Meet the 100 Most Famous Artists of All Time

1. Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)

Italian · High Renaissance · born in Anchiano

Leonardo da Vinci reproductions

Known for: Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Lady with an Ermine

The archetype of the Renaissance genius: painter, engineer and anatomist whose notebooks run to some 7,000 surviving pages. Fewer than twenty paintings are firmly his, yet the Mona Lisa, stolen from the Louvre in 1911, became the most visited painting on earth, and his Last Supper fixed how the West pictures that scene.

See all 577 pieces by Leonardo da Vinci

2. Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)

Spanish · Cubism · a native of Málaga

Signature pieces: Guernica, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, The Old Guitarist

Over a career of almost 80 years Picasso co-invented Cubism with Georges Braque, broke the single viewpoint of painting with Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and turned the bombing of a Basque town into Guernica, the 20th century's best-known protest image. He left an estimated 50,000 works across painting, sculpture, ceramics and print.

Browse 2,365 pieces by Pablo Picasso

3. Rembrandt (1606–1669)

Dutch · Dutch Golden Age · a native of Leiden

Rembrandt reproductions

Signature pieces: The Night Watch, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, The Return of the Prodigal Son

The greatest painter of the Dutch Golden Age and of the human face. Rembrandt's light and shadow, used to show thought rather than drama, run from The Night Watch (1642), his huge group portrait of an Amsterdam militia, to about 80 self-portraits that record forty years of his own ageing with unflinching honesty.

Browse 1,554 pieces by Rembrandt

4. Michelangelo (1475–1564)

Italian · High Renaissance · born in Caprese Michelangelo

Michelangelo reproductions

Known for: The Creation of Adam, The Last Judgment, The Libyan Sibyl

A sculptor who called himself one, Michelangelo still painted the most famous ceiling in the world: 500 square metres of the Sistine Chapel, finished in 1512, including The Creation of Adam. Thirty years later he covered its altar wall with The Last Judgment. His muscular, twisting bodies set the course for Mannerism and the Baroque.

See all 696 pieces by Michelangelo

5. Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)

Dutch · Post-Impressionism · a native of Zundert

Vincent van Gogh reproductions

Signature pieces: The Starry Night, Sunflowers, Café Terrace at Night

Van Gogh painted for barely ten years and sold almost nothing while he lived, yet his roughly 860 oil paintings, many made in his last two years in Arles, Saint-Rémy and Auvers, are now among the most reproduced images ever. The Starry Night and the Sunflowers made his thick, swirling brushwork and pure colour instantly recognisable.

Browse 2,857 pieces by Vincent van Gogh

6. Claude Monet (1840–1926)

French · Impressionism · a native of Paris

Claude Monet reproductions

Signature pieces: Impression, Sunrise, Water Lilies, Woman with a Parasol

The founder of Impressionism: the movement takes its name from his Impression, Sunrise (1872). Monet painted the same haystack, cathedral or pond at different hours to catch changing light, and spent his last thirty years painting the water lilies of his garden at Giverny, a series that points straight to abstract art.

Browse 2,448 pieces by Claude Monet

7. Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)

German · Northern Renaissance · born in Nuremberg

Albrecht Dürer reproductions

Known for: Young Hare, Melencolia I, Self-portrait at 22

Germany's great Renaissance master brought Italian ideas north and made the print an art of its own. Dürer's engravings and woodcuts, such as Melencolia I and the Rhinoceros, travelled across Europe; in his 1500 Self-Portrait he painted himself frontally, in a pose that recalls images of Christ. His Young Hare is still a model of observation.

See all 1,220 pieces by Albrecht Dürer

8. Caravaggio (1571–1610)

Italian · Baroque · born in Milan

Caravaggio reproductions

Known for: The Calling of Saint Matthew, Judith Beheading Holofernes, The Supper at Emmaus

Caravaggio painted saints as street people, lit from one side against black backgrounds. That stark light, called tenebrism, made The Calling of Saint Matthew a sensation in Rome in 1600 and spread across Europe through his followers. His violent life, a death sentence for killing a man in a brawl, and his death at 38 added to a legend that has never faded.

See all 247 pieces by Caravaggio

9. Raphael (1483–1520)

Italian · High Renaissance · born in Urbino

Raphael reproductions

Known for: School of Athens, The Sistine Madonna, The Transfiguration

Raphael gave the High Renaissance its ideal of harmony and grace. In his twenties he painted The School of Athens in the Vatican, gathering Plato, Aristotle and the thinkers of antiquity in one perfect space, and his gentle Madonnas became the model for religious painting for four centuries. He died at 37, already the most admired painter in Rome.

See all 607 pieces by Raphael

10. Diego Velázquez (1599–1660)

Spanish · Baroque · birthplace: Seville

Diego Velázquez reproductions

Where to start: Las Meninas, The Rokeby Venus, The Surrender of Breda

Court painter to Philip IV of Spain, Velázquez painted kings, dwarfs and servants with the same loose, exact brushwork. Las Meninas (1656), in which the painter looks out at us while painting the royal couple, is one of the most analysed pictures in history. Manet called him 'the painter of painters'.

Diego Velázquez: all 468 pieces

11. Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)

French · Post-Impressionism · born in Aix-en-Provence

Paul Cézanne reproductions

Known for: The Card Players, Mont Sainte-Victoire, The Large Bathers

Cézanne rebuilt painting from cylinders, spheres and cones. His dozens of views of the Mont Sainte-Victoire, his apples and his Card Players look solid and slightly unstable at once, and that shift opened the way to Cubism. Matisse and Picasso both called him 'the father of us all'.

See all 1,227 pieces by Paul Cézanne

12. Francisco Goya (1746–1828)

Spanish · Romanticism · a native of Fuendetodos

Francisco Goya reproductions

Signature pieces: The Third of May 1808, Saturn Devouring His Son, The Nude Maja

Goya painted the Spanish court, then the horrors of war and his own nightmares. The Third of May 1808 turned an execution of civilians into the first modern war painting, and the Black Paintings he made on the walls of his house, including Saturn Devouring His Son, are among the darkest images in art.

