in the form of significant works of art. Let’s find out about those famous artists and their artworks.

One of the most famous artists of all time is Pablo Picasso. He has enchanted people with his artwork. Some of his mentionable artworks are: Guernica, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Maquette for Guitar, and so on. Additionally, notable artists like Vincent Van Gogh, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Frida Kahlo made their mark over time.

People near the Pablo Picasso painting

In this article, I will be talking about some of the most famous artists of all time. Read the full article to find out about the famous artists names and their contributions to art.

Names Of Famous Artists You Should Know

Art isn’t something everyone can comprehend. Therefore, it takes an astonishing amount of courage for an artist to reveal his brilliance in the public imagination and earn recognition. Through their magnificent artworks, some artists have paved their way to becoming inspirations for many. Let’s have a look at the famous artists’ names you should know about.

Pablo Picasso

In the twentieth century, Pablo Picasso emerged as a major figure in the arts, and he is well-known for his art movement, cubism. Among several artworks, Guernica is one of his best pieces of art.

Cubism is a modern concept way ahead of its time. Along with the artist Gorges Braques, Pablo Picasso invented this new concept of reality from 1907 to 1908. Hence, they bought different pictures together in the same frame, and the image seemed fragmented and abstract.

Early Life

Pablo Picasso was born on the 25th of October, 1881, in Malaga, Spain. His father, Don José Ruiz Blasco, was a painter and art teacher who passed along his talent to him.

Picasso’s piercing black eyes and attentive demeanor seemed to foretell his future as a major artist. Despite his poor academic performance, Picasso showed an early talent for drawing. His first words were reportedly “piz, piz,” a childish attempt to speak “lápiz,” the Spanish word for pencil.

Picasso took inspiration from his father. His father used to teach him how to draw as he was an art teacher himself. When he was thirteen, he grasped the concept of art so well that he surpassed his father. Then no other curricular ever interested him. By the time he was 14, his family had shifted to Barcelona, Spain.

Picasso enrolled in the city’s most renowned School of Fine Arts. However, he wasn’t the right age to enroll in art because of his exceptional admission test.

Picasso had a creative mind in which rules could not be bound. Hence, Picasso resented the School of Fine Arts’ rigid regulations and formality and started skipping class to draw the city sights he witnessed.

At 16, Picasso came to Madrid in 1897 to study at the Royal Academy of San Fernando. But he was again dissatisfied with his school’s emphasis on classical topics and methods.

Pablo Picasso was an unorthodox artist who was famous for reinventing himself in different fields of art. For most of his career, he has alternated between several different styles, which has added complexity and variety to his work.

There are specific periods in his whole art career, according to art critics. Let’s have a look at the distinct periods explained by the art critics,

Blue Period (1901-1904)

In this timeframe, the color blue dominated Picasso’s artworks. Picasso went to Paris, France, around the turn of the century to establish his studio. He was grieving the loss of his best friend, Carlos Casagemas.

As a result, his paintings depicted poverty, loneliness, and misery, almost entirely in blue and green. His most famous works, completed in 1903, were “Blue Nude,” “La Vie,” and “The Old Guitarist.”

Rose Period (1904-1906)

By the year 1905, Picasso had overcome his depression, and thus, his artistic manifestations improved. Warmer shades of beige, red, and pink were used to introduce his artworks.

He was not just passionately in love with beautiful model Fernande Olivier but also suddenly wealthy due to Ambroise Vollard’s sponsorship. In these years, he painted “Family at Saltimbanques” (1905), “Gertrude Stein” (1906), and “Two Nudes” (1906).

Cubism

Cubism was a major breakthrough in Picasso’s career. He, along with fellow artist Georges Braque, pioneered this radical style.

Paintings by Cubists break down and reassemble things in abstracted forms, emphasizing their geometric patterns and portraying them from various perspectives to produce physics-defying mural effects. Cubism startled, outraged, and enchanted the art world.

In his lifetime, Pablo Picasso gave a good number of artworks to the world. And for his contribution, he will be forever recognized by the art community.

Vincent Van Gogh

There’s hardly a person left who doesn’t know about the Starry Night painting. This famous painting was one of the creations of Vincent van Gogh, a post-Impressionist painter. He was a highly influential artist in the 20th century. Throughout his lifetime, he had suffered from mental illness.

Vincent Van Gogh was born in Groot-Zundert on March 30, 1853. The son of an austere rural pastor and a gloomy artist, Theodorus van Gogh, and Anna Cornelia Carbentus. His mother instilled in her son a love of nature, sketching, and watercolors.

Early Life

Van Gogh had six siblings, of which Theo van Gogh played a vital role in his life. Theo used to work as an art dealer for Vincent Van Gogh. Later in his life, Theo van Gogh played an active role as a supporter of Van Gogh.

