Giotto di Bondone

Italian Painter, Master Builder, Story Teller

Birth: 1267, Vespignano, Italy
Death: 8 January, 1337, Florence, Italy

Giotto was considered the first great artist of the Italian Renaissance. The art of Giotto was very lifelike, with all of his figures and postures drawn according to nature. As a boy Giotto apprenticed for Cimabue, a highly renowned Tuscany painter, and Duccio, a very influential artist in his day.

Sandro Botticelli

Early Italian Rennaisance Painter

Birth: 1444 or 1445, Florence, Italy
Death: May 17, 1510, Florence, Italy

Correggio

Italian Renaissance Painter, Parma School

Birth: August, 1489
Death: March 5, 1534

Antonio Allegri da Correggio produced some of the most sensuous and vigorous pieces of the 16th century. He used illusionistic perspective, dramatic foreshortening, and dynamic composition. He set the stage for 18th century Rococo art.

Leonardo da Vinci

Birth: April 15, 1452, village of Vinci, Italy
Death: May 2, 1519, Chateau de Cloux, near Amboise, France

The Ultimate Italian Renaissance Man: Painter, Sculptor, Architect, Mathematician, Engineer, Scientist, Inventor, Cartographer, Geologist, Botanist, Author

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Italian Renaissance Painter, Sculptor, Builder, Poet

Birth: 6 March, 1475, Caprese, Italy
Death: 18 February, 1564, Rome, Italy

He was called "The Divine Michelangelo" because his art was so perfect.

Titian (Tiziano Vecelli)

Italian High Renaissance Painter

Birth: approx 1477, place uncertain
Death: 27 August, 1576

Raphael

Italian High Renaissance Artist

Birth: 6 April, 1483, Urbino, Italy
Death: 6 April, 1520, Rome, Italy

Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio)

Italian Painter

Birth: 29 September, 1571, Milan, Italy
Death: 18 July, 1610, Porto d'Ercole

Francisco de Goya

Spanish Painter and Draughtsman

Birth: 30 March, 1746, Fuendetodos
Death: 16 April, 1828, Bordeaux

Pablo Picasso

Spanish Painter, Draughtsman, and Sculptor.

Birth: 25 October, 1881, Malaga, Spain
Death: 8 April, 1973, Mougins, France

Diego Velázquez

Spanish Painter

Birth: 6 June, 1599, Seville, Spain
Death: 7 August, 1660, Madrid, Spain

Joan Miro

Spanish Catalan Painter, Ceramist, Sculptor

Birth: 20 April, 1893, Barcelona, Spain
Death: 25 December, 1983, Palma de Mallorca, Spain

Salvador Dali

Spanish Surrealist Painter, Graphic Artist, Sculptor

Birth: 11 May, 1904, Figueras, Spain
Death: 23 January, 1989, Figueras, Spain

Salvador Dali was a highly imaginative artist who loved everything excessive. He produced more than 1500 paintings. His pieces are very interesting, strangely beautiful, and incredibly bizarre. The most famous piece is probably The Persistence of Memory. Why, for the love of God, would anyone paint Burning Giraffes?

Peter Paul Rubens

Flemish Baroque Painter

Birth: 28 June, 1577, Siegen
Death: 30 May, 1640, Antwerp

Jacques-Louis David

French Painter

Birth: 30 August, 1748, Paris
Death: 29 December, 1825, Brussels

Édouard Manet

French Painter and Graphic Artist

Birth: 23 January, 1832, Paris, France
Death: 30 April, 1883, Paris, France

Gustave Courbet

French Artist

Birth: 10 June, 1819, Ornans, France
Death: 31 December, 1877, Switzerland

Paul Cézanne

French Painter

Birth: 19 January, 1839, Aix-en-Provence, France
Death: 22 October, 1906, Aix-en-Provence, France

Claude Monet

French Painter

Birth: 14 November, 1840, Paris, France
Death: 6 December, 1926, Giverny, France

Georges Seurat

French Pointillist Painter

Birth: 2 December, 1859, Paris, France
Death: 29 March, 1891, Paris, France

Henri Matisse

French Painter

Birth: 31 December, 1869, Le Cateau-Cambresis, France
Death: 3 November, 1954, Nice, France

Jean Antoine Watteau

French Rococo Painter

Birth: 10 October, 1684, Valenciennes, France
Death: 18 July, 1721, Nogent-sur-Marne, France

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

French Impressionist Painter

Birth: 1841, Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France
Death: 1919, Cagnes-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-C�te d'Azur, France

During his life, Renoir produced several thousand paintings. His use of saturated colors and vibrant light gave his paintings a real warmth. They are some of the best known and most reproduced works in the world of art.

