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Apiece of modern art Photo sourced from Wikimedia
35 Famous Modern Artists you should All know About
Art is a reflection of society and culture. It helps us understand what we are as human beings and influences how we relate to each other. Art is also an idea and an expression of our inner thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It’s also an expression of creativity that can be used for self-reflection or social influence.
Art can also be described as a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. It has developed over the years with a host of artists doing very beautiful works on the process. Let’s take a look at some of the most famous modern artists;
1.Arnulf Rainer
Arnulf Rainer Photo sourced from Wikimedia
Arnulf Rainer, born in 1929 in Baden, Austria, is an Austrian painter living and working in Vienna, Austria. He is best known as an abstract informal artist and merging surrealism with the spontaneity. He is mostly known for his use of appropriation and his process of layering paint over photographs, transforming existing artworks by layering them with thick, gestural marks
Rainer who is a self taught painter achieved international recognition for his unique painting techniques and his process of layering paint on top of photographic material or painting blindfolded or under the influence of drugs. He is often regarded as a pioneer of Art Informel, a movement which brought an intuitive form of lyrical expression into the field of abstraction.
2.Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein Photo sourced from Wikimedia
Roy Lichtenstein was an American pop artist who became a leading figure in the new art movement in the 1960s. His work defined the premise of pop art through parody.Inspired by the comic strip, Lichtenstein produced precise compositions that documented while they parodied, often in a tongue-in-cheek manner. His work was often influenced by popular advertising and the comic book style.
He became famous for his bright and bold paintings of comic strip cartoons as well as his paintings of everyday objects, and is one if the most recognized modern art artists with his achievements and goals renowned far and wide. His most expensive work is the “Master piece” which cost a total sum of $165 million in January 2017.
Read more about him here.
3.Christopher Wool
He is best known for his modern art paintings of words, and his paintings of large, black, stenciled letters on white canvases. Wool began to create word paintings in the late 1980s, reportedly after having seen graffiti on a brand new white truck. Using a system of alliteration, with the words often broken up by a grid system, or with the vowels removed (as in ‘TRBL’ or ‘DRNK’), Wool’s word paintings often needs one to read aloud to understand them.
His works like Apocalypse Now (“Sell the house sell the car sell the kids”) and If You (“If you can’t take a joke you can get the fuck out of my house”) has made him a very huge fortune, fetching around $15 and 30 million at Christie’s auction house.He is among the most known modern artists and his works and accomplishments are there for everyone to see.
4.Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was into many things, a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso, as one of the artists who best helped to define the revolutionary developments in the visual arts.
He his renowned for developing a rigorous style that emphasised flattened forms and decorative pattern. 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 in modern art. His achievements in the art world makes him one of the best and famous modern artist.
Read more about him in Top 15 Facts about Henri Matisse
5.Georges Braque
A photo of George Photo sourced from Wikimedia
Georges Braque was a major 20th-century French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. He made his contributions to the earth world with his most notable contributions being, his alliance with Fauvism from 1905, and the role he played in the development of Cubism.He is often likened to his colleague with his style almost resembling that of Picasso.
Their respective Cubist works were indistinguishable for many years, yet the quiet nature of Braque was partially. He adopted a monochromatic and neutral color palette in the belief that such a palette would emphasize the subject matter.Although Braque began his career painting landscapes, he later changed and started painting still lifes instead.
6.Daniel Buren
Daniel Buren who was born on 25th March 1938, in Boulogne-Billancourt is a French conceptual artist, painter, and sculptor. He has won numerous awards including the Golden Lion for best pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1986), the International Award for best artist in Stuttgart (1991) and the prestigious Premium Imperiale for painting in Tokyo in 2007.
Buren has also created several world-famous installations, including “Les Deux Plateaux”(1985) in the Cour d’honneur of the Palais-Royal, and the Observatory of the Light in Fondation Louis Vuitton. He is one of the most active and recognised artists on the international scene, and his work has been welcomed by the most important institutions and sites around the world.
7.William Turner
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts – Joseph Mallord William Turner – The Sun Rising through Vapour Photo sourced from Wikimedia
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA who was 23rd April 1775, mostly known in his life time as just William Turner was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. His achievements in the earth world made him one of the most known artists of all time. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings.
He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper. He was championed by the leading English art critic John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.
8.Marcel Duchamp
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp who was born on 28th July 1887, was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art.He is mostly famous for his contribution to painting and is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century.
He is also among those responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Duchamp has had an immense impact on twentieth-century and twenty first-century art, and he had a seminal influence on the development of conceptual art.He is one of the most famous artists when it comes to the art of paint.
Read more about him in Top 10 Astonishing Facts about Marcel Duchamp
9.Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it.He became one of the most renowned modern painters for his contributions and accomplishments in the art world.