Browse 1,429 pieces by Francisco Goya

13. Giotto (1267–1337)

Italian · Proto-Renaissance · a native of Vicchio

Giotto reproductions

Signature pieces: Lamentation (The Mourning of Christ), The Kiss of Judas, Ognissanti Madonna

Giotto broke with flat Byzantine icons and painted people with weight, emotion and space around them. His fresco cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, finished around 1305, is often called the starting point of Western painting. He also designed the bell tower of Florence cathedral, which still bears his name.

Browse 485 pieces by Giotto

14. Andy Warhol (1928–1987)

American · Pop Art · a native of Pittsburgh

Signature pieces: Campbell's Soup Cans, Marilyn Diptych, Triple Elvis

Warhol made consumer goods and celebrities into art: Campbell's Soup Cans (1962), the Marilyn silkscreens, the Brillo boxes. His studio, the Factory, produced images like a production line, and his line that everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes predicted the age of television and social media. He is the face of Pop Art.

Browse 428 pieces by Andy Warhol

15. Henri Matisse (1869–1954)

French · Fauvism · birthplace: Le Cateau-Cambrésis

Henri Matisse reproductions

Where to start: The Dance, Harmony in Red, Woman with a Hat

Matisse led the Fauves, the 'wild beasts' who used colour for feeling rather than description, and remained Picasso's great rival for fifty years. From The Dance and The Red Studio to the paper cut-outs of his last decade, such as The Snail, his work is a lesson in how far pure colour can carry a picture.

Henri Matisse: all 1,214 pieces

16. Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944)

Russian · Abstract art · a native of Moscow

Wassily Kandinsky reproductions

Signature pieces: Composition VIII, Yellow-Red-Blue, Poplars

Kandinsky is usually credited with some of the first purely abstract paintings, around 1910-1913. He co-founded the Blue Rider group in Munich, taught at the Bauhaus and argued, in Concerning the Spiritual in Art, that colour and form act on the soul like music. Composition VII is his densest statement of that idea.

Browse 728 pieces by Wassily Kandinsky

17. Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)

Flemish · Baroque · birthplace: Siegen

Peter Paul Rubens reproductions

Where to start: Descent from the Cross, The Raising of the Cross, The Judgement of Paris

The great painter of the Flemish Baroque ran Europe's busiest workshop in Antwerp and worked as a diplomat between courts. Rubens' energetic compositions, warm flesh and swirling movement fill altarpieces such as The Descent from the Cross and the 24 canvases of the Marie de' Medici cycle in the Louvre. 'Rubenesque' entered the language from his figures.

Peter Paul Rubens: all 1,641 pieces

18. Edvard Munch (1863–1944)

Norwegian · Expressionism · born in Ådalsbruk

Edvard Munch reproductions

Known for: The Scream, Madonna, The Sick Child

The Scream (1893) made Munch the painter of modern anxiety: a figure on a bridge under a blood-red sky, painted in several versions, one of which sold for $119.9 million in 2012. His Frieze of Life on love, jealousy and death made him a founder of Expressionism.

See all 2,121 pieces by Edvard Munch

19. Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675)

Dutch · Dutch Golden Age · born in Delft

Johannes Vermeer reproductions

Known for: Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Milkmaid, The Art of painting

Only about 35 paintings are attributed to Vermeer, almost all quiet interiors in Delft lit from a window on the left. Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Milkmaid and The Art of Painting show a control of daylight and colour that no one has matched. Forgotten for two centuries, he was rediscovered in the 1860s.

See all 226 pieces by Johannes Vermeer

20. Paul Gauguin (1848–1903)

French · Post-Impressionism · born in Paris

Paul Gauguin reproductions

Known for: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, Vision after the Sermon, Yellow Christ

Gauguin left a Paris stockbroking career for painting, then left Europe for Tahiti and the Marquesas. His flat areas of bold colour and symbolic scenes, such as Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, freed colour from realism and deeply influenced Matisse and the Fauves.

See all 928 pieces by Paul Gauguin

21. Édouard Manet (1832–1883)

French · Realism and Impressionism · a native of former 10th arrondissement of Paris

Édouard Manet reproductions

Signature pieces: Olympia, The Luncheon on the Grass, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère

Manet painted modern Paris and shocked it: the nude picnic of Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) and the direct gaze of Olympia caused scandals at the Salon. His flat, frank brushwork made him the bridge from Realism to Impressionism, and A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is his last masterpiece.

Browse 587 pieces by Édouard Manet

22. El Greco (1541–1614)

Greek-born Spanish · Mannerism · born in Heraklion

El Greco reproductions

Known for: The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, View of Toledo, The Disrobing of Christ

Born in Crete, trained in Venice, settled in Toledo, El Greco painted stretched figures, flickering light and acid colour that baffled his contemporaries. The Burial of the Count of Orgaz and the View of Toledo were rediscovered by the Expressionists and Picasso, who saw in him a modern before his time.

See all 750 pieces by El Greco

23. Frida Kahlo (1907–1954)

Mexican · Surrealism and Mexican folk art · born in Coyoacán

Frida Kahlo reproductions

Known for: The Two Fridas, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, The Broken Column

Frida Kahlo painted about 55 self-portraits, many from her bed after a bus accident at 18 left her in lifelong pain. The Two Fridas and Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird mix Mexican folk art, pain and politics. In 1939 the Louvre bought one of her works, a first for a 20th-century Mexican artist.

See all 218 pieces by Frida Kahlo

24. Jan van Eyck (1390–1441)

Flemish · Early Netherlandish · birthplace: Maaseik

Jan van Eyck reproductions

Where to start: The Arnolfini Portrait, The Ghent Altarpiece, The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin

Jan van Eyck perfected oil painting in Bruges and with it a new realism: reflections, fabric, fur and light rendered with microscopic precision. The Arnolfini Portrait (1434), with its convex mirror, and the Ghent Altarpiece, the most stolen artwork in history, are founding works of Northern Renaissance painting.

Jan van Eyck: all 228 pieces

25. Titian (1490–1576)

Italian · Venetian Renaissance · birthplace: Pieve di Cadore

Titian reproductions

Where to start: The Venus of Urbino, Assumption of the Virgin, Bacchus and Ariadne

Titian dominated Venetian painting for some sixty years and painted for popes, emperors and kings. He built pictures from colour rather than drawing, from the radiant Assumption of the Virgin in the Frari to the Venus of Urbino, the model for centuries of reclining nudes, and his loose late brushwork anticipates Impressionism.

