I have Seen Jackson Pollocks work in a art gallery in Los Angeles 4 months ago, he is quite good, I do like Pablo Picasso & Salvador Dalí, as I like Cubism & Surrealism
Zdzislaw Beksinski, Salvador Dali, Kay Sage, Wassily Kandinsky, Vincent Van Gogh. And some Jan Steen.
I love Cubism and Surrealism, as well. :icon_bigg Pablo Picasso started the Cubism movement, with the Analytical Cubism style, and then it evolved into Synthetic Cubism, with lots of bright colors, if I recall correctly.
A note about Vincent Van Gogh- looking at pictures of his paintings on websites and in books is one thing, but if you are a fan of his paintings, you MUST see one in the original to appreciate his style. I know that sounds artsy-fartsy, but I have seen three of his paintings in museums (Irises, The Mulberry Tree, and Portrait of a Peasant.), and his very thick brushstrokes are so three-dimensional that pictures don't do them justice.
Helene Schjerfbeck is my favourite painter. Picasso is nice as well, Egon Schiele, too. Oh, and Monet, Matisse, Renoir, Van Gogh... There're too many I like Helene is #1 though.
Although most of her work isn't technically in paint, Sienna Morris. Definitely. She creates all of her art with numbers. It's remarkable.
Rothko is probably my favorite. Robert Motherwell, Kara Walker, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Michelangelo Pistoletto, George Grosz, Otto Dix, Rudolf Schlichter, Elizabeth Catlett, Max Beckmann, Egon Schiele, Jacob Lawrence, William Johnson, Chris Ofili, Oskar Kokoshka, Anselm Kiefer, John Sloan, Edward Hopper, Colin Brown, Marcel Duchamp, Jean-Michele Basquiat, Robert Gwathmey, and Fernando Botero ... to name a few. I love, love, love art. Of all times and types, but I really prefer 20th century art, especially the expressionist, dada, ashcan, american realism, color theory, and conceptual art movements. Unfortunately my education and exposure to art is pretty limited to western artists. ---------- Post added 23rd Mar 2013 at 06:30 PM ---------- How could I have forgotten Bob Ross?! Its not so much his art that I love (though it is beautiful) its the way that he has made art accessible that really makes me love him. His philosophy on art and life that he shares as he paints is brilliant. Love him.
As of now, my two favorites would probably be Francisco Goya and Caspar David Friedrich. While I love painting there are a great deal of artists I've specifically explored, but I also love Thomas Hart Benton, Albrecht Durer, Thomas Eakins, El Greco, Claude Monet [and many of the 'Impressionists' in general,] Winslow Homer, Norman Rockwell [yeah, I said it,] J. M. W. Turner, Andrew Wyeth. More modern art is my Achilles heel and an area I hope to learn more about, in additon to getting back into reading about art in general. On a particular note I read the second volume of an ongoing Picasso biography [spanning from 1917 to 1932] last year which made me much more interested in him and his work.