Van Gogh has struggled financially from the age of 15. He used to work at his uncle’s firm of art dealers. He also fell in love with the land lady’s daughter. Therefore, he ended up getting rejected, and he couldn’t take the rejection. Van Gogh had a breakdown which turned him towards religion.

Van Gogh moved to Brussels to become an artist in the autumn of 1880. Despite his lack of any painting instruction, Theo volunteered to help van Gogh financially. He started studying works like Jean-François Millet’s Travaux des champs and Charles Bargue Cours de dessin.

Artworks

Van Gogh’s work kept him sane. In 1885, he started his career with “Potato Eaters,” his first masterwork. Apart from Starry Night, there are some mentionable artworks by Vincent Van Gogh, notably “Sunflowers” and “Self-Portrait.” Vincent Van Gogh was a talented artist who produced more than 2100 artworks.

Last Phase of Life

Van Gogh had also been sent to an asylum, where he cut off his ear. A New Study Says Van Gogh May Have Cut Off His Ear During Alcohol Withdrawal Disorder. During his lifetime, he never got recognized for this. He used to suffer from chronic depression, which resulted in him taking his life.

At the age of 37, on 29 July 1980, Vincent Van Gogh attempted suicide by shooting himself with a loaded gun. But he did not die because of the bullet, but because of excessive blood loss.

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci was a famed artist who embodied the Renaissance humanist ideal better than any other person. His paintings are so renowned that art enthusiasts from different parts of the world come to see them.

Monalisa is such a painting that has gained worldwide recognition. Art lovers around the world celebrate Da Vinci’s magnificent pieces of art. The methodology of Vinci is famous among people, be it The Da Vinci Code or the Leonardo TV series in the most recent times.

Early Life

Leonardo Da Vinci was born near the hill town of Vinci, Tuscany, in 1452. One of the most respected artists of that time, Andrea del Verrocchio, was his mentor. In the year 1478, he got his first commission for this artwork, ‘ Adoration of the Magi.’

Leonardo’s lifelong renown, filtered by historical critique, has remained unaffected by his tireless need for knowledge, which shaped all his thinking and behaviour. Apart from being a great artist, he has also excelled in many fields.

He was very welcoming to knowledge, and for this reason, he has studied and focused on learning various things. Leonardo da Vinci was a sculptor, architect, and engineer, among other things. He looked at nature with his brilliant mind, keen eye, and sketching skills, allowing his twin interests in art and science to blossom.

Artworks

Vinci painted “The Last Supper” from the year 1492 to 1497. It is one of the most beautiful works of religious art, adored by many.

Art enthusiasts found only 17 artworks after his death. Every piece of art drawn by Leonardo da Vinci has gained widespread acceptance. Two of his most famous paintings, the Battle of Anghiari and the Leda, were never completed and are only known in copies.

Monalisa is Lionardo Da Vinci’s most precious artwork, which set a parameter for all future portraits. This artwork is a masterpiece that reveals a half-body portrait of a beautiful lady with a distant backdrop. Vinci’s Monalisa is such a detailed artwork that it amazes the viewers every time.

In 1515, he joined Francis I of France’s court, where he quickly became a friend. It’s thought that Leonardo may have finished his renowned “Monna Lisa” in France. Leonardo Da Vinci died at the age of 67, presumably due to a stroke. Despite the fact that he died many years ago, his artworks continue to dominate the art world even today.

Michelangelo

Michelangelo was a renowned painter, architect, and sculptor of the Renaissance. His art showcased a unique mix of psychological understanding, physical reality, and passion.

Michelangelo got contracts from some of his time’s wealthiest and most influential personalities, including popes and other Catholic figures. He created masterpieces like the Pietà and David sculptures and the Sistine Chapel paintings. These arts have been meticulously preserved for future generations to see and appreciate Michelangelo’s brilliance.

Early life

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in Caprese, Italy, on 6 March 1475. Leonardo de Buonarroti Simoni, Michelangelo’s father, was a judge in Caprese when he was born. When Michelangelo was an infant, the family moved to Florence. His mother remained sick most of the time during his childhood. He was appointed a nanny who took care of him.

Artworks

In 1498, Michelangelo was in Rome, working for King Charles VIII’s ambassador to the Pope, French cardinal Jean Bilhères de Lagraulas. The cardinal desired a Pieta, a giant statue of a draped Virgin Mary holding her dead son in her arms.

Michelangelo’s exquisite 69-inch-tall masterwork depicts two complex figures carved from one slab of marble. This draws many tourists to St. Peter’s Basilica for a very long time.

In 1501, the Guild of Wool commissioned him to finish a 40-year-old project started by Agostino di Duccio. In 1504, Michelangelo sculpted the magnificent 17-foot-tall nude statue of the holy figure David. The masterpiece was a testimony to the artist’s unrivaled ability to carve lifelike images from lifeless stone.