Titian: all 953 pieces

26. Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)

Italian · Early Renaissance · a native of Florence

Sandro Botticelli reproductions

Signature pieces: The Birth of Venus, Primavera, Adoration of the Magi

The painter of Medici Florence. Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera, both in the Uffizi, revived the gods of antiquity with flowing lines and delicate grace. Forgotten for three centuries, he was rediscovered by the Pre-Raphaelites, and his Venus is now one of the most reproduced images of the Renaissance.

Browse 733 pieces by Sandro Botticelli

27. Salvador Dalí (1904–1989)

Spanish · Surrealism · a native of Figueres

Signature pieces: The Persistence of Memory, Swans Reflecting Elephants, The Elephants

The best-known Surrealist turned dreams into precise, hallucinatory images: the melting watches of The Persistence of Memory (1931) at MoMA are among the most recognised pictures of the 20th century. Dalí's moustache, provocations and showmanship made him one of the first artists to be a media celebrity.

Browse 1,791 pieces by Salvador Dalí

28. Gustav Klimt (1862–1918)

Austrian · Vienna Secession · birthplace: Baumgarten

Gustav Klimt reproductions

Where to start: The Kiss, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, The Tree of Life

Klimt led the Vienna Secession and painted its golden age. The Kiss (1908) and the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, covered in real gold leaf, combine Byzantine mosaic and Art Nouveau ornament. The Adele portrait, looted by the Nazis and returned to its heirs, sold in 2006 for $135 million.

Gustav Klimt: all 744 pieces

29. Piet Mondrian (1872–1944)

Dutch · De Stijl · birthplace: Amersfoort

Piet Mondrian reproductions

Where to start: Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow, Broadway Boogie Woogie, Victory Boogie Woogie

Mondrian reduced painting to black lines, white grounds and the three primary colours. His grid compositions of the 1920s, part of the De Stijl movement, influenced architecture, fashion and graphic design as much as painting. Broadway Boogie Woogie, painted in New York, swaps the black lines for jazz-like yellow blocks.

Piet Mondrian: all 692 pieces

30. Joan Miró (1893–1983)

Spanish (Catalan) · Surrealism · born in Barcelona

Known for: Harlequin's Carnival, The Farm, The Tilled Field

The Catalan painter invented a language of floating signs, stars, eyes and biomorphic shapes in bright primary colours. Associated with Surrealism, Miró remained independent; The Harlequin's Carnival and the Constellations series of 1940-41 are his best-known works, and he also produced ceramics, murals and the Spanish tourism logo.

See all 428 pieces by Joan Miró

31. Jean Michel Basquiat (1960–1988)

American · Neo-Expressionism · born in Park Slope

Known for: Untitled (Skull), Hollywood Africans, Melting Point of Ice

Basquiat rose from the SAMO graffiti tag on New York walls to international fame in less than five years, working closely with Andy Warhol. His crowded canvases of crowns, skulls and words confront race, power and history. In 2017 his untitled skull of 1982 sold for $110.5 million, a record for an American artist at the time.

See all 135 pieces by Jean Michel Basquiat

32. Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863)

French · Romanticism · born in Saint-Maurice

Eugène Delacroix reproductions

Known for: Liberty Leading the People, The Death of Sardanapalus, Women of Algiers in Their Apartment

The leader of French Romanticism painted passion, colour and movement against the cool line of Ingres. Liberty Leading the People (1830), with its bare-breasted Marianne on the barricades, became the symbol of the French Republic. His travels in Morocco in 1832 fed his use of colour, later studied by the Impressionists.

See all 604 pieces by Eugène Delacroix

33. Masaccio (1401–1428)

Italian · Early Renaissance · birthplace: San Giovanni Valdarno

Masaccio reproductions

Where to start: The Holy Trinity, The Tribute Money, The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

Masaccio died at 26 yet changed painting. His frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence and the Holy Trinity in Santa Maria Novella (around 1427) are among the first paintings built on mathematical one-point perspective, with figures that stand and cast shadows. Every Florentine artist after him, Michelangelo included, studied them.

Masaccio: all 97 pieces

34. Gustave Courbet (1819–1877)

French · Realism · born in Ornans

Gustave Courbet reproductions

Known for: A Burial at Ornans, The Stone Breakers, The Painter's Studio

Courbet declared that he would paint only what he could see, and founded Realism. A Burial at Ornans gave a village funeral the size of a history painting; The Stone Breakers showed manual labour without idealisation. His provocations, from The Origin of the World to his role in the Paris Commune, made him the model of the rebel artist.

See all 788 pieces by Gustave Courbet

35. J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851)

British · Romanticism · a native of Maiden Lane

J. M. W. Turner reproductions

Signature pieces: The Fighting Temeraire, Rain, Steam and Speed, The Slave Ship

Turner painted light, weather and speed until his canvases dissolved into colour. The Fighting Temeraire and Rain, Steam and Speed are among Britain's favourite paintings, and he left some 30,000 works to the nation. Britain's leading contemporary art award, the Turner Prize, bears his name, and his face appears on the £20 note.

Browse 870 pieces by J. M. W. Turner

36. Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665)

French · French Classicism · birthplace: Le Havre

Nicolas Poussin reproductions

Where to start: Et in Arcadia Ego, The Death of Germanicus, Spring (The Earthly Paradise)

Poussin, a Frenchman who worked mostly in Rome, became the model of classical order in painting. His carefully composed scenes from the Bible and myth, such as Et in Arcadia ego and The Four Seasons, turned reason and balance into a doctrine for the French Academy, and Cézanne wanted to 'redo Poussin after nature'.

Nicolas Poussin: all 412 pieces

37. Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1653)

Italian · Baroque · a native of Rome

Artemisia Gentileschi reproductions

Signature pieces: Judith Slaying Holofernes, Susanna and the Elders, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting

Artemisia Gentileschi was the first woman admitted to Florence's Academy of the Arts of Drawing, in 1616. A follower of Caravaggio, she painted strong women from the Bible with unusual force: her Judith Slaying Holofernes is one of the most violent pictures of the Baroque. Rediscovered in the 1970s, she is now the most famous woman painter of the Old Masters.

