List of French artists
Encyclopedia
The following is a chronological list of French artists working in visual or plastic media (plus, for some artists of the 20th century, performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...

). For alphabetical lists, see the various subcategories of Category:French artists. See other articles for information on French literature
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...

, French music
Music of France
France has a wide variety of indigenous folk music, as well as styles played by immigrants from Africa, Latin America and Asia. In the field of classical music, France has produced a number of legendary composers, while modern pop music has seen the rise of popular French hip hop, techno/funk,...

, French cinema
Cinema of France
The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...

 and French culture
Culture of France
The culture of France and of the French people has been shaped by geography, by profound historical events, and by foreign and internal forces and groups. France, and in particular Paris, has played an important role as a center of high culture and of decorative arts since the seventeenth...

.

Middle Ages

See also Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

, Illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...

  • Villard de Honnecourt
    Villard de Honnecourt
    Villard de Honnecourt was a 13th-century artist from Picardy in northern France. He is known to history only through a surviving portfolio of 33 sheets of parchment containing about 250 drawings dating from the 1220s/1240s, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris...

     (13th century) other media
  • Jean Pucelle
    Jean Pucelle
    Jean Pucelle was a Parisian Gothic-era manuscript illuminator, active between 1320 and 1350. His style is characterized by delicate figures rendered in grisaille, accented with touches of color....

     (active 1325–28) other media
  • Claus Sluter
    Claus Sluter
    Claus Sluter was a sculptor of Dutch origin. He was the most important northern European sculptor of his age and is considered a pioneer of the "northern realism" of the Early Netherlandish painting that came into full flower with the work of Jan van Eyck and others in the next generation.Sluter...

     (Dutch, worked in Burgundy from 1395–1406) sculptor
  • the Limbourg brothers
    Limbourg brothers
    The Limbourg brothers, or in Dutch Gebroeders van Limburg , were famous Dutch miniature painters from the city of Nijmegen. They were active in the early 15th century in France and Burgundy, working in the style known as International Gothic...

     (Pol and Hermann) (Flemish artists working in Burgundy around 1403–1416) other media

Renaissance

See also Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

, Francis I of France
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...

, Henry II of France
Henry II of France
Henry II was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559.-Early years:Henry was born in the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, the son of Francis I and Claude, Duchess of Brittany .His father was captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 by his sworn enemy,...

, Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici was an Italian noblewoman who was Queen consort of France from 1547 until 1559, as the wife of King Henry II of France....

, Henry III of France
Henry III of France
Henry III was King of France from 1574 to 1589. As Henry of Valois, he was the first elected monarch of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the dual titles of King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1573 to 1575.-Childhood:Henry was born at the Royal Château de Fontainebleau,...

, Henry IV of France
Henry IV of France
Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....

, Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

, Fontainebleau, Châteaux of the Loire Valley
Châteaux of the Loire Valley
The châteaux of the Loire Valley are part of the architectural heritage of the historic towns of Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Nantes, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours along the Loire River in France...

  • Jacques Morel (artist) (c.1395–1459) sculptor
  • Simon Marmion
    Simon Marmion
    Simon Marmion was a French or Burgundian Early Netherlandish painter of panels and illuminated manuscripts...

     (c.1420–1489) Illuminations
  • Jean Fouquet
    Jean Fouquet
    Jean Fouquet was a preeminent French painter of the 15th century, a master of both panel painting and manuscript illumination, and the apparent inventor of the portrait miniature. He was the first French artist to travel to Italy and experience at first hand the Italian Early...

     (1420–1481) painter, Illuminations
  • Nicolas Froment
    Nicolas Froment
    Nicolas Froment was a French painter.-See also:*Early Renaissance painting...

     (c.1450–c.1490) painter
  • Pierre Antoine Le Moiturier (active in the 1460s) sculptor
  • Jean Clouet
    Jean Clouet
    Jean Clouet was a miniaturist and painter who worked in France during the Renaissance. He was the father of François Clouet.-Biography:Clouet was allegedly born in Brussels....

     (c.1485–1541) (Flemish born) painter, Miniatures
  • Jean Duvet
    Jean Duvet
    Jean Duvet was a French Renaissance goldsmith and engraver, now best known for his engravings. He was the first significant French printmaker. He had a highly personal style, often compared to that of William Blake, with very crowded plates, a certain naive quality, and intense religious feeling...

     (c.1485–c.1570) engraver
  • Jehan Cousin the elder (1500–1593) painter, engraver, sculptor
  • Ligier Richier
    Ligier Richier
    Ligier Richier was a French sculptor active in Saint-Mihiel.Richier primarily worked in the churches of his native Saint-Mihiel. From 1530, he was under the protection of Duke Antoine of Lorraine, for whom he did important work. Ligier Richier did work in wood, but preferred pale, soft limestone...

     (1500–1567) sculptor
  • Philibert Delorme (or de L'Orme) (1505/1510–1570) sculptor, Architectural plans
  • Pierre Bontemps
    Pierre Bontemps
    Pierre Bontemps was a French sculptor known for his funeral monuments, was, with Germain Pilon, one of the pre-eminent sculptors of the French Renaissance....

     (1505/1510–after 1562) sculptor
  • Jean Goujon
    Jean Goujon
    Jean Goujon was a French Renaissance sculptor and architect.-Biography:His early life is little known; he was likely born in Normandy and may have traveled in Italy...

     (c.1510–1565?) sculptor
  • Bernard Palissy
    Bernard Palissy
    Bernard Palissy was a French Huguenot potter, hydraulics engineer and craftsman, famous for having struggled for sixteen years to imitate Chinese porcelain...

     (1510–1590) Master potter
  • Jacques Androuet du Cerceau (c1510–1585) Architectural plans
  • Jean Juste (active 1515–1530) sculptor
  • François Clouet
    François Clouet
    François Clouet , son of Jean Clouet, was a French Renaissance miniaturist and painter, particularly known for his detailed portraits of the French ruling family.-Historical references:Clouet was born in Tours....

     (c.1515–1572) (son of Jean Clouet) painter
  • Pierre Lescot
    Pierre Lescot
    Pierre Lescot was a French architect active during the French Renaissance, "the man who was first responsible for the implantation of pure and correct classical architecture in France." He was born in Paris....

     (c.1515–1578) sculptor, Architect
  • Antoine Caron
    Antoine Caron
    Antoine Caron was a French master glassmaker, illustrator, Northern Mannerist painter and a product of the School of Fontainebleau.He is one of the few French painters of his time who had a pronounced artistic personality...

     (c.1521–1599) painter
  • Jehan Cousin the younger
    Jehan Cousin the younger
    Jehan Cousin the younger was born in Sens, France around 1522, the son of the famous painter and sculptor Jean Cousin the Elder ca. 1490–ca. 1560) who was often compared to his noted contemporary, Albrecht Dürer...

     (c. 1522–1593) painter
  • Germain Pilon
    Germain Pilon
    Germain Pilon was a French Renaissance sculptor.-Biography:He was born in Paris. Trained by his father and Pierre Bontemps, Pilon was an expert with marble, bronze, wood and terra cotta; from about 1555 he was providing models for Parisian goldsmiths...

     (c.1535–1590) sculptor
  • Ambroise Dubois
    Ambroise Dubois
    Ambroise Dubois , was a Flemish-born French painter.Dubois was a painter of the second School of Fontainebleau. His influences were Niccolò dell'Abbate and Francesco Primaticcio. Dubois painted primarily portraits and mythological scenes.-References:...

     (c.1542–1614) (Flemish born) painter
  • Barthélemy Prieur
    Barthélemy Prieur
    Barthélemy Prieur was a French sculptor.Prieur was born to a Huguenot family in Berzieux, Champagne . He traveled to Italy, where he worked from 1564 to 1568 for Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy in Turin...

     (c.1536–1616) sculptor
  • Toussaint Dubreuil
    Toussaint Dubreuil
    Toussaint Dubreuil was a French painter associated with the second School of Fontainebleau...

     (c.1561–1602) painter
  • Martin Fréminet
    Martin Fréminet
    Martin Fréminet , was a French painter.-Biography:According to the RKD he was a painter and engraver who is considered a member of the Second "School of Fontainebleau". He was the teacher of Toussaint Dubreuil who assisted him at Fontainebleau...

     (1567–1619) painter
  • Frans Pourbus the younger
    Frans Pourbus the younger
    Frans Pourbus the younger was a Flemish painter, son of Frans Pourbus the Elder and grandson of Pieter Pourbus. He was born in Antwerp and died in Paris...

     (1569–1622) (Flemish born) painter
  • Jacques Bellange
    Jacques Bellange
    Jacques Bellange was an artist and printmaker from the Duchy of Lorraine whose etchings and some drawings are his only securely identified works today. They are among the most striking Mannerist old master prints, mostly on Catholic religious subjects, and with a highly individual style...

     (1575–1616) (in Lorraine) engraver
  • Jean Decourt (active 1570s) painter
  • François Quesnel
    François Quesnel
    François Quesnel was a French painter of Scottish extraction.The son of the French painter Pierre Quesnel and his Scottish wife Madeleine Digby, born in Edinburgh while his father worked for Mary of Guise, Quesnel found patronage at the French court of Catherine de Medici and her son, Henri III...

     (active 1580s) painter
  • Pierre Quesnel
    Pierre Quesnel
    Pierre Quesnel was a 16th-century French artist who worked in Scotland.Pierre worked in Scotland for Mary of Guise and James V. He is listed as an Usher in Guise's household and is identified as the queen's painter in the Scottish Treasurer's Accounts...