Leonardo da Vinci’s rivalry with Michelangelo was epic. The Palazzo Vecchio’s lifetime Gonfaloniere of Justice, Piero Soderini, commissioned them both to paint two opposing walls of the Salone dei Cinquecento. Both were abandoned and are now lost. Vasari subsequently painted over Leonardo’s The Battle of Anghiari.

Pope Julius II called Michelangelo to Rome during the preliminary sketching stage of The Battle of Cascina. The colorful reputation of the patron Pope enticed other artists like Donato Bramante and Raphael to develop intriguing new undertakings.

In 1508, Pope Julius summoned Michelangelo to Rome for a less costly but no less demanding painting project: the 12 apostles on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Instead, he painted twelve figures —seven prophets and five sibyls (female prophets of myth) —along the periphery of the roof and scenes from Genesis in the center.

Last Phase of Life

After a short illness, Michelangelo succumbed to death on February 18, 1564, weeks before his 89th birthday, at Macel de Corvi, Rome. His corpse was sent to Florence and hailed as the “father and master of the arts.”

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo is one of Mexico’s top artists who encountered a bus accident and started painting self-portraits. In 1929, Frida married her fellow communist artist, Diego Rivera.

Frida Kahlo has long used visual metaphors of physical trauma to comprehend emotional suffering better. Male painters (such as Francisco Goya, Albrecht Dürer, and Edvard Munch) had studied the language of loss, death, and self-awareness before Kahlo, but no woman had done so.

Early Life

Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo Calderon was born in 1907 in Coyoacan, a hamlet outside of Mexico City. Kahlo lived and worked at La Casa Azul from 1939 until her death. The Frida Kahlo Museum subsequently opened in that city.

Kahlo got polio at the age of six and was immobile for nine months. She entered the prestigious National Preparatory School in 1922. At school, Kahlo hung around with a group of like-minded peers. Kahlo joined the Mexican Communist Party and the Young Communist League.

In 1925, Kahlo was severely wounded in a tragic bus accident and had over 30 surgeries throughout her life. Kahlo learned to paint and read extensively during her long healing phase, studying the Old Masters’ work.

In Self-Portrait Wearing a Velvet Dress (1926), Kahlo painted herself against a black backdrop with churning stylized swirls. It delicately portrayed Kahlo’s face, despite the painting’s abstract nature.

Artworks

In 1933, Kahlo and her husband returned to Mexico, where they stayed in a newly built home with several levels connected by a bridge. The couple entertained artists and revolutionaries such as Leon Trotsky and André Breton, a prominent Surrealist who admired Kahlo’s work.

André Breton presented her first solo show flyer as a self-educated Surrealist. The 1938 show at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York was a smash hit. The following year, Kahlo exhibited in Paris. She also met additional Abstract Expressionists, including Marcel Duchamp.

It was for Luce’s friend, actress Dorothy Hale, who had committed herself by leaping from a high-rise building earlier that year. Kahlo dedicated this artwork to Hale’s bereaved mother. In 1939, Kahlo depicted Hale’s terrible jump in The Suicide of Dorothy Hale. Critics praised the piece, but its sponsor was terrified.

Kahlo performed her first solo show in Mexico in 1953. Despite being immobile, Kahlo attended the exhibition’s inauguration. In a four-poster bed specially put up in the gallery for her, Kahlo spent the evening chatting and rejoicing with the event’s guests.

Last Phase of Life

In 1950, Kahlo’s health problems almost consumed her. Kahlo spent thirty-nine weeks in the hospital after being detected with gangrene on her right foot. Despite her disability, she continued to paint and campaign.

In 1953, gangrene prompted Kahlo to amputate part of her right leg. She died in La Casa Azul of a pulmonary embolism in 1954 at her own house.

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas was a popular French painter, printmaker, and sculptor. He was born in Paris in 1834. He was supposed to be a lawyer, but he prioritized art over law. People called Degas an impressionist, although he denied it. He never painted “En Plein Air,” believing that perfectionism requires time in the studio.

Early Life

Edgar wanted to be a history painter because of his academic background in classical art. In his early thirties, he shifted gears, becoming a traditional painter of current life by applying historical techniques to contemporary subjects.

In 1856, Degas unexpectedly quit his studies in Paris to travel and study for three years in Italy. He immersed himself in the paintings and sculptures of the trecento, antiquity, and Renaissance periods.

He worked in Rome and Florence, stuffing notebooks with drawings of people, architecture, and landscapes and several quick doodles of murals and oil paintings he adored. They imply a literate and thoughtful young artist with great aspirations but no direction.