Browse 104 pieces by Artemisia Gentileschi

38. Marc Chagall (1887–1985)

Russian-French · Modernism · birthplace: Liozna

Where to start: I and the Village, The Birthday, Over the Town

Born in a Jewish village near Vitebsk, Chagall painted it all his life: floating lovers, fiddlers on roofs, goats and violins. Between Cubism, Surrealism and folk tale, I and the Village and The Birthday are poetry in colour. He also designed the ceiling of the Paris Opéra and stained glass from Jerusalem to Reims.

Marc Chagall: all 936 pieces

39. Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840)

German · Romanticism · a native of Greifswald

Caspar David Friedrich reproductions

Signature pieces: Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, The Sea of Ice, Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon

The great painter of German Romanticism showed lone figures facing immense nature, often seen from behind. Wanderer above the Sea of Fog has become the image of Romanticism itself, and The Sea of Ice and Monk by the Sea pushed landscape toward the sublime and the spiritual.

Browse 297 pieces by Caspar David Friedrich

40. Edgar Degas (1834–1917)

French · Impressionism · born in Paris

Edgar Degas reproductions

Known for: The Dance Class, The Absinthe Drinker, Dancers in Pink

Degas exhibited with the Impressionists but called himself a realist. He painted dancers at the Paris Opéra in about 1,500 works, racecourses, laundresses and café life, with odd angles and cut-off figures taken from photography and Japanese prints. His sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen shocked the public in 1881.

See all 1,074 pieces by Edgar Degas

41. Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968)

French-American · Dada · a native of Blainville-Crevon

Signature pieces: Fountain, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, L.H.O.O.Q.

In 1917 Duchamp signed a urinal 'R. Mutt', titled it Fountain and changed what art could be: the 'readymade' made the idea more important than the hand. His Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 had already scandalised New York in 1913. Conceptual art and much of today's contemporary art descend from him.

Browse 162 pieces by Marcel Duchamp

42. Hieronymus Bosch (1450–1516)

Netherlandish · Early Netherlandish painting · birthplace: 's-Hertogenbosch

Hieronymus Bosch reproductions

Where to start: The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Haywain Triptych, The Temptation of St Anthony

Bosch filled his panels with monsters, hybrid creatures and strange punishments that still defy full explanation. The Garden of Earthly Delights in the Prado, a triptych of paradise, pleasure and hell painted around 1500, is one of the most enigmatic paintings ever made. The Surrealists claimed him as an ancestor.

Hieronymus Bosch: all 371 pieces

43. Piero della Francesca (1415–1492)

Italian · Early Renaissance · birthplace: Sansepolcro

Piero della Francesca reproductions

Where to start: The Baptism of Christ, The Flagellation, The Montefeltro Altarpiece

Piero della Francesca was also a mathematician who wrote treatises on perspective and geometry. His serene, light-filled figures and clear spaces, in The Baptism of Christ, The Flagellation and the fresco cycle The Legend of the True Cross at Arezzo, make him the calmest and most geometric painter of the Early Renaissance.

Piero della Francesca: all 287 pieces

44. Jacopo Tintoretto (1519–1594)

Italian · Venetian Mannerism · born in Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto reproductions

Known for: The Last Supper, The Miracle of the Slave, Paradise

Tintoretto, the 'little dyer', painted Venice with fierce speed, dramatic perspective and flickering light. He covered the Scuola Grande di San Rocco with more than 50 canvases, and his Paradise in the Doge's Palace, about 22 metres wide, is among the largest canvas paintings in the world.

See all 707 pieces by Jacopo Tintoretto

45. Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525–1569)

Flemish · Northern Renaissance · born in Breda

Pieter Brueghel the Elder reproductions

Known for: The Hunters in the Snow, The Tower of Babel, The Peasant Wedding

Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted Flemish peasants, proverbs and seasons with humour and a bird's-eye view. The Hunters in the Snow, The Peasant Wedding and The Tower of Babel turned everyday life and landscape into great subjects. The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna holds about a third of his surviving paintings.

See all 254 pieces by Pieter Brueghel the Elder

46. Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)

French · Impressionism · birthplace: Limoges

Pierre-Auguste Renoir reproductions

Where to start: Bal du moulin de la Galette, Luncheon of the Boating Party, Two Sisters (On the Terrace)

Renoir painted the pleasures of modern Paris: dances, boating parties and sunlit faces. Bal du moulin de la Galette (1876) and Luncheon of the Boating Party are Impressionism at its most joyful. In old age, with hands crippled by arthritis, he kept painting with the brush strapped to his fingers.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir: all 2,287 pieces

47. Paul Klee (1879–1940)

German-Swiss · Expressionism · a native of Münchenbuchsee

Paul Klee reproductions

Signature pieces: Twittering Machine, Senecio, Castle and Sun

Klee taught at the Bauhaus and wrote that 'colour and I are one' after a trip to Tunisia in 1914. His thousands of small works, such as Twittering Machine and Senecio, mix childlike signs, music and colour theory. The Nazis labelled his art 'degenerate'; the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern holds about 4,000 of his works.

Browse 669 pieces by Paul Klee

48. Jackson Pollock (1912–1956)

American · Abstract Expressionism · a native of Cody

Jackson Pollock reproductions

Signature pieces: Number 1A, 1948, One: Number 31, 1950, Convergence

Pollock laid his canvases on the floor and dripped and poured paint from above, a method that made him the face of Abstract Expressionism and moved the centre of the art world from Paris to New York. A 1949 Life magazine article asked whether he was the greatest living painter in the United States. Number 1A, 1948 and Blue Poles are signature drip paintings.

Browse 186 pieces by Jackson Pollock

49. William Blake (1757–1827)

British · Romanticism · a native of London

William Blake reproductions

Signature pieces: The Ancient of Days, Newton, The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun

Poet, painter and engraver, Blake invented his own printing technique and his own mythology. His visionary images, such as The Ancient of Days, The Great Red Dragon paintings and the illustrations to Dante, were ignored in his lifetime and later revered by the Pre-Raphaelites, the Surrealists and the 1960s counterculture.