     (c.1502-1580) painter
  • Jacques Patin (active 1580s) engraver
  • Claude Deruet
    Claude Deruet
    Claude Deruet was a famous French Baroque painter of the 17th century, from the city of Nancy.-Biography:Deruet was an apprentice to Jacques Bellange, the official court painter to Charles III, Duke of Lorraine. He was in Rome between ca. 1612 and 1619, where - according to André Félibien - he...

     (1588–1660) (in Lorraine) painter

Seventeenth century

See also French Baroque and Classicism
French Baroque and Classicism
17th-century French art is generally referred to as Baroque, but from the mid to late 17th century, French art is more often referred to as Neo-classicism, which implies an adherence to certain rules of proportion and sobriety uncharacteristic of the Baroque as it was practiced in Southern and...

, Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1610 to 1643.Louis was only eight years old when he succeeded his father. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis' minority...

, Cardinal Richelieu, Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

, Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

, Palace of Versailles
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....

, Classicism
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...

  • Jean de Beaugrand
    Jean de Beaugrand
    Jean de Beaugrand was the foremost French lineographer of the seventeenth century. Though born in Mulhouse, de Beaugrand moved to Paris in 1581. He also worked as a mathematician and published works on geostatics...

     (1584–1640) lineographer
  • Simon Vouet
    Simon Vouet
    Simon Vouet was a French painter and draftsman, who today is perhaps best remembered for helping to introduce the Italian Baroque style of painting to France.-Life:...

     (1590–1649) painter
  • Jacques Callot
    Jacques Callot
    Jacques Callot was a baroque printmaker and draftsman from the Duchy of Lorraine . He is an important figure in the development of the old master print...

     (1592–1635) (in Lorraine) engraver
  • Georges de La Tour
    Georges de La Tour
    Georges de La Tour was a French Baroque painter, who spent most of his working life in the Duchy of Lorraine, which was temporarily absorbed into France between 1641 and 1648...

     (1593–1652) painter
  • Nicolas Poussin
    Nicolas Poussin
    Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...

     (1594–1665) painter
  • Antoine Le Nain
    Le Nain
    The three Le Nain brothers were painters in 17th-century France: Antoine Le Nain , Louis Le Nain , and Mathieu Le Nain...

     (before 1600–?) painter
  • Louis Le Nain
    Le Nain
    The three Le Nain brothers were painters in 17th-century France: Antoine Le Nain , Louis Le Nain , and Mathieu Le Nain...

     (after 1600–?) painter
  • Nicolas Lagneau
    Nicolas Lagneau
    Nicolas Lagneau was a French draftsman noted for his portrait drawings. He was especially interested in grotesque physiognomies, which he drew in meticulous detail either from models or from his imagination. His drawings are usually executed in black and red chalk, sometimes with the addition of...

     (fl c. 1600–c. 1650), draftsman
  • Abraham Bosse
    Abraham Bosse
    Abraham Bosse was a French artist, mainly as a printmaker in etching, but also in watercolour.-Life:...

     (1602–1676) engraver
  • Claude Gelée, called Claude Lorrain
    Claude Lorrain
    Claude Lorrain, , traditionally just Claude in English Claude Lorrain, , traditionally just Claude in English (also Claude Gellée, his real name, or in French Claude Gellée, , dit le Lorrain) Claude Lorrain, , traditionally just Claude in English (also Claude Gellée, his real name, or in French...

     (1600–1682) painter
  • Philippe de Champaigne
    Philippe de Champaigne
    Philippe de Champaigne was a Flemish-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school.-Early life:Born in Brussels of a poor family, Champaigne was a pupil of the landscape painter Jacques Fouquières...

     (1602–1674)
  • Pierre-Antoine Lemoine
    Pierre-Antoine Lemoine
    Pierre-Antoine Lemoine was a French painter known for still lifes. He died in Paris. His Still Life with Bunches of Grapes, Figs, and Pomegranates shows Italian influence, and may have been exhibited for the Academy in 1654....

     (1605–1665) still-life painter
  • Laurent de La Hyre
    Laurent de La Hyre
    Laurent de La Hyre was a French Baroque painter, born in Paris.La Hyre was greatly influenced by the work of Italian artists who came to Paris. He became a pupil of Georges Lallemand and studied the works of Primaticcio at Fontainebleau, but never visited Italy...

     (1606–1565) painter
  • Mathieu Le Nain
    Le Nain
    The three Le Nain brothers were painters in 17th-century France: Antoine Le Nain , Louis Le Nain , and Mathieu Le Nain...

     (1607–c.1677) painter
  • Pierre Mignard
    Pierre Mignard
    Pierre Mignard , called "Le Romain" to distinguish him from his brother Nicolas Mignard, was a French painter...

     (1612–1695) painter
  • Gaspard Dughet
    Gaspard Dughet
    Gaspard Dughet , also known as Gaspard Poussin, was a French painter born in Rome.A pupil of Nicolas Poussin, Gaspard Dughet was the brother of Poussin's wife...

     (1613–1675) painter
  • André Le Nôtre
    André Le Nôtre
    André Le Nôtre was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France...

     (1613–1700) Landscape architect
  • Eustache Le Sueur
    Eustache Le Sueur
    Eustache Le Sueur or Lesueur , one of the founders of the French Academy of Painting, was born in Paris, where he passed his whole life....

     (1616–1655) painter
  • Sébastien Bourdon
    Sébastien Bourdon
    Sébastien Bourdon was a French painter and engraver. His chef d'œuvre is The Crucifixion of St. Peter made for the cathedral of Notre Dame....

     (1616–1671) painter
  • Charles Le Brun
    Charles Le Brun
    Charles Le Brun , a French painter and art theorist, became the all-powerful, peerless master of 17th-century French art.-Biography:-Early life and training:...

     (1619–1690) painter, other media
  • Pierre Paul Puget
    Pierre Paul Puget
    Pierre Paul Puget was a French painter, sculptor, architect and engineer.-Biography:Puget was born in Marseille. At the age of fourteen he carved the ornaments of the galleys built in the shipyards of his native city, and at sixteen the decoration and construction of a ship were entrusted to him...

     (1620–1694) sculptor
  • Guillaume Courtois
    Guillaume Courtois
    Guillaume Courtois , called "Il Borgognone", was a French painter and etcher, the brother of the Jesuit painter Jacques Courtois. His working career was spent in Rome. He is also known as Guglielmo Cortese....

     (1628–1679) painter and etcher
  • François Girardon
    François Girardon
    François Girardon was a French sculptor.He was born at Troyes. As a boy he had for master a joiner and wood-carver of his native town, named Baudesson, under whom he is said to have worked at the chateau of Liebault, where he attracted the notice of Chancellor Séguier...

     (1628–1715) sculptor
  • Claude Lefebvre
    Claude Lefebvre (artist)
    Claude Lefebvre was a French painter and engraver.-Early life:Lefebvre was born at Fontainebleau. He studied art under Eustache Le Sueur and Charles Le Brun at Fontainebleau.-Career:...

     (1633–1675) painter and engraver
  • Charles de la Fosse
    Charles de La Fosse
    Charles de La Fosse , French painter, was born in Paris.He was one of the most noted and least servile pupils of Le Brun, under whose direction he shared in the chief of the great decorative works undertaken in the reign of Louis XIV. Leaving France in 1662, he spent two years in Rome and three in...

     (1636–1716) painter
  • Antoine Coysevox
    Antoine Coysevox
    Charles Antoine Coysevox , French sculptor, was born at Lyon, and belonged to a family which had emigrated from Spain...

     (1640–1720) sculptor
  • Charles de La Fosse
    Charles de La Fosse
    Charles de La Fosse , French painter, was born in Paris.He was one of the most noted and least servile pupils of Le Brun, under whose direction he shared in the chief of the great decorative works undertaken in the reign of Louis XIV. Leaving France in 1662, he spent two years in Rome and three in...

     (1640–1716) painter
  • Étienne Allegrain
    Étienne Allegrain
    Étienne Allegrain was a French topographical painter. Inspired by Nicolas Poussin, he evoked still ambiences and atmospherics bathed in a deep play of light and shade.His son Christophe-Gabriel Allegrain becamea famous sculptor.-External links:...

     (1644–1736) topographical painter
  • Jean Jouvenet
    Jean Jouvenet
    Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet was a French painter, especially of religious subjects.He was born into an artistic family in Rouen...

     (1644–1717) painter
  • François de Troy
    François de Troy
    François de Troy was a French painter and engraver who became principal painter to King James II in exile at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Director of the Académie Royale de peinture et de sculpture.-Early life:...

     (1645–1730) painter
  • Nicolas de Largillière
    Nicolas de Largillière
    Nicolas de Largillière was a painter born in Paris, France.-Early life:Largillière's father, a merchant, took him to Antwerp at the age of three. As a boy, he spent nearly two years in London. Sometime after his return to Antwerp, a failed attempt at business led him to the studio of Goubeau...

     (1656–1746) painter
  • Nicolas Coustou
    Nicolas Coustou
    Nicolas Coustou was a French sculptor and academic.Born in Lyon, Coustou was the son of a woodcarver, who gave him his first instruction in art. At eighteen he moved to Paris, to study under C.A...

     (1658–1733), sculptor
  • Hyacinthe Rigaud
    Hyacinthe Rigaud
    Hyacinthe Rigaud was a French baroque painter of Catalan origin whose career was based in Paris.He is renowned for his portrait paintings of Louis XIV, the royalty and nobility of Europe, and members of their courts and considered one of the most notable French portraitists of the classical period...

