Albrecht Dürer

German artist of the Renaissance period. (1471–1528) was born in the Franconian city of Nuremberg. He was a brilliant painter, draftsman, and writer, though his first and probably greatest artistic impact was in the medium of printmaking. More than any other Northern European artist, Dürer was engaged by the artistic practices and theoretical interests of Italy. Dürer developed a new interest in the human form, as demonstrated by his nude and antique studies. Italian theoretical pursuits also resonated deeply with the artist. 

GUSTAVE COURBET

GUSTAVE COURBET (1819-1877) – Leading figure of realism, and a clear precedent for the impressionists, Courbet was one of the greatest revolutionaries, both as an artist and as a social-activist, of the history of painting. Like Rembrandt and other predecessors, Courbet did not seek to create beauty, but believed that beauty is achieved when and artist represents the purest reality without artifice

ANDY WARHOL

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987) – Brilliant and controversial, Warhol is the leading figure of pop-art and one of the icons of contemporary art. His silkscreen series depicting icons of the mass-media (as a reinterpretation of Monet's series of Water lilies or the Rouen Cathedral) are one of the milestones of contemporary Art, with a huge influence in the Art of our days

PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA

PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA (1416-1492) - Despite being one of the most important figures of the quattrocento, the Art of Piero della Francesca has been described as “cold”, “hieratic” or even “impersonal”. But with the apparition of Berenson and the great historians of his era, like Michel Hérubel -who defended the “metaphysical dimension” of the paintings by Piero-, his precise and detailed Art finally occupied the place that it deserves in the Art history

FRANCISCO DE GOYA

FRANCISCO DE GOYA (1746-1828) - Goya is an enigma. In the whole History of Art few figures are as complex as the artist born in Fuendetodos, Spain. Enterprising and indefinable, a painter with no rival in all his life, Goya was the painter of the Court and the painter of the people. He was a religious painter and a mystical painter. He was the author of the beauty and eroticism of the 'Maja desnuda' and the creator of the explicit horror of 'The Third of May, 1808'. He was an oil painter, a fresco painter, a sketcher and an engraver. And he never stopped his metamorphosis

JACKSON POLLOCK

JACKSON POLLOCK (1912-1956) – The major figure of American Abstract Expressionism, Pollock created his best works, his famous drips, between 1947 and 1950. After those fascinating years, comparable to Picasso’s blue period or van Gogh’s final months in Auvers, he abandoned the drip, and his latest works are often bold, unexciting works.

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER (1775-1851) – Turner is the best landscape painter of Western painting. Whereas he had been at his beginnings an academic painter, Turner was slowly but unstoppably evolving towards a free, atmospheric style, sometimes even outlining the abstraction, which was misunderstood and rejected by the same critics who had admired him for decades.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born February 25, 1841 in Limoges, France. When Renoir was young, he was a shoe tailor and a dress maker. When he was 13 be began decorating porcelain dishes. He was also close friends with Claude Monet.

Renoir believed that a person should work with his hands. He felt that working with his hands was what made him a working man. Some of his most famous paintings are portraits of women and groups of people. Renoir's paintings were done in the Impressionist style. People felt his use of color and light in his paintings, plus his talent for painting people, were what made his paintings so beautiful.

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was born on December 31, 1869 in Le Cateau Cambresis, France. He first got a degree in law and then decided to becoe an artist. He studied for three years with Gustave Moreau. He learned a lot by copying paintings by other great artists, such as Raphael.
Matisse was one of the founders of a type of art called Fauvism. He liked to do paintings with people because it made it easy for him to express his feelings about life. He especially liked to paint women, because he said they held the answer to the mystery of life. Matisse also did many pieces of art using cut paper. He was also a sculptor and an etcher.

Because Matisse had cancer, he became confined to a wheelchair. From his wheelchair, he completed one of his most famous works, painting the inside of the Chapelle du Rosaire. Matisse died in 1954.

Claude Monet

Claude Monet was born in 1840 on November 14 in Paris. He grew up in LeHaver, near the sea. Even when he was young he was a very good artist. His pictures were so good that an art supply store let him hang his pictures in their window.
Monet's parents did not want him to become an artist because they thought he would not make a good living. That did not stop him though. When he was 20, he studied art at an inexpensive art school in Paris.
Monet often went on trips around France to paint. Sometimes, his friend Camille came along. Camille later became Monet's wife. They had two sons, Jean and Michel. In 1878, Camille got sick and died. A few years later, Monet got married again to a woman named Alice.
Later, Monet and his family moved to Giverny, a small town near Paris. This is where he painted his Impressionist wheatstack and cathedral paintings that became very famous. Their house also had a wonderful garden with a lily pond that had a Japanese bridge across it. These were his favorite things to paint.

Monet died in 1926 in Giverny. Many people came to his funeral. Unlike many artists, he was famous even before he died. Now his house in Giverny is a museum that is visited by many people

Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali was born in Spain in 1904. When he was a child, he showed strange behavior and often interrupted his class in school. As he got older, he started to paint pictures that came from his dreams. His dreams and his paintings were scary and unreal.
Dali went to art school in Madrid, Spain. He got kicked out, and never finished. He even spent time in jail. However, he continued to paint, and his art style became known as Surrealism. Salvador Dali drew everyday items, but changed them in odd ways. For example, one of his paintings is of melting clocks.

Before he died at the age of 85 in 1989, Dali had created works in film, ballet, opera, fashion, jewelry, and advertising illustrations.

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall was born on July 7, 1887 in Vitebsk, Russia. In 1932 he moved to France. He lived in the United States from 1941 to 1948, and then returned to France. He died in France on March 28. 1985.

His painting styles are Expressionism and Cubism. In his paintings, he often painted violinists because he played the violin and also in memory of his uncle, who also played. He was also famous for his paintings of Russian-Jewish villages.