Browse 324 pieces by William Blake

50. Fra Angelico (1395–1455)

Italian · Early Renaissance · born in Vicchio

Fra Angelico reproductions

Known for: The Annunciation, Madonna of Humility, San Domenico Altarpiece

A Dominican friar, Fra Angelico painted with pure colour and gold for prayer. His frescoes in the cells of the San Marco convent in Florence and his Annunciation panels combine medieval devotion with the new Renaissance space. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1982, and he is the patron of artists.

See all 541 pieces by Fra Angelico

51. Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825)

French · Neoclassicism · born in Paris

Jacques-Louis David reproductions

Known for: The Oath of the Horatii, The Death of Marat, The Coronation of Napoleon I

David painted the French Revolution and then Napoleon. The Oath of the Horatii (1784) launched Neoclassicism; The Death of Marat made a murdered revolutionary a martyr; Napoleon Crossing the Alps and The Coronation of Napoleon built an emperor's image. His studio trained a generation, Ingres and Gros among them.

See all 277 pieces by Jacques-Louis David

52. Kazimir Malevich (1879–1935)

Ukraine · Suprematism · a native of Kyiv

Kazimir Malevich reproductions

Signature pieces: Black Square, White on White, Suprematist Composition

Malevich showed a black square on a white ground in 1915 and declared the start of Suprematism, a painting of pure feeling with no objects at all. Black Square and White on White (1918) are among the most radical works of the 20th century and influenced Russian Constructivism, the Bauhaus and later minimalism.

Browse 564 pieces by Kazimir Malevich

53. Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721)

French · Rococo · born in Valenciennes

Jean-Antoine Watteau reproductions

Known for: Pilgrimage to Cythera, Pierrot Content, Pierrot (Gilles)

Watteau invented a new kind of painting, the fête galante: elegant couples in parks, music and melancholy. Pilgrimage to Cythera (1717) was accepted by the French Academy under that new category, and it opened the Rococo age. His Pierrot (also called Gilles) in the Louvre is one of the most haunting figures of the 18th century.

See all 271 pieces by Jean-Antoine Watteau

54. Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920)

Italian · School of Paris · born in Livorno

Amedeo Modigliani reproductions

Known for: Reclining Nude, Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne, Nude Bust

Modigliani's long necks, almond eyes without pupils and simplified faces are recognisable at a glance. Working in Montparnasse, he combined Italian Renaissance line, African sculpture and Cézanne. He died at 35 in poverty; his Reclining Nude (1917-18) sold for $170.4 million in 2015.

See all 663 pieces by Amedeo Modigliani

55. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867)

French · Neoclassicism · birthplace: Montauban

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres reproductions

Where to start: The Grande Odalisque, The Turkish Bath, Monsieur Bertin

Ingres defended line and classical drawing against Delacroix's colour in the great French debate of the 19th century. His impossibly long-backed Grande Odalisque, The Turkish Bath and his precise portraits of the bourgeoisie, such as Monsieur Bertin, influenced Degas, Picasso and Matisse. 'Ingres's violin', his amateur hobby, is a French idiom.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres: all 610 pieces

56. Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506)

Italian · Early Renaissance · birthplace: Isola Mantegna

Andrea Mantegna reproductions

Where to start: The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, The Parnassus: Mars and Venus, The Triumphs of Caesar: Trumpeters and Standard-Bearer

Mantegna brought archaeology and sculpture into painting in Padua and at the court of the Gonzaga in Mantua. His Lamentation over the Dead Christ, with its startling foreshortening, and the illusionistic Camera degli Sposi ceiling, where figures lean over a painted opening to the sky, showed how far perspective could go.

Andrea Mantegna: all 285 pieces

57. Giorgione (1478–1510)

Italian · Venetian School · born in Castelfranco Veneto

Giorgione reproductions

Known for: The Tempest, The Sleeping Venus, The Three Philosophers

Giorgione died young, around 33, and only a handful of works are surely his, yet he changed Venetian painting by making mood and landscape the subject. The Tempest, whose meaning is still debated, and the Sleeping Venus, finished by Titian, opened the way to poetic landscape and to Titian's own art.

See all 92 pieces by Giorgione

58. Georges Braque (1882–1963)

French · Cubism · born in Argenteuil

Known for: Houses at L'Estaque, Violin and Palette, Man with a Guitar

Braque invented Cubism with Picasso between 1908 and 1914, working so closely that their paintings are hard to tell apart. He introduced letters, imitation wood and, in 1912, the first papier collé. His later still lifes and Birds series made him one of the most respected French painters of the century.

See all 700 pieces by Georges Braque

59. René Magritte (1898–1967)

Belgian · Surrealism · birthplace: Lessines

Where to start: The Treachery of Images (This Is Not a Pipe), The Son of Man, Time Transfixed

Magritte painted ordinary things in impossible situations with a deadpan, almost advertising style. The Treachery of Images, a pipe captioned 'This is not a pipe', and The Son of Man, a man in a bowler hat with an apple for a face, made him the most quoted Surrealist in pop culture and advertising.

René Magritte: all 599 pieces

60. Paolo Uccello (1397–1475)

Italian · Early Renaissance · birthplace: Pratovecchio

Paolo Uccello reproductions

Where to start: The Battle of San Romano, St George and the Dragon, The Hunt in the Forest

Uccello was obsessed with perspective, according to Vasari, working through the night on it. His three panels of The Battle of San Romano, now split between London, Florence and Paris, line up lances and fallen soldiers in strict geometric order, and his Saint George and the Dragon is a fairy tale in perspective.

Paolo Uccello: all 134 pieces

61. Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543)

German · Northern Renaissance · born in Augsburg

Hans Holbein the Younger reproductions

Known for: The Ambassadors, Portrait of Henry VIII, Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam

Holbein became court painter to Henry VIII and fixed the faces of Tudor England. The Ambassadors (1533), with its distorted skull that appears only from the side, is one of the most famous puzzles in art; his portraits of Henry VIII, Thomas More and Erasmus are the images through which we know them.

See all 398 pieces by Hans Holbein the Younger

62. David Hockney (1937–2026)

British · Pop Art · a native of Bradford

Signature pieces: A Bigger Splash, Pool 2 figures, Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy

The most famous living British painter. Hockney's swimming pools of 1960s California, such as A Bigger Splash, his double portraits, Yorkshire landscapes and later iPad drawings span six decades. In 2018 his Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold for $90.3 million, then a record for a living artist.