Paul Gauguin

French painter

Birth: 1848
Death: 1903

Henri de Toulouse Lautrec

French painter

Birth: 1864
Death: 1901

Caspar David Friedrich

German Painter

Birth: 5 September, 1774, Greifswald
Death: 7 May, 1840, Dresden

Max Beckmann

German Painter

Birth: 12 February, 1884, Leipzig, Germany
Death: 27 December, 1950, New York

Hans Holbein the Younger

German artist and printmaker

Birth: 1498, Augsburg
Death: November, 1543

Albrecht Dürer

German Painter, Draughtsman, Graphic Artist

Birth: 21 May, 1471, Nuremberg
Death: 6 April, 1528, Nuremberg

Lucas Cranach the Elder

German Painter, Chemist, Printer, Inn Keeper

Birth: October, 1472, Kronach, Germany
Death: 16 October, 1553, Weimar, Germany

William Turner

English Painter

Birth: 23 April, 1775, London, England
Death: 19 December, 1851, Chelsea, England

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

English Pre-Raphaelite Painter

Birth: 12 May, 1828, London, England
Death: 9 April, 1882, Birchington-on-sea, Kent, England

William Hogarth

English Painter, Copperplate Engraver, Caricaturist, Satirist

Birth: 10 November, 1697, London
Death: 25 October, 1764, London

Thomas Gainsborough

English Rococo Painter

Birth: 1727, Sudbury, Suffolk, England
Death: 2 August, 1788, London, England

Vincent van Gogh

Dutch Impressionist Painter

Birth: 30 March, 1853, Zundert, Holland
Death: 29 July, 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, France

Rembrandt van Rijn

Dutch Painter

Birth: 15 July, 1606, Leiden
Death: 4 October, 1669, Amsterdam

Jan Vermeer

Dutch Baroque Painter

Birth: 31 October, 1632, Delft, Netherlands
Death: 15 December, 1675, Delft, Netherlands

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Birth: 1525, Brabant
Death: September 9, 1569, Brussels

Dutch Renaissance painter and printmaker

Jan van Eyck

Dutch Painter

Birth: 1390, Maaseyck, Netherlands
Death: 23 June, 1441, Bruges, Netherlands

The van Eyck brothers, Jan and Hubert, produced very detailed panel paintings. They achieved new and remarkable effects using glazes, wet-on-wet, and other techniques.

Hieronymus Bosch

Dutch Painter

Birth: 1450, 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
Death: August 9, 1516

Hieronymus Bosch illustrated religious and moral ideas with fantastical imagery. He produced a number of triptychs (3 panel paintings), the most famous being The Garden of Earthly Delights, which featured scenes from heaven, earth, and hell.

M.C. Escher

Dutch Graphic Artist

Birth: 17 June, 1898, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
Death: 27 March, 1972, Laren, The Netherlands

The works of Maurits Cornelis Escher feature impossible architectures and constructions, with a strong mathematical basis, infinity explorations, and tessellations (no-gap tilings).

Gustav Klimt

Austrian Painter

Birth: 14 July, 1862, Baumgarten, Austria
Death: 6 February, 1918, Vienna, Austria

Wassily Kandinsky

Russian Painter

Birth: 4 December, 1866, Moscow, Russia
Death: 13 December, 1944, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France

Marc Chagall

Russian-French Painter, Graphic Artist, Stained-Glass Artist

Birth: 7 July, 1887, Liosno, Vitebsk, Russia
Death: 28 March, 1985, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France

Paul Klee

Swiss Painter and Draughtman

Birth: 18 December, 1879, Munchenbuchsee, Switzerland
Death: 29 June, 1940, Locarno-Muralto

Edward Hopper

20th Century American Painter

Birth: 22 July, 1882, Nyack, New York, USA
Death: 15 May, 1967, New York, USA

Ansel Adams

American Photographer And Environmentalist

Birth: 20 February, 1902
Death: 22 April, 1984

Specializing in black and white photography, Ansel Adams is most famous for his pictures of the American west, especially Yosemite in California. Ansel Adams and Fred Archer developed the "zone system", a photographic technique that determines optimal exposure and development. This gives better control over the final results.