     (1659–1743) painter
  • Antoine Coypel
    Antoine Coypel
    Antoine Coypel was a history painter, the more famous son of the French painter Noël Coypel.Antoine studied under his father, with whom he spent four years at Rome. At the age of eighteen he was admitted into the Académie de peinture et de sculpture, of which he became professor and rector in...

     (1661–1722) sculptor
  • François Desportes (1661–1743) painter

Eighteenth century

See also Palace of Versailles
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....

, Louis XV of France
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...

, Madame de Pompadour
Madame de Pompadour
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, also known as Madame de Pompadour was a member of the French court, and was the official chief mistress of Louis XV from 1745 to her death.-Biography:...

, Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...

, Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793....

, Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

, Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

, Gobelins
Gobelins manufactory
The Manufacture des Gobelins is a tapestry factory located in Paris, France, at 42 avenue des Gobelins, near the Les Gobelins métro station in the XIIIe arrondissement...

. For art criticism, see Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie....

  • Alexis Simon Belle
    Alexis Simon Belle
    Alexis Simon Belle was a French portrait painter, known for his portraits of the French and Jacobite nobility.-Birth:...

     (1674–1734)
  • Jean-François de Troy (1679–1752) (son of François) painter
  • Antoine Watteau
    Antoine Watteau
    Jean-Antoine Watteau was a French painter whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement...

     (1684–1721) painter
  • Jean-Baptiste van Loo
    Jean-Baptiste van Loo
    Jean-Baptiste van Loo was a French subject and portrait painter.-Biography:He was born in Aix-en-Provence, and was instructed in art by his father Louis-Abraham van Loo, son of Jacob van Loo...

     (1684–1745) painter
  • Jean-Marc Nattier
    Jean-Marc Nattier
    Jean-Marc Nattier , French painter, was born in Paris, the second son of Marc Nattier , a portrait painter, and of Marie Courtois , a miniaturist...

     (1685–1766) painter
  • Jean-Baptiste Oudry
    Jean-Baptiste Oudry
    Jean-Baptiste Oudry was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game.-Biography:...

     (1686–1755) painter
  • Louise-Magdeleine Horthemels
    Louise-Magdeleine Horthemels
    Louise-Magdeleine Horthemels, or Louise-Madeleine Hortemels, also called Magdeleine Horthemels , was a French engraver, the mother of Charles-Nicolas Cochin...

     (1686–1767) engraver
  • François Lemoyne
    François Lemoyne
    François Lemoyne or François Le Moine was a French rococo painter.He was born in Paris. In 1701, when he was 13 years old, he entered the Académie de peinture et de sculpture. He studied under Louis Galloche and stayed until 1713. In 1711, Lemoyne won the Prix de Rome...

     (1688–1737) painter
  • Nicolas Lancret
    Nicolas Lancret
    Nicolas Lancret , French painter, was born in Paris, and became a brilliant depicter of light comedy which reflected the tastes and manners of French society under the regent Orleans....

     (1690–1743) painter
  • Charles-Antoine Coypel
    Charles-Antoine Coypel
    Charles-Antoine Coypel was a French painter, art commentator, and playwright. He lived in Paris. He was the son of the artist Antoine Coypel and grandson of Noël Coypel. Charles-Antoine inherited his father’s design and painting duties as premier peintre du roi at the French court when his father...

     (1694–1752) painter, art commentator, and playwright
    Playwright
    A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

  • Jean-Baptiste Pater
    Jean-Baptiste Pater
    Jean-Baptiste Pater was a French rococo painter.Born in Valenciennes, Pater was the son of sculptor Antoine Pater and studied under him before becoming a student of painter Jean-Baptiste Guide. Pater then moved to Paris, briefly becoming a pupil of Antoine Watteau in 1713. Watteau, despite...

     (1695–1736) painter
  • Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699–1779) painter
  • Charles Joseph Natoire (1700–1777) painter
  • Louis-François Roubiliac
    Louis-François Roubiliac
    Louis-François Roubiliac was a French sculptor who worked in England, one of the four most prominent sculptors in London working in the rococo style, "probably the most accomplished sculptor ever to work in England", according to Margaret Whinney.-Works:Roubiliac was largely employed for portrait...

     (1702–1762) sculptor
  • Jean Etienne Liotard (1702–1789) painter
  • François Boucher
    François Boucher
    François Boucher was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture...

     (1703–1770) painter, engraver
  • Maurice Quentin de La Tour
    Maurice Quentin de La Tour
    Maurice Quentin de La Tour was a French Rococo portraitist who worked primarily with pastels. Among his most famous subjects were Voltaire, Rousseau, Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour.-Biography:...

     (1704–1788) painter
  • Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne
    Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne
    Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne was a French sculptor, among the greatest French portraitists. He was the pupil of his father, Jean-Louis Lemoyne, and of Robert Le Lorrain....

     (1704–1778) painter, sculptor
  • Charles-André van Loo
    Charles-André van Loo
    Carle or Charles-André van Loo was a French subject painter, and a younger brother of Jean-Baptiste van Loo and grandson of Jacob van Loo. He was the most famous member of a successful dynasty of painters of Dutch origin...

     (Carle Van Loo) (1705–1765) (brother of Jean-Baptiste van Loo) painter
  • Louis-Michel van Loo
    Louis-Michel van Loo
    Louis-Michel van Loo was a French painter.He studied under his father, the painter Jean-Baptiste van Loo, at Turin and Rome, and he won a prize at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris in 1725...

     (1707–1771) (son of Jean-Baptiste van Loo) painter
  • Jean-Baptiste Pigalle
    Jean-Baptiste Pigalle
    Jean-Baptiste Pigalle was a French sculptor.He was born in Paris, the seventh child of a carpenter. Although he failed to obtain the Grand Prix, after a severe struggle he entered the Académie Royale and became one of the most popular sculptors of his day.His earlier work, such as Child with Cage ...

     (1714–1785) sculptor
  • Claude Joseph Vernet (1714–1789) painter
  • Jean-Baptiste Perronneau
    Jean-Baptiste Perronneau
    Jean-Baptiste Perronneau was a French painter who specialized in portraits executed in pastels....

     (1715–1783) painter
  • Etienne-Maurice Falconet (1716–1791) sculptor
  • Joseph-Marie Vien
    Joseph-Marie Vien
    Joseph-Marie Vien , French painter, was born at Montpellier. He was the last holder of the post of Premier peintre du Roi, serving from 1789 to 1791....

     (1716–1809) painter
  • Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo
    Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo
    Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo was a French painter of allegorical scenes and portraits.He studied under his father, the painter Jean-Baptiste van Loo, at Turin and Rome, where in 1738 he won the Prix de Rome, then at Aix-en-Provence, before returning to Paris in 1745...

     (1719–1795) (son of Jean-Baptiste van Loo) painter
  • Charles Germain de Saint Aubin
    Charles Germain de Saint Aubin
    Charles Germain de Saint Aubin was a draftsman and embroidery designer to King Louis XV. Published a classic reference on embroidery, L'Art du Brodeur in 1770...

     (1721–1786) engraver, embroidery designer
  • Jean-Baptiste Greuze
    Jean-Baptiste Greuze
    Jean-Baptiste Greuze was a French painter.-Early life:He was born at Tournus, Saône-et-Loire. He is generally said to have formed his own talent; this is, however, true only in the most limited sense, for at an early age his inclinations, though thwarted by his father, were encouraged by a...

     (1725–1805) painter
  • François-Hubert Drouais
    François-Hubert Drouais
    François-Hubert Drouais was a French painter and the father of Jean-Germain Drouais.Drouais was born and died in Paris. He specialized in portraits of the French nobility, foreign aristocrats, writers, and other artists. Some of his portraits include Louis XV's last two mistresses, Madame de...

     (Drouais le fils) (1727–1775) painter
  • Jean-Baptiste Defernex
    Jean-Baptiste Defernex
    Jean-Baptist Defernex was a French artist best known for his portrait busts, most often of women.Little is known of his early training, but he started as a modeler at the Sèvres factory. He was sculptor to the Duc d'Orléans and worked on gilded lead statue groups of children at the Palais-Royal....

     (1729–1783) sculptor
  • Jean-Honoré Fragonard
    Jean-Honoré Fragonard
    Jean-Honoré Fragonard was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings , of which only five...

     (1732–1806) painter
  • Jean-Jacques Durameau
    Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau
    Louis-Jacques Durameau was a French painter.-Life:A son of Jacques Durameau and Marie Rocou , he was intended for an engraver by his father and trained in drawing at the studio of the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Defernex. He then entered the studio of Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre...

     (1733–1796) painter
  • Hubert Robert
    Hubert Robert
    Hubert Robert , French artist, was born in Paris.His father, Nicolas Robert, was in the service of François-Joseph de Choiseul, marquis de Stainville a leading diplomat from Lorraine...

     (1733–1808) painter, engraver
  • Marie-Suzanne Giroust
    Marie-Suzanne Giroust
    Marie-Suzanne Giroust, Madame Roslin was a French painter, miniaturist and pastellist. She was a member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture. She was married to the Swedish painter Alexander Roslin.-Biography:Marie-Suzanne Giroust was the daughter of Barthélemy Giroust, Jeweller to the...