Browse 331 pieces by David Hockney

63. Georges Seurat (1859–1891)

French · Neo-Impressionism · born in former 5th arrondissement of Paris

Georges Seurat reproductions

Known for: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, Bañistas en Asnieres, 1889, The Circus

Seurat applied colour theory with a scientist's method: tiny dots of pure colour that the eye mixes from a distance, called pointillism. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-86) took him two years and launched Neo-Impressionism. He died at 31, leaving only seven monumental paintings.

See all 438 pieces by Georges Seurat

64. Rogier van der Weyden (1400–1464)

Belgian · Early Netherlandish art · born in Tournai

Rogier van der Weyden reproductions

Known for: The Descent from the Cross, Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin, The Annunciation

Rogier van der Weyden added intense emotion to the realism of Van Eyck. His Descent from the Cross in the Prado, with life-size figures weeping in a shallow golden box, was copied all over Europe. He was the most influential painter in Northern Europe in the mid-15th century.

See all 314 pieces by Rogier van der Weyden

65. Théodore Géricault (1791–1824)

French · Romanticism · birthplace: Rouen

Théodore Géricault reproductions

Where to start: The Raft of the Medusa, A Madwoman and Compulsive Gambler, The Wounded Cuirassier

Géricault died at 32 after a riding accident, but one painting made him immortal: The Raft of the Medusa (1818-19), based on the survivors of a real shipwreck, which he researched by visiting hospitals and morgues. Its scale and raw drama opened French Romanticism. His portraits of the insane are early studies of psychology in art.

Théodore Géricault: all 183 pieces

66. Jean-François Millet (1814–1875)

French · Realism, Barbizon school · birthplace: Gréville-Hague

Jean-François Millet reproductions

Where to start: The Gleaners, The Angelus, The Sower

Millet painted French peasants with dignity and near-religious gravity. The Gleaners (1857) and The Angelus, which became one of the most reproduced images of the 19th century, made him the leading painter of the Barbizon school. Van Gogh copied his works many times.

Jean-François Millet: all 369 pieces

67. Egon Schiele (1890–1918)

Austrian · Expressionism · born in Tulln an der Donau

Egon Schiele reproductions

Known for: Death and the Maiden, The Embrace, Couple Embracing

Schiele's twisted, angular nudes and raw self-portraits made him, with Kokoschka, the leading Austrian Expressionist. A protégé of Klimt, he produced some 300 paintings and thousands of drawings before dying of Spanish flu at 28, in 1918. Self-Portrait with Physalis and Death and the Maiden are his best-known works.

See all 649 pieces by Egon Schiele

68. Max Ernst (1891–1976)

German · Surrealism · a native of Brühl

Signature pieces: The Elephant Celebes, Europe after the Rain II, The Entire City

A leading Dadaist and Surrealist, Ernst invented frottage and grattage, techniques that let chance create the image by rubbing or scraping textures. The Elephant Celebes and Europe after the Rain II turned these methods into eerie, dreamlike worlds. He spent the war years in New York, where he influenced the young Abstract Expressionists.

Browse 573 pieces by Max Ernst

69. Francis Bacon (1909–1992)

Irish-born British · Figurative painting · born in Dublin

Known for: Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, Study After Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, Dog

Bacon painted screaming popes, twisted bodies and the meat of the human figure with a violence unique in postwar art. Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944) and the Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X are icons; his triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud sold for $142.4 million in 2013.

See all 435 pieces by Francis Bacon

70. Gerhard Richter (1932)

German · Contemporary art · birthplace: Dresden

Where to start: Betty, Candles, Motorboat

Germany's most celebrated living painter moves between blurred paintings made from photographs, such as Betty and the October 18, 1977 cycle, and large abstractions pulled with a squeegee. Richter's range challenges the idea that a painter needs one style, and his works are among the most expensive by any living artist.

Gerhard Richter: all 134 pieces

71. Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255–1319)

Italian · Sienese School, Trecento Gothic · birthplace: Siena

Duccio di Buoninsegna reproductions

Where to start: Maestà, Rucellai Madonna, Polyptych No. 28 (The Holy Virgin with the Christ Child and Four Saints)

The great master of Siena painted the Maestà (1308-11), a double-sided altarpiece carried in procession from his workshop to the cathedral. Duccio softened Byzantine forms with human feeling and narrative, and founded the Sienese school that influenced Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers.

Duccio di Buoninsegna: all 311 pieces

72. Hilma af Klint (1862–1944)

Swedish · Abstract art · a native of Solna

Hilma af Klint reproductions

Signature pieces: The Ten Largest, No. 1, Childhood, The Swan, No. 1, The Swan, No. 17

Hilma af Klint painted large abstract works from 1906, years before Kandinsky, guided by spiritualist ideas. She asked that her Paintings for the Temple, including The Ten Largest, stay hidden for twenty years after her death. Revealed late, her 2018 Guggenheim show became the most visited exhibition in the museum's history.

Browse 29 pieces by Hilma af Klint

73. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875)

French · Realism (Barbizon school) · born in Paris

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot reproductions

Known for: Souvenir of Mortefontaine, Woman with a Pearl, Waterfall at Terni

Corot linked classical landscape to Impressionism. He painted in the open air in Italy and the forest of Fontainebleau, then softened his landscapes into silvery, misty 'souvenirs', such as Souvenir of Mortefontaine. Monet said there was 'only one master here, Corot'. He is also one of the most forged painters in history.

See all 1,374 pieces by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

74. James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903)

American · Tonalism · a native of Lowell

James McNeill Whistler reproductions

Signature pieces: Whistler's Mother (Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1), Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl

An American in London and Paris, Whistler argued that painting should be harmony of tone, like music, and titled works Symphonies and Nocturnes. Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, better known as Whistler's Mother, became an American icon; his libel suit against the critic John Ruskin is a landmark of art history.

Browse 567 pieces by James McNeill Whistler

75. Frans Hals (1580–1666)

Dutch · Dutch Golden Age · birthplace: Antwerp

Frans Hals reproductions

Where to start: The Laughing Cavalier, Marriage Portrait of Isaac Massa and Beatrix van der Laen, The Gypsy Girl

Frans Hals painted portraits with fast, loose, visible brushstrokes that look modern even today. The Laughing Cavalier and his large militia group portraits in Haarlem capture faces in movement and good humour. Manet and Van Gogh admired his speed; Van Gogh counted 27 different blacks in his paintings.