He was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of impressionism’s philosophy of expressing one’s perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. He changed the way people perceived the art of painting nature and he is among the most renowned artists for his influence on modern art.
10.Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his “drip technique” of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a horizontal surface, enabling him to view and paint his canvases from all angles. It was called all-over painting and action painting, since he covered the entire canvas and used the force of his whole body to paint, often in a frenetic dancing style.
This extreme form of abstraction divided the critics: some praised the immediacy of the creation, while others derided the random effects. In 2016, Pollock’s painting titled Number 17A was reported to have fetched US$200 million in a private purchase.He is among America’s most renowned painter of all time for his achievements and contribution to the art world.
11.Gerhard Richter
A photo of Gerhard Richter Photo sourced from Wikimedia
Gerhard Richter who was born on 9th February 1932 is a German visual artist. Richter has produced abstract as well as photorealistic paintings, and also photographs and glass pieces. He is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary German artists and several of his works have set record prices at auction.
He is one of the most famous artists to emerge from post-war Germany, and is known for his prolific, varied, and widely influential painting practice.He is also known for his diverse painting styles and subjects. His deliberate lack of commitment to a single stylistic direction has often been read as an attack on the implicit ideologies embedded in the specific histories of painting.
12.Francis Alys
Francis Alys who was born in 1959, in Antwerp, Belgium is a Belgian-born, Mexico-based artist.His work emerges in the interdisciplinary space of art, architecture, and social practice. He is one of the top artists who has been able to define the work of art in his own way and has been able to achieve so much, with some of hi achievements being what no other artists have been able to achieve.
He has created a diverse body of artwork and performance art that explores urban tensions and geopolitics. Employing a broad range of media, from painting to performance, his works examine the tension between politics and poetics, individual action and impotence. Alys commonly enacts paseos—walks that resist the subjection of common.
13.Takashi Murakami
Takashi Murakami is a Japanese artist known for blurring the boundary between fine and commercial art. Drawing from traditional Japanese painting, sci-fi, anime, and the global art market, Takashi Murakami creates paintings, sculptures, and films populated by repeated motifs and mutating characters of his own creation.
His wide-ranging work embodies an intersection of pop culture, history, and fine art.He is one of the best living artists in the world and has so many achievements to his name. Murakami’s work extends to mass-produced items such as toys, key chains, and t-shirts.
Read more about him in 25 Renowned Japanese Artists
14.Louise Bourgeois
Louise Bourgeois Photo sourced from Wikimedia
Louise Bourgeois who was born in 1991 in Paris, France, is a French artist who was based in New York City, the United States of America. She can be described as a legendary French-American artist for her large-scale sculptures and installations. In the tradition of Feminist Art, Bourgeois explored gender identity concerning her own psychology.
She is lauded internationally for her monumental three-dimensional artworks, such as her giant spider sculptures, but also her artist editions, paintings, and printmaking.She was one if of the most fearless artists because of her nature of defying categorization . She can be associated with numerous movements because of her style.
15.Cindy Sherman
Cynthia Morris Sherman mostly known as Cindy Sherman and was born January 19th 1954 is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. She is one of the most renowned modern artists with her unique style.
Sherman’s work is often credited for having a major influence for contemporary portrait photographers. She also currently serves on the artistic advisory committee of the New York City-based Stephen Petronio Company and on the Artists Committee of the Americans for the Arts.She has made great achievements in the art world.
16.Liu Xiaodong
Liu Xiaodong is a contemporary Chinese artist best known for his involvement in the Neo-Realist movement in China during the 1990s. He is also a painter of modern life,who has been known for his large-scale works which serve as a kind of history painting for the emerging world.He is one of the top artists that the world depend on when it comes to art.
His style of art depicts people in his enormous oil-and-acrylic paintings, foregrounding the human dimension of global issues like economic hardship, environmental crisis, and migration. The artist often works on site, painting his subjects on plain air. He has earned international recognition for his works which show mans day to day activities.
17.Justin Bieber
Justin Bieber Photo sourced from Wikimedia
Justin Drew Bieber known as simply Justin Bieber, who was born on March 1st, 1994 is a Canadian singer. The artist is recognized for his genre of music and has played an influential role in modern-day popular music. Bieber diversified on numerous collaborations between 2016 and 2017, including “I’m the One” and his remix to “Despacito” — both reaching number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 a week apart, making him the first artist in history to chart new number-one songs in consecutive weeks.
He was discovered by American record executive Scooter Braun and signed with RBMG Records in 2008, gaining recognition with the release of his debut seven-track EP My World (2009) and soon establishing himself as a teen idol and has since become one of the best artists in the world. He also became the first artist in history to occupy the entire top three of the US and UK Singles Chart for his singles;” Love Yourself”, “Sorry”, and “What Do You Mean?”.
Read more about him here.