     (1734–1772), painter
  • Étienne de La Vallée Poussin
    Étienne de La Vallée Poussin
    Étienne de La Vallée Poussin Étienne de La Vallée Poussin Étienne de La Vallée Poussin (certains biographies say Delavallée-Poussin.(1735–1802), was a French history painter and creator of interior decorative schemes.-Life:...

     (1735–1802) French history
    History painting
    History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...

     painter and creator of interior decorative schemes
  • Louis Albert Guislain Bacler d'Albe (1761–1824), painter
  • Nicolas Bernard Lépicié
    Nicolas Bernard Lépicié
    Nicolas Bernard Lépicié was a French painter , the son of two reputed engravers at the time, Francois-Bernard and Renee-Elisabeth, was introduced to the artistic and cultural environment by his parents.- Life :...

     (1735–1784) painter
  • Nicolas Benjamin Delapierre
    Nicolas Benjamin Delapierre
    Nicolas Benjamin Delapierre was a well-known and highly regarded French artist during the second half of the 18th century.-Career:...

     (1739–c1800) painter
  • Jean Antoine Houdon (1741–1828) sculptor
  • Jean Michel Moreau (Moreau the younger) (1741–1814) engraver
  • Anne Vallayer-Coster
    Anne Vallayer-Coster
    Anne Vallayer-Coster was an 18th-century French painter. Known as a prodigy artist at a young age, she achieved fame and recognition very early in her career, being admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1770, at the age of twenty-six.Despite the negative reputation that...

     (1744–1818) - painter
  • Jacques Louis David (1748–1825) painter
  • Claude-Jean-Baptiste Hoin
    Claude-Jean-Baptiste Hoin
    Claude-Jean-Baptiste Hoin was a French artist known primarily for his portraits and landscapes. He worked in pastels for his portrait miniatures, and in gouache and engraving for his landscapes. He studied with François Devosge and Jean-Baptiste Greuze...

     (1750–1817) portrait artist
  • Jacques-Antoine-Marie Lemoine
    Jacques-Antoine-Marie Lemoine
    Jacques-Antoine-Marie Lemoine, also Lemoyne , was a French artist, known primarily for portraiture.Lemoine was born in Rouen. He declined to follow his father's precedent in becoming a notary, and instead began study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Rouen...

     (1751–1824) portrait and landscape artist
  • Antoine Berjon
    Antoine Berjon
    Antoine Berjon was a French painter and designer, among the most important flower painters of 19th-century France...

     (1754–1843) painter and designer
  • Jean-Baptiste Regnault
    Jean-Baptiste Regnault
    Jean-Baptiste Regnault was a French painter.Regnault was born in Paris, and began life at sea in a merchant vessel. At the age of fifteen his talent attracted attention, and he was sent to Italy by M. de Monval under the care of Bardin...

     (1754–1829)
  • Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun (1755–1842) painter
  • Adélaïde Victoire Hall
    Adélaïde Victoire Hall
    Adélaïde Victoire Hall, called Adèle , was a Swedish-French artist and noble . She was an Agré of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts ....

     (1772–1844), painter

Nineteenth century (Romanticism to Impressionism)

See also French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, Napoleon I
Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

, Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

, Barbizon school
Barbizon school
The Barbizon school of painters were part of a movement towards realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870...

, Naturalism
Naturalism (art)
Naturalism in art refers to the depiction of realistic objects in a natural setting. The Realism movement of the 19th century advocated naturalism in reaction to the stylized and idealized depictions of subjects in Romanticism, but many painters have adopted a similar approach over the centuries...

, Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...

, Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

, Academic art
Academic art
Academic art is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism,...

, Napoleon III of France
Napoleon III of France
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte...

, Photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

, Modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

  • Alexandre-Hyacinthe Dunouy
    Alexandre-Hyacinthe Dunouy
    Alexandre-Hyacinthe Dunouy was a French painter known for his landscapes.A native of Paris, Dunouy began his career depicting views of the city and the surrounding region, exhibiting at the Paris Salon for the first time in 1791. exhibited views of the area around Rome and Naples; he showed...

     (1757–1841) - painter known for his landscapes
    Landscape art
    Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...

  • Pierre Prudhon
    Pierre Paul Prud'hon
    Pierre-Paul Prud'hon was a French Romantic painter and draughtsman best known for his allegorical paintings and portraits.-Life and work:...

     (1758–1823) painter
  • Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833) photographer
  • Adélaïde Dufrénoy
    Adélaïde Dufrénoy
    Adélaïde-Gillette Dufrénoy was a French poet and painter from Brittany.The daughter of Jacques Billet, a jeweller for the Crown of Poland, she had a lavish education and learnt Latin to a proficient enough level that she was able to translate the works of Horace and Virgil. A M...

     (1765–1825), poet and painter from Brittany
    Brittany
    Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

  • Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson
    Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson
    Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson January 5, 1767 – December 9, 1824), was a French painter and pupil of Jacques-Louis David, who was part of the beginning of the Romantic movement by adding elements of eroticism through his paintings...

     (1767–1824) painter
  • Jean-Baptiste Isabey
    Jean-Baptiste Isabey
    Jean-Baptiste Isabey was a French painter born at Nancy.At nineteen, after some lessons from Dumont, miniature painter to Marie Antoinette, he became a pupil of Jacques-Louis David...

     (1767–1855) painter
  • Antoine Jean Gros (1771–1835) painter
  • Pierre Narcisse Guérin (1771–1833) painter
  • Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
    Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
    Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest...

     (1780–1867) painter
  • Étienne Bouhot
    Étienne Bouhot
    Étienne Bouhot was a French painter and art teacher. He was the director of the École de Dessin in Semur-en-Auxois.-External links:*...

     (1780–1862) painter and art teacher
  • Alexandre-François Caminade
    Alexandre-François Caminade
    Alexandre-François Caminade was a French painter.Caminade was born and died in Paris. He was a portraitist and a religious painter. He was Jacques Louis David's pupil....

     (1783–1862) - portrait
    Portrait
    thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

    ist and religious painter
  • François Rude
    François Rude
    François Rude was a French sculptor. He was the stepfather of Paul Cabet, a sculptor.Born in Dijon, he worked at his father's trade as a stovemaker till the age of sixteen, but received training in drawing from François Devosges, where he learned that a strong, simple contour was an invaluable...

     (1784–1855) sculptor
  • Eugénie Charen (1786–1824) painter
  • Louis-Jacques Daguerre (1787–1851) photographer
  • Charles de Steuben
    Charles de Steuben
    Baron Charles Auguste Guillaume Steuben , also Charles de Steuben, was a French painter active during the Napoleonic Era.He briefly trained Gustave Courbet....

     (1788–1856) painter active during the Napoleonic Era
    Napoleonic Era
    The Napoleonic Era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative Assembly, and the third being the Directory...

  • Horace Vernet
    Horace Vernet
    Émile Jean-Horace Vernet was a French painter of battles, portraits, and Orientalist Arab subjects.Vernet was born to Carle Vernet, another famous painter, who was himself a son of Claude Joseph Vernet. He was born in the Paris Louvre, while his parents were staying there during the French...

     (1789–1863) painter
  • Jules Robert Auguste
    Jules Robert Auguste
    Jules Robert Auguste was a French painter associated with Romanticism and classicism....

     (c.1789–1850) painter
  • Théodore Géricault
    Théodore Géricault
    Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault was a profoundly influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings...

     (1791–1824) painter
  • Nicolas Toussaint Charlet
    Nicolas Toussaint Charlet
    Nicolas Toussaint Charlet , French designer and painter, more especially of military subjects, was born in Paris....

     (1792–1845) painter
  • Antoine-Louis Barye
    Antoine-Louis Barye
    Antoine-Louis Barye was a French sculptor most famous for his work as an animalier, a sculptor of animals.-Biography:Born in Paris, Barye began his career as a goldsmith, like many sculptors of the Romantic Period...

     (1795–1875) sculptor
  • Ary Scheffer
    Ary Scheffer
    Ary Scheffer , French painter of Dutch and German extraction, was born in Dordrecht.-Life:After the early death of his father Johann Baptist, a poor painter, Ary's mother Cornelia, herself a painter and daughter of landscapist Arie Lamme, took him to Paris and placed him in the studio of...

     (1795–1858) painter
  • Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796–1875) painter
  • Eugène Delacroix
    Eugène Delacroix
    Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...

     (1798–1863) painter
  • Hippolyte Bellangé
    Hippolyte Bellangé
    Joseph Louis Hippolyte Bellangé was a French battle painter. His art was influenced by the wars of the first Napoleon, and while a youth, he produced several military drawings in lithography. He afterwards pursued his systematic studies under Gros, and with the exception of some portraits, devoted...

     (1800–1866) painter
  • Achille Devéria
    Achille Devéria
    Achille Jacques-Jean-Marie Devéria was a French painter and lithographer. His father was a civil employee of the navy and student of Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson and Louis Lafitte ....

     (1800–1857) painter, engraver
  • Paul Huet
    Paul Huet
    Paul Huet was a French painter and engraver.-Selected works:* The flood of Saint-Cloud* Normandy thatched cottage, Old Trouville...

     (1803–1869) painter
  • François-Émile de Lansac
    François-Emile de Lansac
    François-Émile de Lansac was a French painter.-Life:Lansac was descended of a family from Béarn, son of Arnaud de Lansac and Charlotte Émilie Coutures. He was born in Tulle , where his father, an Inspector General of the Treasury, was passing through with his spouse on an inspection...

     (1803–1890) painter
  • Grandville
    Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard
    Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard , generally known by the pseudonym of J. J. Grandville, was a French caricaturist.-Life and work:...

