PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: sculpture
Italian artist, engineer, and scientist
Leonardo da Vinci Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His...
Italian artist
Michelangelo Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, and poet who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Michelangelo was considered the greatest living artist in...
Spanish artist
Pablo Picasso Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most-influential artists of the 20th century and the creator (with Georges Braque)...
French artist
Edgar Degas French painter, sculptor, and printmaker who was prominent in the Impressionist group and widely celebrated for his images of Parisian life. Degas’s principal subject was the human—especially...
Italian artist
Gian Lorenzo Bernini Italian artist who was perhaps the greatest sculptor of the 17th century and an outstanding architect as well. Bernini created the Baroque style of sculpture and developed it to such...
British artist
Henry Moore English sculptor whose organically shaped, abstract, bronze and stone figures constitute the major 20th-century manifestation of the humanist tradition in sculpture. Much of his work is monumental,...
French artist
Honoré Daumier was a prolific French caricaturist, painter, and sculptor especially renowned for his cartoons and drawings satirizing 19th-century French politics and society. His paintings, though hardly...
Italian sculptor
Donatello was a master of sculpture in both marble and bronze, one of the greatest of all Italian Renaissance artists. A good deal is known about Donatello’s life and career, but little is known about...
French sculptor
Auguste Rodin French sculptor of sumptuous bronze and marble figures, considered by some critics to be the greatest portraitist in the history of sculpture. His The Gates of Hell, commissioned in 1880...
Italian sculptor
Lorenzo Ghiberti was an early Italian Renaissance sculptor, whose doors (Gates of Paradise; 1425–52) for the Baptistery of the cathedral of Florence are considered one of the greatest masterpieces of Italian...
Romanian-French sculptor
Constantin Brancusi was a pioneer of modern abstract sculpture whose works in bronze and marble are characterized by a restrained, elegant use of pure form and exquisite finishing. A passionate wood-carver,...
American artist
Alexander Calder was an American artist best known for his innovation of the mobile suspended sheet metal and wire assemblies that are activated in space by air currents. Visually fascinating and emotionally...
Italian painter and sculptor
Andrea del Verrocchio 15th-century Florentine sculptor and painter and the teacher of Leonardo da Vinci. His equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, erected in Venice in 1496, is particularly important....
American sculptor and filmmaker
Joseph Cornell was an American self-taught artist and filmmaker and one of the originators of the form of sculpture called assemblage, in which unlikely objects are joined in an unorthodox unity. He is...
Spanish artist
Joan Miró Catalan painter who combined abstract art with Surrealist fantasy. His mature style evolved from the tension between his fanciful, poetic impulse and his vision of the harshness of modern life....
Dutch sculptor
Claus Sluter influential master of early Netherlandish sculpture, who moved beyond the dominant French taste of the time and into highly individual monumental, naturalistic forms. The works of Claus Sluter...
Swiss sculptor and painter
Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor and painter, best known for his attenuated sculptures of solitary figures. His work has been compared to that of the existentialists in literature. Giacometti displayed...
Italian artist
Benvenuto Cellini was a Florentine sculptor, goldsmith, and writer. He was one of the most important Mannerist artists and, because of the lively account of himself and his period in his autobiography,...
Chinese activist and artist
Ai Weiwei Chinese artist and activist who produced a multifaceted array of creative work, including sculptural installations, architectural projects, photographs, and videos. While Ai’s art was lauded...
Italian artist
Amedeo Modigliani Italian painter and sculptor whose portraits and nudes—characterized by asymmetrical compositions, elongated figures, and a simple but monumental use of line—are among the most-important...
Korean artist, critic, philosopher, and poet
Lee Ufan Korean artist, critic, philosopher, and poet who was a prominent theorist and proponent of the Tokyo-based movement of young artists from the late 1960s through the early ’70s known as Mono-ha...
Italian sculptor
Antonio Canova, marchese d’Ischia was an Italian sculptor, one of the greatest exponents of Neoclassicism. Among his works are the tombs of popes Clement XIV (1783–87) and Clement XIII (1787–92) and statues...
English-born Mexican painter and sculptor
Leonora Carrington English-born Mexican Surrealist artist and writer known for her haunting, autobiographical, somewhat inscrutable paintings that incorporate images of sorcery, metamorphosis, alchemy,...
Italian sculptor
Nicola Pisano sculptor whose work, along with that of his son Giovanni and other artists employed in their workshops, created a new sculptural style for the late 13th and the 14th centuries in Italy. Pisano’s...
American artist
Eva Hesse German-born American painter and sculptor known for using unusual materials such as rubber tubing, fibreglass, synthetic resins, cord, cloth, and wire. Hesse had a prolific yet short career,...