18.Ed Sheeran
Edward Christopher Sheeran MBE, who was born on 17th February 1991 is an English singer-songwriter. Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk, he began writing songs around the age of eleven.He is among the top artists who started out as youngsters and also among those who passed though alot of struggles to reach where they are today.
He has won several nominations including; the BRIT Awards 2015 for MasterCard British Album (‘X’), British Male Solo Artist, British Video, British Single.He has also won the MasterCard British Album award for ‘X’ and the British Male Solo Artist with ‘Thinking Out Loud’. In total Sheeran has won four BRIT Awards. He also won the Grammy Award for Song Of The Year for his song, Thinking Out Loud.
19.Drake
A photo sourced from Wikimedia
Aubrey Drake Graham who was born on October 24th, 1986 is a Canadian rapper and singer. He became an influential figure in contemporary popular music,and has been credited for popularizing singing and R&B sensibilities in hip hop.He is one of the best artists when it comes to R&B and has cemented his place for his release of hit after hit over the years.
He gained recognition by starring as Jimmy Brooks in the CTV teen drama series Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001–08) and subsequently pursued a career in music releasing his debut mixtape Room for Improvement in 2006.Drake also heads the OVO fashion label and the Nocta collaboration with Nike, and founded the production company DreamCrew and the fragrance house Better World.
20.Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift who was born on December 13th, 1989 is an American singer and songwriter. She uses multiple genres in her style and her songwriting narratives are often inspired by her personal life and her day to day activities. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift moved to Nashville at age 14 to become a country artist.
She was signed by Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2004 and also got a recording contract with Big Machine Records in 2005. Her debut album made her the first female country singer to write or co-write a US platinum-certified album entirely.The album which self titled propelled her into international recognition and she has gone to become one of the most famous female artists.
21.Harry styles
Harry Edward Styles who was born on 1st February 1994 is an English singer, songwriter, and actor. He started his music career in 2010 as a solo contestant on the British music competition series The X Factor.Before he started his career as a solo artist, he join a boy band called One Direction, which went on to become one of the best-selling boy groups of all time which he left in 2016.
He has since gone to become one of the best artists of our time and has released hit after hit since that time.His best selling songs include; “Sign of the Times”, “Watermelon Sugar” and “As It Was”. He has also won several awards including; two Brit Awards, a Grammy Award, an Ivor Novello Award, and three American Music Awards. He has also appeared in films as an actor with films including; Dunkirk (2017), Don’t Worry Darling, and My Policeman (both 2022).
22.Rihanna
The Battleship Premiere Featuring Rihanna Photo sourced from Wikimedia
Perhaps the most famous female artist on our list is Robyn Rihanna Fenty, famously known as just Rihanna, who was born on February 20th, 1988 is a Barbadian singer, actress, and businesswoman. She was born in Saint Michael and raised in Bridgetown, Barbados. Her music career began when she auditioned for American record producer Evan Rogers who invited her to the United States to record demo tapes.
She could go on to become one of the most famous female artist, if not the best ever of all times, releasing hit after hit which made her a superstar. She has topped charts since then with several songs including;”Work”, “Rude Boy”, “Only Girl (In the World)”, “What’s My Name?”, “S&M”, “We Found Love”, “Where Have You Been” and “Diamonds”. She is the second most selling female artist of all time. Her accolades include nine Grammy Awards, 13 American Music Awards (including the Icon Award), 12 Billboard Music Awards, six Guinness World Records, and the NAACP’s President’s Award.
23.Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande-Butera better known as Ariana Grande, who was born June 26, 1993, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Her four-octave vocal range has received critical acclaim, and her personal life has been the subject of widespread media attention over the years.
She has received numerous accolades throughout her career, including two Grammy Awards, one Brit Award, one Bambi Award, two Billboard Music Awards, three American Music Awards, nine MTV Video Music Awards, and 30 Guinness World Records.She has become one of the best artists and has made some of the greatest achievements in the music industry.
24.Banksy
Banksy is a graffiti artist based in one of the streets of England. He is also a political activist and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique.
His works of political and social commentary have appeared on streets, walls and bridges throughout the world.He mostly displays his art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls and self-built physical prop pieces. Much of his work can be classified as temporary art. He has since gone to become one of the most sought after artists with his style which is very unique.
25.Shepard Fairey
Frank Shepard Fairey who was born on February 15th, 1970 is an American contemporary artist, activist and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene.Fairey designed the Barack Obama “Hope” poster for the 2008 U.S. presidential election. He earned international recognition for his style.
He has been described as one of the best known and most influential street artists. His style has been described as a “bold iconic style that is based on styling and idealizing images. He gone to become one of the most famous graffiti artists and he has made some of the most renowned achievements in the art world.