     (Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, called) (1803–1847) engraver
  • Eugène Isabey
    Eugène Isabey
    Eugène Louis Gabriel Isabey was a French painter, draftsman, and printmaker.-Career:Born in Paris, the son of Jean-Baptiste Isabey, a painter as well, Eugène Isabey studied and worked at the Louvre Museum. Early in his career his paintings consisted of mostly watercolor landscapes...

     (1803–1886) painter
  • Denis Auguste Marie Raffet
    Denis Auguste Marie Raffet
    Denis Auguste Marie Raffet was a French illustrator and lithographer. He was a student of Nicolas Toussaint Charlet, and was a retrospective painter of the Empire.-Biography:Raffet was born in Paris....

     (1804–1860) painter
  • Edouard Vienot
    Edouard Vienot
    Édouard Viénot was a successful society portrait painter with a studio at 92 rue de la Victoire, Paris.He was born in Fontainebleau on 13 September 1804...

     (born 1804) painter
  • Hippolyte Bayard
    Hippolyte Bayard
    -Late career:Despite his initial hardships in photography, Bayard continued to be a productive member of the photographic society. He was a founding member of the French Society of Photography...

     (1807–1887) photographer
  • Honoré Daumier
    Honoré Daumier
    Honoré Daumier was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century....

     (1808–1879) painter, lithographer, sculptor
  • Louis Boulanger
    Louis Boulanger
    Louis Boulanger was a French Romantic painter, lithographer and illustrator.-Life:He enrolled in 1821 at the École des beaux-arts where he attended the workshop of Guillaume Guillon Lethière and received a solid classical training. Next he made a présentation for the prix de Rome, in 1824, in...

     (1808–1867) painter
  • Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña
    Narcisse Virgilio Díaz
    Narcisse Virgilio Díaz de la Peña was a French painter of the Barbizon school.Diaz was born in Bordeaux to Spanish parents. At the age of ten, Diaz became an orphan, and misfortune dogged his early years. His foot was bitten by a reptile in Meudon wood, near Sèvres, where he had been taken to live...

     (1808–1878) (Born in Spain) painter
  • Auguste Préault (1809–1879) sculptor
  • Ignace François Bonhomme (1809–1881) painter
  • Constant Troyon
    Constant Troyon
    Constant Troyon , French painter, was born in Sèvres, near Paris, where his father was connected with the famous manufactory of porcelain....

     (1810–1865) painter
  • Eugène André Oudiné
    Eugène Andre Oudine
    Eugène André Oudiné , French sculptor and engraver of medals, was born in Paris in 1810, and devoted himself from the beginning to the medallist's branch of sculpture, although he also excelled in monumental sculpture and portrait busts....

     (1810-1875) sculptor, engraver
  • Jules Dupré
    Jules Dupré
    Jules Dupré , French painter, was one of the chief members of the Barbizon school of landscape painters. If Corot stands for the lyric and Rousseau for the epic aspect of the poetry of nature, Dupré is the exponent of her tragic and dramatic aspects.Dupré exhibited first at the Salon in 1831, and...

     (1811–1889) painter
  • Théodore Rousseau
    Théodore Rousseau
    Pierre Étienne Théodore Rousseau , French painter of the Barbizon school, was born in Paris, of a bourgeois family.-Youth:At first he received a business training, but soon displayed aptitude for painting...

     (1812–1867) painter
  • Boissard de Boisdenier (1813–1866) painter
  • Charles Jacque
    Charles Jacque
    Charles-Emile Jacque was a French painter of animals and engraver who was, with Jean-François Millet, part of the Barbizon School...

     (1813–1894) painter
  • Jean-François Millet
    Jean-François Millet
    Jean-François Millet was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France...

     (1814–1875) painter
  • Thomas Couture
    Thomas Couture
    Thomas Couture was an influential French history painter and teacher. Couture taught such later luminaries of the art world as Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Karel Javůrek, and J-N Sylvestre.-Life:He was born at Senlis, Oise, France...

     (1815–1879) painter
  • Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier
    Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier
    Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier was a French Classicist painter and sculptor famous for his depictions of Napoleon, his armies and military themes. He documented sieges and manoeuvres and was the teacher of Édouard Detaille.-Biography:Ernest Meissonier was born at Lyon...

     (1815–1891) painter
  • Jacques-Eugene Feyen
    Jacques-Eugene Feyen
    Jacques-Eugène Feyen was a French painter.-Career:The elder brother of painter Auguste Feyen-Perrin, Jacques-Eugène enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and studied under Paul Delaroche...

     (1815–1908) painter
  • Charles Marville
    Charles Marville
    -Biography:Charles Marville was the pseudonym of Charles François Bossu , a French photographer who mainly photographed architecture and landscapes. He used both paper and glass negatives...

     (1816–1879) painter, engraver, photographer
  • Antoine Chintreuil
    Antoine Chintreuil
    Antoine Chintreuil was a French landscape painter.He was born in Pont-de-Vaux, Ain and grew up in Bresse. In 1838 he moved to Paris, where he began studying under Paul Delaroche in 1842. The following year he met Corot, who influenced him profoundly by encouraging him to paint landscape en plein...

     (1816–1873) painter
  • Jean Pierre Alexandre Antigna
    Alexandre Antigna
    Jean Pierre Alexandre Antigna was a French painter.-Career:Antigna was born in Orléans, France, where his earliest training took place, under a local painter, Francois Salmon...

     (1817–1878) painter
  • François Bonvin
    François Bonvin
    François Bonvin was a French realist painter.Bonvin was born in humble circumstances in Paris, the son of a police officer and a seamstress. When he was four years old his mother died of tuberculosis and young François was left in the care of an old woman who underfed him...

     (1817–1887) painter
  • Charles-François Daubigny
    Charles-François Daubigny
    Charles-François Daubigny was one of the painters of the Barbizon school, and is considered an important precursor of Impressionism....

     (1817–1878) painter
  • Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819–1891) (Dutch, worked in France) painter
  • Théodore Chassériau
    Théodore Chassériau
    Théodore Chassériau was a French romantic painter noted for his portraits, historical and religious paintings, allegorical murals, and Orientalist images inspired by his travels to Algeria.-Life and work:...

     (1819–1856) painter
  • Gustave Courbet
    Gustave Courbet
    Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...

     (1819–1877) painter
  • Eugène Fromentin
    Eugène Fromentin
    Eugène Fromentin was a French painter and writer.He was born in La Rochelle. After leaving school he studied for some years under Louis Cabat, the landscape painter...

     (1820–1876) painter
  • Nadar
    Nadar (photographer)
    Félix Nadar was the pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon , a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist and balloonist. Some photographs by Nadar are marked "P. Nadar" for "Photographie Nadar" .-Life: born in April 1820 in Paris...

     (Gaspard Félix Tournachon, called "Nadar") (1820–1910) photographer
  • Charles Méryon
    Charles Méryon
    Charles Méryon , was a French artist, who worked almost entirely in etching, as he suffered from colour-blindness. Although now little-known in the English-speaking world, he is generally recognised as the most significant etcher of 19th century France. He also suffered from mental illness, dying...

     (1821–1868) engraver
  • Rosa Bonheur
    Rosa Bonheur
    Rosa Bonheur, born Marie-Rosalie Bonheur, was a French animalière, realist artist, and sculptor. As a painter she became famous primarily for two chief works: Ploughing in the Nivernais , which was first exhibited at the Salon of 1848, and is now in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris depicts a team...

     (1822–1899) painter
  • Marie Adrien Persac (1823) painter, cartographer, architect, civil engineer, photographer
  • Alexandre Cabanel
    Alexandre Cabanel
    Alexandre Cabanel was a French painter.- Biography :Cabanel was born in Montpellier, Hérault. He painted historical, classical and religious subjects in the academic style. He was also well known as a portrait painter...

     (1823–1889) painter
  • Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse
    Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse
    Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse was a French sculptor and painter.- Life :Carrier-Belleuse was a student of David d'Angers and briefly at the École des Beaux-Arts...

     (1824–1887), sculptor and painter
  • Jean-Léon Gérôme
    Jean-Léon Gérôme
    Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits and other subjects, bringing the Academic painting tradition to an artistic climax.-Life:Jean-Léon Gérôme was born...

     (1824–1904) painter
  • Théodule Ribot
    Théodule Ribot
    Théodule-Augustin Ribot was a French realist painter.He was born in Saint-Nicolas-d'Attez, and studied at the École des Arts et Métiers de Châlons before moving to Paris in 1845. There he found work decorating gilded frames for a mirror manufacturer; he also studied in the studio of...

     (1824–1891) painter
  • Eugène Boudin
    Eugène Boudin
    Eugène Boudin was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors.Boudin was a marine painter, and expert in the rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores...

     (1824–1898) painter
  • Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
    Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
    Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was a French painter, who became the president and co-founder of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and whose work influenced many other artists.-Life:...

     (1824–1898) painter
  • William-Adolphe Bouguereau
    William-Adolphe Bouguereau
    William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter. William Bouguereau was a traditionalist; in his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of Classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body.-Life and career :William-Adolphe...

     (1825–1905) painter
  • Gustave Moreau
    Gustave Moreau
    Gustave Moreau was a French Symbolist painter whose main emphasis was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. As a painter of literary ideas, Moreau appealed to the imaginations of some Symbolist writers and artists.- Biography :Moreau was born in Paris. His father, Louis Jean Marie...