Artworks

The Bellelli Family (1858-1867) depicts the most unconventional cluster of figurines. This painting reflects the influence of realism on young Edgar.

It took him 3-4 years and many visits to Italy to construct the Bellelli Family. It was more of a study of individual characters than a group picture. He drew his aunt, her husband, and his two little cousins, Giovanna and Giuliana, separately.

Another unconventional masterpiece is Monsieur and Madame Edouard Manet (1868-1869). It’s a picture of Manet and his wife, highlighting a moment of isolation that the subjects would want to remain undetected. But a mystery surrounds it. It was initially a homage to his friend, Madame.

Degas noticed the artwork was damaged and removed the right side after coming home. It made Degas enraged, and he withdrew the work. Some historians think Manet sliced the painting to represent the couple’s marital discord. Classical ballet fascinated Edgar Degas because it spoke to him about the human condition.

Last Phase Of Life

In 1884, Degas turned 50 and admitted to his friends that he felt distracted from his profession. He also became infamous for his antagonism to journalists and their curiosity. The following decade was constant innovation as he polished his creative goals and abandoned his middle-aged preoccupations.

Degas became isolated, gloomy, and depressed later in life, possibly due to his growing blindness. Landscape (1892), a rare monotype from this time. It depicts Degas presenting an outdoor landscape without people, with inventive and dramatic color and line. This was his response to coping with his reduced eyesight. Edgar Degas died at the age of 83 in 1917.

Claude Monet

Born on 14 November 1840, Oscar Claude Monet was a French impressionist and artist. He studied at the College du Havre with Jacques-Louis David’s former student.

Monet created caricatures at his leisure and sold them for 20 francs each. Because of this, he saved money from his painting sales by taking advantage of his early artistic talent.

Early Life

Monet’s family relocated to Le Havre, a coastal town in Normandy, in 1845, when he was five. Despite being a good student, Monet disliked confined classrooms. Monet grew up loving to sketch.

He drew individuals in his schoolbooks, especially caricatures of his professors. His mother used to support him in his artwork. But his father did not support him. He wanted Monet to join the business.

In 1856, Monet met Eugéne Boudin, a landscape artist known for his northern French seaside village paintings. Boudin pushed him to paint landscapes, and this en Plein air trick altered Monet’s perspective on art.

In 1859, Monet moved to Paris to pursue his painting career, and he returned in 1861. Inspired by the Barbizon school’s paintings, he enrolled in the Academie Suisse. During this period, Monet met Camille Pissarro. Camille was his inspiration, and he found a lifelong partner in her.

Monet was in the military from 1861 to 1862. But he left the military due to health issues. Then Monet studied under Charles Gleyre. Monet met Alfred Sisley, Frederic Bazille, and Auguste Renoirvia Gleyre. These four ended up becoming friends.

Artworks

The Paris Salon exhibited two Monet seascapes in 1865. Monet disliked working in confinement, so he chose nature over working in a studio. To work in nature, he relocated Paris to the Fontainebleau forest. Women in the Garden (1866-67) synthesized concepts and themes in his earlier work, using Camille Doncieux as his only model.

Monet’s Westminster Bridge (1871), drawn on the Embankment in London, is one of the best works from his family’s wartime shelter. The horizontal bridge, the waves, vertical docks, and ladder in the front balance this simplistic, asymmetrical picture. In this picture, a thick coating of green, pink, gold, and violet dominates the mist that blurs the buildings.

Monet’s paintings were more about mood and surroundings than modernism. When displayed in Durand-gallery, Ruel’s series of grain stacks garnered great praise from critics, purchasers, and the general public. Moreover, he studied the effect of changing light, mood, and ambiance on the Cathedral’s façade throughout the day.

The outcome was a visual record of collected perceptions of dozens of bright, somewhat exaggerated paintings. Some of Monet’s mentionable paintings are- Water Lilies (1926), Rouen Cathedral: The Facade at Sunset (1894), and Women with a Parasol, Madame Monet and Her Son (1875).

Last Phase of Life

Ultimately, Monet preferred painting alone to engage in conceptual or analytic debates within the Parisian creative and cultural environment. Additionally, he suffered from depression but continued to work on his paintings.

Monet died at Giverny on December 5, 1926. Most art historians think Monet changed the world of painting by breaking off old norms. Moreover, Monet’s disintegrating shapes influenced subsequent painters, including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning.

Conclusion

Artists create works of art by pouring their creative energies into lifeless pieces of paper. Many artists have entered the art world over the years and left their mark. Some artists, on the other hand, have long been acclaimed for the brilliance of their work.

I have mentioned the most famous artists names who influenced the art world with their exceptional presence. They had mind-blowing and interesting perspectives in life. All of the said artists possessed a unique grasp of the art. I hope you have enjoyed the article.