26.Zephyr
Zephyr is a graffiti artist, lecturer, and author from New York City. Born Andrew Witten, Zephyr began his art career in 1977, painting his Zephyr moniker on subway cars. He was part of the first wave of graffiti artists to make the transition to galleries, collectors, and commercial work. In 1982 he was part of the original group of artists to form the FUN Gallery in Greenwich Village, New York.
Zephyr’s work has been offered at auction multiple times, with realized prices ranging from 687 USD to 504,000 USD, depending on the size and medium of the artwork. Since 2010 the record price for this artist at auction is 504,000 USD for UNTITLED, sold at Sotheby’s New York in 2020.He is one of the most renowned graffiti artists in the world.
27.Lady Pink
Lady Pink who was born in Sandra Fabara in Ambato, Ecuador. At the age of seven, her mother moved her daughters to Queens, New York.She started her graffiti writing career in 1979 when she was a teenager following the loss of a boyfriend. She exorcised her grief by tagging her boyfriend’s name across New York City.
Lady Pink is a graduate from the Manhattan High School of Art and Design, where she was introduced to graffiti.She soon fell in love with the art and became one of the most iconic and the first female in the profession. She has since earned a name for herself with world wide fame coming with it.
28.Liu Wei
Liu Wei who was born in Beijing, China is a Chinese artist who is considered to be one of the most talented modern artists in China. In the early ‘90s, he was a co-founder of an art style known as cynical realism. His work confronts the boredom and aimlessness in contemporary society, and transcends binaries like Eastern/Western culture.
He also works in varied media ranging from video, installation, drawing, sculpture, and painting, with no uniting stylistic tendency, though the Saatchi Gallery finds a uniting theme of “a sentiment of excess, corruption, and aggression reflective of cultural anxiety”. He is one of the most famous artists from China.
29.Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst Photo sourced from Wikimedia
Damien Hirst who was born on 7th June 1965 is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingdom’s richest living artist, with his wealth estimated at US$384 million in the 2020
Hirst also broke the record for a one-artist auction in 2008 when he sold a complete show, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, for $198 million. He is most well known for his series of famous modern art depicting dead animals preserved in formaldehyde, and for his diamond skull, For the Love of God.
30.Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama who was born on 22nd March 1929 is a Japanese modern contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts.Her career has been on for more than four decades and she is among the top artists that define Japanese art.
Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan and her achievements and contribution to the art world cannot be understated.
31.Jeff Koons
Jeffrey Lynn Koons who was born on January 21, 1955 is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror-finish surfaces. He is one of the top artists with a huge following on social media, with more than 491k Followers on Instagram.
Jeff Koons rose to prominence in the mid-1980s as part of a generation of artists exploring the meaning of art and spectacle in a media-saturated era.Since then Koons has been a prevalent influence on contemporary artists who explore commercialism, advertising, readymades, and new concepts of Pop Art.
32.Anish Kapoor
Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor famously known as just Anish Kapoor who was born on 12th March 1954 is a British-Indian sculptor specializing in installation art and conceptual art. Born in Mumbai, Kapoor, he moved to the UK to begin his art training at Hornsey College of Art and, later, Chelsea School of Art and Design.
Kapoor earned international recognition in the 80s for his geometric or biomorphic sculptures using simple materials such as granite, limestone, marble, pigment and plaster. These early sculptures are frequently simple, curved forms, usually monochromatic and brightly coloured, using powder pigment to define and permeate the form.
33.Theophilus Tetteh
Theophilus Tetteh is an experienced artist based in Ghana whose paintings have been exhibited nationally, as well as in England and the United States.He studied Graphic Design and Painting at Marimus Art School, developing an expressionist and experimental approach.
Tetteh’s practice synthesises the mechanics of the man-made environment with the natural order of the world. His work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions across Ghana, as well as internationally. He is one of the top artists currently creating a name for himself and conquering the art world.
34.Sam Wilde
Sam Wilde is a British artist who is best known for storytelling through his signature world building approach to pattern creation. He positions his practice at the intersection of visual art and surface design. He also one of the top artists whose talent and achievements in the art world is visible for every eye to see.
He founded the luxury British interiors, fashion and home ware brand Vespertine, to enrich our bodies, homes and spaces with worlds depicting unabashed warmth and personality. He is among the visual artist with a masters from the Royal College of Art London and specialises in illustrative surface design.
35.Xie Lei
Xie Lei is an established mid-career contemporary artist, who was born and brought up in China. He known for his style which makes him one of the best artist in the world. Lei is most frequently exhibited in France, but also had exhibitions in Switzerland, China and elsewhere.
His paintings often personifies, animals and plants and they seem to acquire a personality of their own, while human characters are intimately incorporated in their environment, forming one with nature.Xie Lei’s work is included in public and private collections and he is currently recognized as one of the best artists in the world today.