     (1826–1898) painter
  • Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
    Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
    Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux was a French sculptor and painter.Born in Valenciennes, Nord, son of a mason, his early studies were under François Rude. Carpeaux entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1844 and won the Prix de Rome in 1854, and moving to Rome to find inspiration, he there studied the works of...

     (1827–1875) sculptor
  • Elie Delaunay
    Elie Delaunay
    Jules-Élie Delaunay was a French academic painter.He was born at Nantes in the Loire-Atlantique département of France. Delaunay studied under Flandrin, and at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris under Lamothe...

     (1828–1891) painter
  • Achille Emperaire
    Achille Emperaire
    Achille Emperaire was a French painter and a friend of Paul Cézanne's.-Biography:Achille Emperaire was born as a dwarf and a hunchback, in Aix-en-Provence in 1829....

     (1829–1898) painter and a friend of Paul Cézanne
    Paul Cézanne
    Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...

  • François Salle
    François Salle
    François Salle was a 19th-century French realist painter. He is best known for the painting The Anatomy Class at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts...

     (1839–1899)
  • Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (1845–1902) painter

Nineteenth century (Impressionism to Fauvism)

See also Modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...

, Modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

, Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

, Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...

, Les Nabis
Les Nabis
Les Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists who set the pace for fine arts and graphic arts in France in the 1890s. Initially a group of friends interested in contemporary art and literature, most of them studied at the private art school of Rodolphe Julian in Paris in the...

, Fauvism
Fauvism
Fauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...

, Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...

, Symbolist painters, Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

, Primitivism (art)
  • Camille Pissarro
    Camille Pissarro
    Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...

     (1830–1903) painter
  • Etienne-Jules Marey
    Étienne-Jules Marey
    Étienne-Jules Marey was a French scientist and chronophotographer.His work was significant in the development of cardiology, physical instrumentation, aviation, cinematography and the science of labor photography...

     (1830–1904) photographer
  • Édouard Manet
    Édouard Manet
    Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....

     (1832–1883) painter
  • Gustave Doré
    Gustave Doré
    Paul Gustave Doré was a French artist, engraver, illustrator and sculptor. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving and steel engraving.-Biography:...

     (1832–1883) engraver
  • Edgar Degas
    Edgar Degas
    Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...

     (1834–1917) painter, sculptor
  • Henri Fantin-Latour
    Henri Fantin-Latour
    Henri Fantin-Latour was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers.-Biography:...

     (1836–1904) painter
  • Jules Chéret
    Jules Chéret
    Jules Chéret was a French painter and lithographer who became a master of Belle Époque poster art. He has been called the father of the modern poster. -Biography:...

     (1836–1932) painter, other media
  • Paul Cézanne
    Paul Cézanne
    Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...

     (1839–1906) painter
  • Odilon Redon
    Odilon Redon
    Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.-Life:...

     (1840–1916) painter, draftsman, lithographer
  • Auguste Rodin
    Auguste Rodin
    François-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...

     (1840–1917) sculptor
  • Claude Monet
    Claude Monet
    Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...

     (1840–1926) painter (was a founder of French impressionist painting)
  • Pierre-Auguste Renoir
    Pierre-Auguste Renoir
    Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...

     (1841–1919) painter
  • Frédéric Bazille
    Frédéric Bazille
    Jean Frédéric Bazille was a French Impressionist painter. Many of Bazille's major works are examples of figure painting in which Bazille placed the subject figure within a landscape painted en plein air....

     (1841–1870) painter
  • Berthe Morisot
    Berthe Morisot
    Berthe Morisot was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.In 1864, she exhibited for the first...

     (1841–1895) painter
  • Marie Bracquemond
    Marie Bracquemond
    Marie Bracquemond was a French Impressionist artist described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt. However, her frequent omission from books on women artists indicate the success of her husband, Félix...

     (1841–1916) painter
  • Fernand Pelez
    Fernand Pelez
    Fernand Pelez was a French painter of Spanish origin who worked in Paris. Pelez portrayed social issues in a realistic style.- Biography :...

     (1843–1913) painter
  • Alexander Louis Leloir
    Alexander Louis Leloir
    Alexander Louis Leloir was a French painter. His younger brother was painter and playwright Maurice Leloir.-External links:...

     (1843–1884) painter
  • Henri Rousseau
    Henri Rousseau
    Henri Julien Félix Rousseau was a French Post-Impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier , a humorous description of his occupation as a toll collector...

     ("Le Douanier Rousseau") (1844–1910) painter
  • Jean Antonin Mercié (1845–1916) sculptor
  • Gustave Caillebotte
    Gustave Caillebotte
    Gustave Caillebotte was a French painter, member and patron of the group of artists known as Impressionists, though he painted in a much more realistic manner than many other artists in the group...

     (1848–1894) painter
  • Jules Bastien-Lepage
    Jules Bastien-Lepage
    Jules Bastien-Lepage , was a French naturalist painter, a style related to the Realist movement.-Life and work:...

     (1848–1884) painter
  • Paul Gauguin
    Paul Gauguin
    Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...

     (1848–1903) painter, sculptor
  • Henry Lerolle
    Henry Lerolle
    Henry Lerolle was a French painter, art collector and patron, born in Paris. He studied at Académie Suisse and in the studio of Louis Lamothe....

     (1848–1929) painter
  • Vincent van Gogh
    Vincent van Gogh
    Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...

     (1853–1890) (Dutch, worked in France) painter
  • Eugène Atget
    Eugène Atget
    Eugène Atget was a French photographer noted for his photographs documenting the architecture and street scenes of Paris....

     (Jean-Eugène Auguste Atget) (1857–1927) photographer
  • Mathurin Janssaud
    Mathurin Janssaud
    Marthurin Janssaud was a French painter.-Career:Little is known of Janssaud's early life other than he left his home province before the onset of World War I. Like many artists of the day he initially traveled to Paris, yet in time he became more interested in the scenes of Brittany and Concarneau...

     (1857–1940) painter
  • Georges-Pierre Seurat
    Georges-Pierre Seurat
    Georges-Pierre Seurat was a French Post-Impressionist painter and draftsman. He is noted for his innovative use of drawing media and for devising a technique of painting known as pointillism...

     (1859–1891) painter
  • Antoine Bourdelle
    Antoine Bourdelle
    Antoine Bourdelle , originally Émile Antoine Bourdelle, was an influential and prolific French sculptor, painter, and teacher.-Career:...

     (1861–1929) sculptor
  • Aristide Maillol
    Aristide Maillol
    Aristide Maillol or Aristides Maillol was a French Catalan sculptor and painter.-Biography:...

     (1861–1944) sculptor
  • Louis Vivin (1861–1936) painter
  • Antonio de la Gandara
    Antonio de La Gandara
    Antonio de la Gándara was a French painter, pastellist and draughtsman.-Biography:He was born in Paris, France, but his father was of Spanish ancestry, born in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, and his mother was from England. La Gandara's talent was strongly influenced by both cultures...

     (1861–1917) painter
  • Gaston Bussière (painter) (1862-1929) Symbolism
    Symbolism (arts)
    Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...

     movement painter and illustrator
  • Paul Signac
    Paul Signac
    Paul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...

     (1863–1935) painter
  • Henri Marie de Toulouse-Lautrec
    Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
    Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...

     (1864–1901) painter
  • Paul Sérusier
    Paul Sérusier
    Paul Sérusier was a French painter who was a pioneer of abstract art and an inspiration for the avant-garde Nabi movement, Synthetism and Cloisonnism.- Education :...

     (1864–1927) painter
  • Paul Ranson
    Paul Ranson
    Paul Ranson was a French painter and writer.Paul-Elie Ranson was born in Limoges and studied at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs there before moving to Paris and transferring to the Académie Julian in 1886. There he met Paul Sérusier in 1888. Subsequently from 1890 he became a member and a creative...

     (1864–1909) painter
  • Seraphine Louis
    Séraphine Louis
    Séraphine Louis, known as "Séraphine de Senlis" , was a French painter in the naïve style. Self-taught, she was inspired by her religious faith and by stained-glass church windows and other religious art...

     (1864–1942) painter
  • Albert Aurier
    Albert Aurier
    G. Albert Aurier was a poet, art critic and painter, devoted to Symbolism.Son of a notary born in Châteauroux, Indre, Aurier went to Paris in 1883 to study law, but soon his attention was drawn to art and literature, and he began to contribute to Symolist periodicals...

     (1865–1892), poet, art critic
    Art critic
    An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...

     and painter devoted to Symbolism
    Symbolism (arts)
    Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...

  • Suzanne Valadon
    Suzanne Valadon
    Suzanne Valadon was a French painter born Marie-Clémentine Valadon at Bessines-sur-Gartempe, Haute-Vienne, France. In 1894, Valadon became the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts...

     (1865–1938) painter
  • Félix Vallotton
    Félix Vallotton
    Félix Edouard Vallotton was a Swiss painter and printmaker associated with Les Nabis. He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut.-Life and work:...

     (1865–1925) (Swiss, worked in France) painter, engraver
  • Pierre Bonnard
    Pierre Bonnard
    Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...

     (1867–1947) painter
  • Ker-Xavier Roussel
    Ker-Xavier Roussel
    Ker-Xavier Roussel was a French painter associated with Les Nabis.Born François Xavier Roussel in Lorry-lès-Metz, Moselle, at age fifteen he studied at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris; alongside his friend Édouard Vuillard, he also studied at the studio of painter Diogène Maillart...

