Avant-gardes, abstraction and modernity

Top 100 painters of the 20th century: avant-gardes, abstraction and modernity

From Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Mondrian and Duchamp to Pollock, Rothko, Warhol, Basquiat, Richter, Hockney and Soulages, these are the artists who have shifted the boundaries of modern painting.

The 20th century not only changed styles: it changed the very idea of a painting. Painting becomes laboratory, manifesto, object, gesture, surface, media image, political memory, colored field or intimate story. It absorbs the city, war, advertising, psychoanalysis, photography and abstraction.

See the Top 100Understand selection
100classified painters
31existing collections
69wikipedia links
Pablo Picasso, figure majeure de la peinture du XXe siècle

Before the grid

A century where painting is constantly reinventing itself

At the beginning of the century, Fauvism liberated color, Cubism fragmented space, Futurism accelerated form and abstraction broke with imitation. Then Dada, surrealism, constructivism and expressionism further moved painting towards the unconscious, the machine, collage, politics and the body.

After 1945, the center of gravity widened: New York imposed abstract expressionism, Europe invented the informal, monochrome and material, while pop art, neo-expressionism and contemporary scenes reintroduced image, text, memory, street and popular culture.

Top 1 to 10

The founding shocks of the century

Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Malevich, Duchamp, Pollock, Rothko, Warhol and Dalí open the great divides: cubism, abstraction, action painting, pop art and surrealism.

Ranks 11 to 20

Surrealism, cubism and national modernities

Miro, Klee, Chagall, Braque, Léger, de Kooning, Hopper, O'Keeffe, Bacon and Klimt show that the 20th century never had a single direction.

Ranks 21 to 30

Expression, School of Paris and muralism

Schiele, Munch, Modigliani, De Chirico, Magritte, Ernst, Kahlo, Rivera, Delaunay and Sonia Delaunay combine body, dream, color and politics.

Ranks 31 to 40

Futurism, constructivism and Dada

Boccioni, Balla, Goncharova, Popova, Ekster, Lissitzky, Rodchenko, Taeuber-Arp, Schwitters and Höch explode the painting towards the stage, the object, the collage and the construction.

Ranks 41 to 50

Expressionism, satire and modern material

Beckmann, Dix, Grosz, Kirchner, Nolde, Kokoschka, Soutine, Morandi, Balthus and Dubuffet keep the figure, but make it stranger, rougher, more modern.

Ranks 51 to 60

Post-war: surface, gesture and material

De Staël, Klein, Fontana, Burri, Tàpies, Soulages, Richter, Kiefer, Hockney and Riley move painting towards monochrome, space, imprint and perception.

Ranks 61 to 70

American abstraction and printed image

Agnes Martin, Frankenthaler, Newman, Still, Kline, Krasner, Mitchell, Twombly, Rauschenberg and Johns redefine the American pictorial field.

Ranks 71 to 80

Pop, street, late surrealism and inner stories

Lichtenstein, Basquiat, Haring, Kusama, Carrington, Tanning, Varo, Lempicka, Rego and Dumas connect popular culture, identity, dreams and the body.

Ranks 81 to 90

Contemporary painting and neo-expressionism

Cecily Brown, Neo Rauch, Baselitz, Polke, Kippenberger, Freud, Picabia, Dufy, Marquet and Derain show the persistence of painting after all the ruptures.

Ranks 91 to 100

Fauves, Americas, Portugal and modern China

Vlaminck, Bonnard, Vuillard, Van Dongen, Lam, Matta, Tamayo, Tarsila, Vieira da Silva and Zao Wou-Ki expand the 20th century towards other lights and continents.

Method

How the 100 painters were selected

The selection favors artists who have lastingly changed 20th century painting: formal invention, historical influence, visual force, role in an avant-garde, ability to open a language or embody a decisive moment.

The ranking balances the major movements - Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, Dada, Surrealism, Expressionism, Abstraction, Pop Art, Figuration and Contemporary Painting - as well as several geographies, from Europe to the Americas, from Russia to Japan, from Mexico to Brazil.

Where to start?

Three paths in the 20th century

For the historical avant-gardes, start with Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Malevich, Duchamp, Léger, Delaunay, Boccioni and Popova. For the painting of dreams and the unconscious, go to Dalí, Miro, Magritte, Ernst, Kahlo, Carrington, Tanning and Varo.

For post-war and contemporary painting, continue with Pollock, Rothko, de Kooning, Krasner, Mitchell, Soulages, Fontana, Warhol, Basquiat, Richter, Kiefer, Hockney and Kusama.

The 20th century, when painting learned to start all over again

These hundred artists show a century of ruptures, but also of continuities. Even when painting claims to die, it returns differently: as pure color, trace, object, poster, memory, body, screen or surface.

From cubism to abstraction, from surrealism to pop art, from expressionism to the colorful field, the 20th century remains the great laboratory where painting discovers that it can be almost anything - except immobile.

Review the Top 10

0 comments

Leave a comment

Please note that comments must be approved before they are published.