Frans Hals: all 428 pieces

76. Berthe Morisot (1841–1895)

French · Impressionism · born in Bourges

Berthe Morisot reproductions

Known for: The Cradle, A Summer's Day, A Corner of the Rose Garden

Berthe Morisot was one of the founding members of the Impressionist group and showed in seven of their eight exhibitions. Her rapid, airy brushwork caught women's private lives, children and gardens, as in The Cradle (1872). Manet's sister-in-law and model, she is now recognised as one of the movement's key painters.

See all 361 pieces by Berthe Morisot

77. John Constable (1776–1837)

British · Romanticism · birthplace: East Bergholt

John Constable reproductions

Where to start: The Hay Wain, Salisbury Cathedral, Hadleigh Castle

Constable painted the English countryside of his childhood, the Stour valley, with fresh light and sky studies made in the open air. The Hay Wain (1821) won a gold medal at the 1824 Paris Salon and impressed Delacroix and the French. His cloud studies are early scientific observations of weather.

John Constable: all 497 pieces

78. Winslow Homer (1836–1910)

American · American Realism · a native of Boston

Winslow Homer reproductions

Signature pieces: Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), The Gulf Stream, Snap the Whip

Homer began as an illustrator of the Civil War and became America's great painter of the sea. Breezing Up, The Gulf Stream and his watercolours of the Maine coast, the Adirondacks and the Caribbean show man facing nature with directness and drama. He is often called the greatest American painter of the 19th century.

Browse 755 pieces by Winslow Homer

79. Banksy (1973)

British · Street art · a native of Bristol

Signature pieces: Girl with Balloon, Show me the Monet, Toxic Mary (double)

The anonymous British street artist turned stencilled graffiti into worldwide fame. Girl with Balloon partly shredded itself in its frame at Sotheby's seconds after selling in 2018, renamed Love Is in the Bin, and resold for £18.6 million in 2021. His satirical murals, from Bristol to the West Bank wall, comment on war, power and consumerism.

Browse 146 pieces by Banksy

80. Willem de Kooning (1904–1997)

Dutch-American · Abstract Expressionism · born in Rotterdam

Known for: Woman I, Excavation, The Glazier

Born in Rotterdam, de Kooning became a leader of Abstract Expressionism in New York. His aggressive brushwork in the Woman series (1950-53) blurred abstraction and figure and shocked critics. Interchange (1955) sold privately in 2015 for a reported $300 million, one of the highest prices ever paid for a painting.

See all 117 pieces by Willem de Kooning

81. Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842)

French · Rococo and Neoclassicism · born in Paris

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun reproductions

Known for: Self-Portrait with Her Daughter Julie, Marie Antoinette in Court Dress, Marie-Antoinette Lorrraine Habsburg, Queen of France and her children.

Vigée Le Brun was the official portraitist of Marie Antoinette, whom she painted around thirty times. Fleeing the Revolution, she worked for the courts of Italy, Austria and Russia and painted some 660 portraits. Her warm self-portraits with her daughter brought a new tenderness to portraiture. She was among the very few women admitted to the French Royal Academy.

See all 272 pieces by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

82. Cimabue (1240–1302)

Italian · Gothic · a native of Florence

Cimabue reproductions

Signature pieces: Crucifix, The Madonna in Majesty (Maestà), The Mocking of Christ

Cimabue, Giotto's teacher according to tradition, began to free Italian painting from Byzantine stiffness. His large Maestà panels in Florence and the Crucifix of Santa Croce, badly damaged in the 1966 flood and restored, show the first signs of weight and emotion. Dante named him in the Divine Comedy.

Browse 52 pieces by Cimabue

83. Jasper Johns (1930)

American · Neo-Dada · a native of Augusta

Signature pieces: Flag, Target, Map

Johns painted flags, targets, numbers and maps, familiar signs that viewers 'already know', with thick wax-based encaustic. Flag (1954-55) and Target with Four Faces bridged Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. One of the most expensive living American artists, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.

Browse 63 pieces by Jasper Johns

84. Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997)

American · Pop Art · a native of Manhattan

Signature pieces: Whaam!, Drowning Girl, Look Mickey

Lichtenstein enlarged comic-strip panels into monumental paintings, imitating the printed Ben-Day dots by hand. Whaam! and Drowning Girl (1963) made the mass-produced image high art and made him, beside Warhol, the defining artist of American Pop Art.

Browse 382 pieces by Roy Lichtenstein

85. Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986)

American · American modernism · a native of Sun Prairie

Signature pieces: Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, Red Cannas, Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue

O'Keeffe painted enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers and the bones and red hills of New Mexico. Her close-up Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 sold for $44.4 million in 2014, the highest price for a woman artist at the time. A museum in Santa Fe is dedicated to her, and she is often called the mother of American modernism.

Browse 501 pieces by Georgia O'Keeffe

86. Mark Rothko (1903–1970)

American · Color Field · a native of Daugavpils

Signature pieces: White Center, Violet, Black, Orange, Yellow on White and Red, Earth and Green

Rothko's large rectangles of glowing colour that seem to float and breathe were meant to produce tragedy, ecstasy and doom in the viewer. His Seagram Murals (Tate) and the dark panels of the Rothko Chapel in Houston are places of contemplation. No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red) reportedly sold for $186 million in 2014.

Browse 477 pieces by Mark Rothko

87. Simone Martini (1284–1344)

Italian · International Gothic · a native of Siena

Simone Martini reproductions

Signature pieces: The Annunciation and Two Saints, Maestà, Guidoriccio da Fogliano

A follower of Duccio, Simone Martini brought elegance and gold to Sienese painting and worked for the papal court at Avignon, where he met Petrarch. His Annunciation of 1333 in the Uffizi, with its words in gold coming from the angel's mouth, is one of the most graceful works of the International Gothic.

Browse 151 pieces by Simone Martini

88. Claude Lorrain (1600–1682)

French · Classical landscape · born in Chamagne

Claude Lorrain reproductions

Known for: Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, Landscape with Aeneas at Delos, View of La Crescenza

Claude Lorrain created the ideal landscape: golden light, classical ruins and a low sun over the sea. His seaports and pastoral scenes, such as Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, shaped how Europeans saw nature; English landowners designed their gardens to look like his paintings, and Turner asked to hang beside him in the National Gallery.