     (1867–1944) painter
  • Hector Guimard
    Hector Guimard
    Hector Guimard was an architect, who is now the best-known representative of the French Art Nouveau style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries....

     (1867–1942) Architect and Decorator
  • Edouard Jean Vuillard
    Édouard Vuillard
    Jean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Nabis.-Early years and education:...

     (1868–1940) painter
  • Georges Lacombe (1868–1916) sculptor
  • Emile Bernard
    Émile Bernard
    Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...

     (1868–1941) painter
  • Henri Matisse
    Henri Matisse
    Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...

     (1869–1954) painter, other media
  • Adolf de Meyer
    Adolf de Meyer
    Adolph de Meyer was a photographer famed for his elegant photographic portraits in the early 20th century, many of which depicted celebrities such as Mary Pickford, Rita Lydig, Luisa Casati, Billie Burke, Irene Castle, John Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Ruth St. Denis, King George V of the United...

     (1869–1949) photographer

Twentieth century (Pre World War II)

See also Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...

, Modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...

, Modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

, Cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...

, Puteaux Group, Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...

, Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

  • Henri Jourdain (1864–1931) painter, prints or lithographs of landscapes usually by the water
  • Georges Rouault
    Georges Rouault
    Georges Henri Rouault[p] was a French Fauvist and Expressionist painter, and printmaker in lithography and etching.-Childhood and education:Rouault was born in Paris into a poor family...

     (1871–1958) painter
  • Frantisek Kupka
    František Kupka
    František Kupka was a Czech painter and graphic artist. He was a pioneer and co-founder of the early phases of the abstract art movement and Orphic cubism...

     (1871–1957) (Czech, worked in France) painter
  • Henri-Charles Manguin
    Henri Manguin
    Henri Charles Manguin[p] was a French painter, associated with Les Fauves.Manguin entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts to study under Gustave Moreau, as did Matisse and Charles Camoin with whom he became close friends...

     (1874–1943) painter
  • Albert Marquet
    Albert Marquet
    Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement.-Life and work:Marquet was born in 1875 at Bordeaux. In 1890 he moved to Paris to attend the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. They were roommates for a time, and they influenced each other's work...

     (1875–1947) painter
  • Jacques Villon
    Jacques Villon
    Jacques Villon was a French cubist painter and printmaker.-Early life:Born Gaston Emile Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Haute-Normandie region of France, he came from a prosperous and artistically inclined family...

     (1875–1963) painter
  • Constantin Brâncuşi
    Constantin Brancusi
    Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...

     (1876–1957) (French, born in Romania) sculptor
  • Maurice de Vlaminck
    Maurice de Vlaminck
    Maurice de Vlaminck was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 were united in their use of intense color.-Life:Maurice de Vlaminck was born in Paris to a family...

     (1876–1958) (Flemish, worked in France) painter
  • Raymond Duchamp-Villon
    Raymond Duchamp-Villon
    Raymond Duchamp-Villon was a French sculptor.Duchamp-Villon was born Pierre-Maurice-Raymond Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Haute-Normandie region of France, the second son of Eugene and Lucie Duchamp. Of the six Duchamp children, four would become successful artists...

     (1876–1918) sculptor
  • Raoul Dufy
    Raoul Dufy
    Raoul Dufy[p] was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textiles, as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events...

     (1877–1953) painter
  • Jean Crotti
    Jean Crotti
    Jean Crotti was a French painter.Crotti was born in Bulle, Fribourg, Switzerland. He first studied in Munich, Germany at the School of Decorative Arts, then at age 23 moved to Paris to study art at the Académie Julian. Initially he was influenced by Impressionism, then by Fauvism and Art Nouveau...

     (1878–1958) (Swiss) painter
  • Louis Marcoussis
    Louis Marcoussis
    Louis Marcoussis, formerly Ludwik Kazimierz Wladyslaw Markus or Ludwig Casimir Ladislas Markus, was a painter and engraver of Polish origin who lived in Paris for much of his life and became a French citizen.After studying law briefly in Warsaw he went to the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts, where his...

     (Louis Markus)(1878–1941) or (1883–1941) (Polish, worked in France) painter
  • Francis Picabia
    Francis Picabia
    Francis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...

     (1879–1953) painter
  • André Derain
    André Derain
    André Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...

     (1880–1954) painter
  • Joseph Hémard
    Joseph Hémard
    Joseph Hémard, a popular French book illustrator, was born in Les Mureaux, France, a small town on the Seine, northwest of Paris, on August 2, 1880, and died on August 9, 1961, in Paris. He was a prolific artist. During the early years of the XXth century he published cartoons and comics in...

     (1880–1961) illustrator
  • Albert Gleizes
    Albert Gleizes
    Albert Gleizes , was a French painter. Born Albert Léon Gleizes and raised in Paris, he was the son of a fabric designer who ran a large industrial design workshop...

     (1881–1952) painter
  • Henri Le Fauconnier
    Henri Le Fauconnier
    Henri Victor Gabriel Le Fauconnier was a French cubist painter born in Hesdin. He studied art in Paris at the Academie Julian and later exhibited with the Puteaux Group.He died in Paris....

     (1881–1946) painter
  • Fernand Léger
    Fernand Léger
    Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...

     (1881–1955) painter
  • Georges Braque
    Georges Braque
    Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...

     (1882–1963) painter
  • Auguste Herbin
    Auguste Herbin
    Auguste Herbin was a French painter.-Biography:Born in Quiévy, Nord, he studied drawing at the École des Beaux-Arts de Lille, from 1898 to 1901, when he settled in Paris....

     (1882–1960) painter
  • Jean Metzinger
    Jean Metzinger
    Jean Metzinger was a French painter.Metzinger was born in Nantes, France. Initially he was influenced by Fauvism and Impressionism, but from 1908 he was associated with Cubism. Metzinger was a member of the Section d'Or group of artists...

     (1883–1956) painter, engraver
  • Marie Laurencin
    Marie Laurencin
    Marie Laurencin was a French painter and printmaker. -Biography:Laurencin was born in Paris, where she was raised by her mother and lived much of her life. At 18, she studied porcelain painting in Sèvres...

     (1883–1956) painter
  • Maurice Utrillo
    Maurice Utrillo
    Maurice Utrillo, , born Maurice Valadon, was a French painter who specialized in cityscapes. Born in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre who were born there....

     (1883–1955) painter
  • Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes
    Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes
    Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes was a French writer and artist associated with the Dada movement. He was born in Montpellier....

     (1884–1974) painter
  • Jacques Maroger
    Jacques Maroger
    Jacques Maroger was a painter and the technical director of the Louvre Museum's laboratory in Paris. He devoted his life to understanding the oil-based media of the Old Masters....

     (1884–1962) painter
  • Robert Delaunay
    Robert Delaunay
    Robert Delaunay was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee...

     (1885–1941) painter
  • André Dunoyer de Segonzac (1884–1974) painter
  • Pierre Brissaud
    Pierre Brissaud
    Pierre Brissaud was a French Art Deco illustrator, painter, and engraver whose father was Docteur Edouard Brissaud. He was born in Paris and trained at the École des Beaux-Arts and Atelier Fernand Cormon in Montmartre, Paris. His fellow Cormon students were his brother Jacques, André-Édouard...

     (1885–1964) painter
  • Roger de la Fresnaye
    Roger de La Fresnaye
    Roger de La Fresnaye was a French cubist painter.-Early years and education:La Fresnaye was born in Le Mans where his father, an officer in the French army, was temporarily stationed. The La Fresnayes were an aristocratic family whose ancestral home, the Château de La Fresnaye, is in Falaise...

     (1885–1925) painter
  • Amédée Ozenfant
    Amédée Ozenfant
    Amédée Ozenfant was a French cubist painter.He was born into a bourgeois family in Saint-Quentin, Aisne and was educated at Dominican colleges in Saint-Sébastien...

     (1886–1956) painter
  • Jean (Hans) Arp
    Jean Arp
    Jean Arp / Hans Arp was a German-French, or Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper....

     (1886–1966) painter, sculptor
  • Marc Chagall
    Marc Chagall
    Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...

     (1887–1985) (Born in Belarus) painter
  • Marcel Duchamp
    Marcel Duchamp
    Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...

     (1887–1968) painter, sculptor, other media
  • Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti
    Suzanne Duchamp
    Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti was a French Dadaist painter. Born in Blainville-Crevon, Seine-Maritime in the Haute-Normandie Region of France, she was the fourth of six children born into the artistic family of Eugene and Lucie Duchamp.Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti was the younger sister of:*Jacques Villon née...

     (1889–1963) painter
  • Ossip Zadkine
    Ossip Zadkine
    Ossip Zadkine was a Belarusian-born artist who lived in France. He is primarily known as a sculptor, but also produced paintings and lithographs.-Early years and career:...

     (1890–1967) (Russian born) sculptor
  • Jacques Lipchitz
    Jacques Lipchitz
    Jacques Lipchitz was a Cubist sculptor.Jacques Lipchitz was born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz, son of a building contractor in Druskininkai, Lithuania, then within the Russian Empire...

     (1891–1973) (Born in Poland) sculptor
  • Max Ernst
    Max Ernst
    Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...

     (1891–1976) (German born) painter, sculptor
  • Bram van Velde
    Bram van Velde
    Bram van Velde was a Dutch painter known for an intensely colored and geometric semi-representational painting style related to Tachisme, and Lyrical Abstraction...

     (1892–1981) (Dutch, worked in France) painter
  • Chaïm Soutine
    Chaim Soutine
    Chaïm Soutine was a Jewish painter from Belarus. Soutine made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living in Paris....