Italian sculptor
Giovanni Pisano sculptor, sometimes called the only true Gothic sculptor in Italy. He began his career under the classicist influence of his father, Nicola, and carried on this tradition after his father’s...
American painter, sculptor, and printmaker
Ellsworth Kelly American painter, sculptor, and printmaker who was a leading exponent of the hard-edge style, in which abstract contours are sharply and precisely defined. Though often associated with...
American sculptor and architect
Maya Lin American architect and sculptor concerned with environmental themes who is best known for her design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The daughter of intellectuals who had...
British sculptor and draftsman
Antony Gormley British sculptor and draftsman best known for his work with human forms, which he created chiefly from casts of his own naked body. In these artworks he examined aspects of the human presence...
American sculptor and educator
Augusta Savage was an American sculptor and educator who battled racism to secure a place for African American women in the art world. Augusta Fells began modeling figures from the red-clay soil of her...
American artist
Felix Gonzalez-Torres Cuban-born American sculptor, photographer, and conceptual artist known for work in a variety of media that addresses issues of identity, desire, originality, loss, the metaphor of...
German artist
Max Ernst was a German painter and sculptor who was one of the leading advocates of irrationality in art and an originator of the Automatism movement of Surrealism. He became a naturalized citizen of both...
British artist
Tracey Emin British artist noted for using a wide range of media—including drawing, video, and installation art, as well as sculpture and painting—and her own life as the subject of her art. Her works...
American sculptor
Augustus Saint-Gaudens generally acknowledged to be the foremost American sculptor of the late 19th century, noted for his evocative memorial statues and for the subtle modeling of his low reliefs. Saint-Gaudens...
American artist
Dale Chihuly American artist whose glass sculptures—often presented in complex and dynamic public projects—led to a resurgence of interest in that medium. Chihuly studied interior design at the University...
American artist
Richard Serra American sculptor who is best known for his large-scale abstract steel sculptures, whose substantial presence forces viewers to engage with the physical qualities of the works and their particular...
Japanese artist
Yayoi Kusama Japanese artist who was a self-described “obsessional artist,” known for her extensive use of polka dots and for her infinity installations. She employed painting, sculpture, performance art,...
American sculptor
Isamu Noguchi American sculptor and designer, one of the strongest advocates of the expressive power of organic abstract shapes in 20th-century American sculpture. Noguchi spent his early years in Japan,...
British artist
Yinka Shonibare British artist of Nigerian heritage known for his examination of such ideas as authenticity, identity, colonialism, and power relations in often-ironic drawings, paintings, sculptures,...
American artist
Claes Oldenburg Swedish-born American Pop-art sculptor, best known for his giant soft sculptures of everyday objects. Much of Oldenburg’s early life was spent in the United States, Sweden, and Norway,...
American painter, printmaker, sculptor, and filmmaker
Julian Schnabel American painter, printmaker, sculptor, and filmmaker who was one of a number of international painters—including David Salle in the United States, Georg Baselitz in Germany, and Francesco...
American sculptor
William Edmondson self-taught sculptor who was the first African American to have a solo exhibition (1937) at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The son of freed slaves, Edmondson moved at age...
French sculptor
Jean-Antoine Houdon French sculptor whose religious and mythological works are definitive expressions of the 18th-century Rococo style of sculpture. Elements of classicism and naturalism are also evident...
American artist
Lee Bontecou American artist whose work ranged from dark, dramatic abstract constructions to softer, transparent natural forms, evoking a correspondingly broad range of response. Bontecou studied art at...
British sculptor
Anish Kapoor Indian-born British sculptor known for his use of abstract biomorphic forms and his penchant for rich colours and polished surfaces. He was also the first living artist to be given a solo...
American sculptor
Edmonia Lewis was an American sculptor whose Neoclassical works exploring religious and classical themes won contemporary praise and received renewed interest in the late 20th century. Lewis was the daughter...
Colombian artist
Fernando Botero Colombian artist known for his paintings and sculptures of inflated human and animal shapes. As a youth, Botero attended a school for matadors for several years, but his true interest was...
Russian artist
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel Russian painter, sculptor, and draftsman who was a pioneer of Modernism with an original vision. An innovator by nature, Vrubel rejected tradition, but he was out of step...
French artist
Jean Arp was a French sculptor, painter, and poet who was one of the leaders of the European avant-garde in the arts during the first half of the 20th century. Arp was of French Alsatian and German ancestry,...
American sculptor
Bessie Potter Vonnoh American sculptor known for her delicate portrayals in bronze of mothers and children and young women. Her Impressionistic style and intimate designs set her apart from other sculptors...