See all 325 pieces by Claude Lorrain

89. William Hogarth (1697–1764)

English · Satire and genre painting · born in London

William Hogarth reproductions

Known for: A Rake's Progress, Plate 1, Marriage A-la-Mode: The Inspection, Gin Lane

Hogarth invented the 'modern moral subject', painted series that read like novels and sold as prints. A Rake's Progress, Marriage A-la-Mode and Gin Lane satirised London society; to protect his work from pirates he lobbied for the 1735 Engraving Copyright Act, known as Hogarth's Act.

See all 307 pieces by William Hogarth

90. Edward Hopper (1882–1967)

American · American realism · birthplace: Upper Nyack

Where to start: Nighthawks, Gas, House by the Railroad

Hopper painted the loneliness of American cities: diners, gas stations, motel rooms and people lost in thought. Nighthawks (1942), with its brightly lit late-night diner seen from an empty street, is one of the most recognised American paintings and endlessly parodied in film and pop culture.

Edward Hopper: all 366 pieces

91. Georges de la Tour (1593–1652)

French · French Baroque · birthplace: Vic-sur-Seille

Georges de la Tour reproductions

Where to start: Magdalen with the Smoking Flame, The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds, The Fortune-Teller

Georges de La Tour painted figures lit by a single candle with geometric simplicity and silence. The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame and The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds are his masterpieces. Famous in his lifetime, he was completely forgotten until his rediscovery in 1915.

Georges de la Tour: all 98 pieces

92. Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939)

Czech · Art Nouveau · born in Ivančice

Alphonse Mucha reproductions

Known for: Gismonda, The Slav Epic, Job

Mucha's 1894 poster for Sarah Bernhardt in Gismonda made him famous overnight in Paris and defined the Art Nouveau look: women with flowing hair framed by halos, flowers and ornament. He then spent eighteen years on The Slav Epic, twenty huge canvases on the history of the Slavic peoples.

See all 338 pieces by Alphonse Mucha

93. Paolo Veronese (1528–1588)

Italian · Mannerism, Naturalism, Venetian school · birthplace: Verona

Paolo Veronese reproductions

Where to start: The Wedding at Cana, Feast in the House of Levi, The Choice Between Virtue and Vice

Veronese painted vast, colourful feasts in Venice with architecture, silks and crowds. The Wedding at Cana in the Louvre, almost 10 metres wide, is the largest painting in the museum's collection. His Feast in the House of Levi earned him a summons before the Inquisition, which he answered by changing the title.

Paolo Veronese: all 522 pieces

94. Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527–1593)

Italian · Mannerism · a native of Milan

Giuseppe Arcimboldo reproductions

Signature pieces: Vertumnus, Summer, Autumn

Arcimboldo, court painter to the Habsburg emperors in Vienna and Prague, composed portraits from fruit, vegetables, flowers, fish and books. Vertumnus, a portrait of Rudolf II made of produce, and the Four Seasons series were long seen as curiosities; the Surrealists made him one of their ancestors.

Browse 175 pieces by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

95. Franz Marc (1880–1916)

German · German Expressionism · born in Kreuzstraße

Franz Marc reproductions

Known for: The Large Blue Horses, Fate of the Animals, Fighting Forms

Franz Marc co-founded the Blue Rider group with Kandinsky and painted animals in symbolic colours: blue for the spiritual, yellow for the feminine, red for matter. The Large Blue Horses, Fate of the Animals and Fighting Forms are key German Expressionist works. He was killed at Verdun in 1916, aged 36.

See all 493 pieces by Franz Marc

96. Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901)

French · Post-Impressionism · birthplace: Albi

Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec reproductions

Where to start: At the Moulin Rouge, La Goulue Arriving at the Moulin Rouge with Two Women, Jane Avril Dancing

Toulouse-Lautrec painted the nightlife of Montmartre: the Moulin Rouge, cabarets, dancers and brothels. His posters for the Moulin Rouge and for Aristide Bruant, with flat colours and bold outlines borrowed from Japanese prints, turned the poster into an art form. He made 737 canvases before dying at 36.

Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec: all 810 pieces

97. William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905)

French · Academic art · born in La Rochelle

William-Adolphe Bouguereau reproductions

Known for: The Birth of Venus, Nymphs and Satyr, Faneuse

The most celebrated academic painter of his time, Bouguereau won every official honour in France. His mythological nudes and peasant children, such as The Birth of Venus (1879) and Nymphs and Satyr, show flawless technique. Dismissed by modernists for a century, he has returned to favour with collectors and museums.

See all 518 pieces by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

98. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882)

English · Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood · a native of London

Dante Gabriel Rossetti reproductions

Signature pieces: Beata Beatrix, Proserpine, Ecce Ancilla Domini!

Poet and painter, Rossetti co-founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848, which rejected academic art and looked back to early Italian painting. His later portraits of women with heavy hair and dreamy eyes, such as Beata Beatrix and Proserpine, defined the Victorian ideal of beauty and influenced Symbolism.

Browse 345 pieces by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

99. Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641)

Flemish · Baroque · birthplace: Antwerp

Anthony van Dyck reproductions

Where to start: Charles I in Three Positions, Self-Portrait, The Capture of Christ

Rubens' brilliant assistant became the court painter of Charles I of England. Van Dyck's elegant full-length portraits, such as Charles I at the Hunt, set the style of aristocratic portraiture in Britain for 150 years; a pointed beard is still called a 'Van Dyke'.

Anthony van Dyck: all 1,620 pieces

100. Camille Pissarro (1830–1903)

Danish-French · Impressionism · birthplace: Charlotte Amalie

Camille Pissarro reproductions

Where to start: The Boulevard Montmartre at Night, Red Roofs, Corner of a Village, Winter, The Jallais Hills, Pontoise

Pissarro was the only painter to show in all eight Impressionist exhibitions and the group's father figure, mentor to Cézanne and Gauguin. His views of villages, fields and markets and, later, his series of Paris boulevards seen from hotel windows, such as Boulevard Montmartre at Night, made modern life a subject for landscape.

Camille Pissarro: all 1,559 pieces