Andy Warhol

American Painter, Graphic Artist, Designer, Film-Maker

Birth: 6 August, 1928, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Death: 22 February, 1987, New York

Edgar Degas

French Impressionist Painter

Birth: 19 July, 1834, Paris, France
Death: 27 September, 1917, Paris, France

Edvard Munch

Norwegian Painter

Birth: 12 December, 1863, �dalsbruk,Lten,Norway
Death: 23 January, 1944, Oslo, Norway

Georgia O'Keeffe

American painter

Birth: 1887
Death: 1986

Mary Cassatt

American painter

Birth: 1844
Death: 1926

Rene Magritte

Belgium painter

Birth: 1898
Death: 1967

Robert Bateman

Canadian Painter and Naturalist

Birth: 24 May, 1930, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Robert Bateman is a wonderful Canadian nature and wildlife artist. The incredible detail that he puts into his paintings make it seem like you are looking at the subject directly. He is truly one of the best.

Charles Marion Russell

American Old Western Painter

Birth: 19 March, 1864, St. Louis, Missouri
Death: 24 October, 1926, Great Falls, Montana

Charles Russell was fascinated with the wild west. His paintings are full of cowboys and indians, wagon trains, buffalos, and "home on the range" themes.

Gustav Doré

French Artist, Engraver (Wood and Steel), Book Illustrator, Sculptor

Birth: 6 January, 1832, Strasbourg, France
Death: 23 January, 1883, Paris, France

Gustav Doré illustrated many famous pieces of literature, including the works of Lord Byron, Cervantes's Don Quixote, Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, Doré's English Bible, Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Milton's Paradise Lost, Tennyson's The Idylls of the King, The Works ofThomas Hood, and The Divine Comedy. His pieces were intense and full of turmoil.

Edmund Dulac

Birth:
Death:

Norman Rockwell

20th Century American Painter and Illustrator

Birth: 3 February, 1894, New York City, USA
Death: 8 November, 1978, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, USA

Norman Rockwells' scenes of everyday American life graced the cover of the magazine The Saturday Evening Post for more than 40 years. Many of his pieces were quite humorous.

Henry Rouseau

Birth:
Death:

Thomas Kinkade

American Painter

Birth: 19 January, 1958, Sacramento, California, USA

Thomas Kinkade paints peaceful, idyllic scenes of stone cottages, streams, gardens, and Main Streets, using saturated pastel colors and glowing highlights.

Anne Geddes

Australian Photographer, Clothing Designer, Businesswoman

Birth: 13 September, 1956

Ann Geddes is well known for her photographs of babies dressed as sunflowers, bumblebees, roses, and teddybears. These pictures are very cute and would be a great addition to a nursery or childs bedroom.

John William Waterhouse

English Pre-Raphaelite Painter

Birth: 6 April, 1849, Rome, Italy
Death: 10 February, 1917, London, England

John William Waterhouse was famous for his depictions of females from Arthurian legends and Greek mythology.

Arthur Rackham

English Book Illustrator

Birth: 19 September, 1867
Death: 6 September, 1939

Arthur Rackham did book illustrations in monotone and in color. He illustrated many books, including The Ingoldsby Legends, Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, Gulliver's Travels, Rip van Winkle, Peter Pan, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Aesop's Fables, Mother Goose, The Romance of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, Irish Fairy Tales, and Hans Christian Andersens' Fairy Tales.

Cicely Mary Barker

English Illustrator, Creator of Flower Fairies

Birth: 28 June, 1895
Death: 16 February, 1973

Flower Fairies are smiling children with butterfly wings, placed among botanically accurate flowers. These lovely pieces would be wonderful additions to the walls of a little girls room or to a tea room.

Sophie Anderson

French-born British Painter

Birth: 1823, Paris, France
Death: 10 March, 1903, Falmouth, Cornwall, England

Sophie Anderson painted beautiful portraits of children and women.

Auguste Rodin

French Sculptor

Birth: 12 November, 1840, Paris, France
Death: 17 November, 1917, Meudon, �le-de-France, France

Auguste rodin sculpted many famous pieces, including The Thinker.

Frank Lloyd Wright

American Architect, Interior Designer, Writer, Educator

Birth: 8 June, 1867, Richland Center, Wisconsin, USA
Death: 9 April, 1959, Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Frank Lloyd Wright was a famous American architect. Of his more than 1000 projects, 500 were actually built.

William Blake

English Romanticist Poet, Painter, Printmaker

Birth: 28 November, 1812
Death: 12 August, 1827

Considered mad by his contemporaries, Blake claimed to experience visions throughout his life. These "visions" featured beautiful religious themes and imagery, which was prominent in his Poetry and Art. Blake believed that Archangels instructed and encouraged him, and that they were fans of his writings and art.

Diego Rivera

Mexican muralist painter

Birth: December 8, 1886
Death: November 24, 1957

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter and communist. His large fresco wall murals reflected his political leanings and helped establish Mexican muralism. He was married to Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.