     (1894–1943) (Born in Lithuania) painter
  • Jacques Henri Lartigue
    Jacques Henri Lartigue
    Jacques Henri Lartigue was a French photographer and painter.Born in Courbevoie to a wealthy family, he is most famous for his stunning photos of automobile races, planes and fashionable Parisian women from the turn of the century.He started taking photos when he was 7, his subject matter being...

     (1894–1986) photographer
  • Prosper Rotgé (1895–1969) painter, engraver
  • Jean Maurice Rothschild
    Jean Maurice Rothschild
    Jean-Maurice Rothschild was an interior and furniture artist and designer whose most famous works were for the cruise liner Normandie and the restaurant of the Eiffel Tower .-External links:*Normandie Exhibit Featuring His Work...

    (1902–1998) furniture artist, interior designer, muralist
  • Gen Paul
    Gen Paul
    Gen Paul , was a French painter and engraver.-Biography:Born as Eugène Paul in a house in Montmartre on the Rue Lepic painted by Van Gogh, he began drawing and painting as a child. His father died when he was only ten years old and Gen Paul was trained to work in decorative furnishings...

     (1895–1975) painter, engraver
  • Albert Gilles
    Albert Gilles
    Albert Gilles was a French coppersmith.-Biography:He was born in Paris and mastered the art of sheet metal embossing at a young age before crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the 1930s to ply his trade in North America....

     (1895–1979) metal embosser, working with copper
  • André Masson
    André Masson
    André-Aimé-René Masson was a French artist.-Biography:Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Thérain, Oise, but was brought up in Belgium. He began his study of art at the age of eleven in Brussels, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of Constant Montald, and later he studied in Paris...

     (1896–1987) painter
  • René Iché
    René Iché
    For the town in Morocco see Iche, MoroccoRené Iché was a 20th century French sculptor.-Life and work:...

     (1897–1954) sculptor, painter
  • Jean Fautrier
    Jean Fautrier
    Jean Fautrier was a French painter and sculptor. He was one of the most important practitioners of Tachisme.He was born in Paris. Given his unwed mother's surname, he was raised by his grandmother until her death in 1908, when he went to live with his mother in London.In 1912 he studied at the...

     (1898–1964) painter
  • Georges Gimel
    Georges Gimel
    Georges Gimel , was a French expressionist painter of portraits, landscapes, mountain landscapes, still lifes and flowers. He was also a wood carver, lithographer, illustrator, set designer, sculptor, and enamel painter....

     (1898–1962) painter,engraver,sculptor
  • Henri Michaux
    Henri Michaux
    Henri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian-born poet, writer, and painter who wrote in French. He later took French citizenship. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism...

     (1899–1984) (Belgian) painter
  • Brassaï
    Brassaï
    Brassaï was a Hungarian photographer, sculptor, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerous Hungarian artists who flourished in Paris beginning between the World Wars...

     (Gyula Halasz) (1899–1984) (born in Hungary) photographer

Twentieth century (Post World War II)

See also Modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...


  • Marcelle Bergerol
    Marcelle Bergerol
    Marcelle Bergerol was a member of the atelier of Edmond Heuzé, and enjoyed remarkable longevity as a painter, bringing to the canvas exceptional images of France, including Brittany, Quercy in the Dordogne region, and Paris, the City of lights.Marcelle Bergerol was considered a figurative...

     (1900–1989) painter
  • Constantine Andreou
    Constantine Andreou
    Constantine Andreou , was a painter and sculptor of Greek origin with a highly successful career that spanned six decades...

     (1917–2007) (Greek, Brazilian born) painter, sculptor
  • Arman
    Arman
    Arman was a French-born American artist. Born Armand Pierre Fernandez in Nice, France, Arman is a painter who moved from using the objects as paintbrushes to using them as the painting itself...

     (Armand Fernandez) (1928–2005) sculptor
  • Serge Arto (1959–) painter,sculptor, photographer,media artist
  • Georges Badin
    Georges Badin
    Georges Badin is a French poet and painter born in 1927 living and working in the small city of Céret in the South of France.-Recent exhibitions:* Maison de la Catalanité, Perpignan * , Kongsberg, Norway * , Paris...

     (1927–) painter
  • César Baldaccini
    César Baldaccini
    César Baldaccini , usually called César was a noted French sculptor.César was at the forefront of the Nouveau Réalisme movement with his radical compressions , expansions , and fantastic representations of animals and insects.- Biography :He...

     (called "César") (1921–1998) sculptor
  • Gilles Balmet (1979–) Video artist, painter, photographer and other media
  • Balthus
    Balthus
    Balthasar Klossowski de Rola , best known as Balthus, was an esteemed but controversial Polish-French modern artist....

     (Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, called "Balthus") (1908–2001) (Polish born) painter
  • Vanilla Beer
    Vanilla Beer
    Vanilla Beer is a British artist.She trained at the West Surrey School of Art and Design and the Farnham and Walthamstow School of Art, London. Vanilla's first major solo show was at Gallery 181, curated by Alan Haydon in 1983. Her first major installation was commissioned by John Gill for the...

     (1953) painter, daughter of Anthony Stafford Beer
  • Hans Bellmer
    Hans Bellmer
    Hans Bellmer was a German artist, best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist photographer.-Biography:...

     (1902–1975) (French, Born in Germany) sculptor, photographer, engraver
  • Gabrielle Bellocq
    Gabrielle Bellocq
    Gabrielle Bellocq was an artist in pastels. Born in Saint-Hilaire-de-Talmont on 15 June 1920. Died in Saint-Malo on 29 July 1999.- Summary :...

     (1920–1999) painter
  • Maurice Benayoun
    Maurice Benayoun
    Maurice Benayoun is a French pioneer new-media artist and theorist based in Paris. His work employs various media, including video, immersive virtual reality, the Web, wireless technology, performance, large-scale urban art installations and interactive exhibitions.-Biography:Born in Mascara,...

     (aka MoBen) (1957–) media artist
  • Thierry Bisch
    Thierry Bisch
    -Early life and education:Bisch comes from a family with industrial interests in France. The work of his great-grand father, the painter Louis Janmot , had a profound influence upon him....

     (1953–) painter
  • Maurice Boitel
    Maurice Boitel
    Maurice Boitel Maurice Boitel Maurice Boitel (July 31, 1919 – August 11, 2007 in Audresselles (Pas-de-Calais), was a French painter.-Artistic life:Maurice Boitel belonged to the art movement called "La Jeune Peinture" ("Young Picture") of the School of Paris, with painters like Bernard Buffet, Yves...

     (1919–2007) painter
  • Christian Boltanski
    Christian Boltanski
    Christian Boltanski is French sculptor, photographer, painter and film maker.-Life and work:Having no formal art education, he began painting in 1958. Nevertheless, he first came to public attention in 1960 with few short films and publication of several notebooks...

     (1944–) painter, photographer, other media, sculptor
  • Claude Bonin-Pissarro
    Claude Bonin-Pissarro
    Claude Bonin-Pissarro is a French painter. He is the son of Jeanne Pissarro and the grandson of painter Camille Pissarro . He is the father of French painter Frédéric Bonin-Pissarro, born in 1964.-External links:*...

     (1921–) painter
  • Louise Bourgeois
    Louise Bourgeois
    Louise Joséphine Bourgeois , was a renowned French-American artist and sculptor, best known for her contributions to both modern and contemporary art, and for her spider structures, titled Maman, which resulted in her being nicknamed the Spiderwoman...

     (1911–2010) (Lived and died in America) sculptor, other media
  • Victor Brauner
    Victor Brauner
    Victor Brauner was a Romanian Jewish painter of surrealistic images.-Early life:He was born in Piatra Neamţ, the son of a timber manufacturer who subsequently settled in Vienna with his family for a few years. It is there that young Victor attended elementary school...

     (1903–1966) (Romanian) painter
  • Bernard Buffet
    Bernard Buffet
    Bernard Buffet was a French painter of Expressionism and Member of the Anti-Abstract Art Group "L'homme Témoin [the Witness-Man]".-Life and work:...

     (1928–1999) painter
  • Daniel Buren
    Daniel Buren
    Daniel Buren is a French conceptual artist.- Work :Sometimes classified as an abstract minimalist Buren is known best for using regular, contrasting maxi stripes to integrate the visual surface and architectural space, notably historical, landmark architecture.Among his chief concerns is the...

     (1938–) sculptor, painter
  • Jean-Marc Bustamante
    Jean-Marc Bustamante
    Jean-Marc Bustamante is a French artist, sculptor and photographer. He was born in Toulouse. He is noted as a conceptual and installation artist and has incorporated ornamental design and architectural space in his works. He has also worked with film . From 1983 to 1987 he and Bernard Bazile...

     (1952–) painter, sculptor, photographer
  • Henri Cadiou
    Henri Cadiou
    Henri Cadiou was a French realist painter and lithographer known for his work in trompe-l'oeil paintings. He is credited with being a founder of the l’école de la réalité in 1949...

     (1906–1989) painter
  • Amelie Chabannes
    Amelie Chabannes
    Amelie Chabannes is a French artist whose paintings and sculptures derive from the unconscious and recall the Surrealist automatic drawing technique...

     (1974–) painter, sculptor
  • Robert Combas
    Robert Combas
    Robert Combas is a French painter and sculptor, born May 25, 1957 in Lyon, France and now living and working in Paris.He is widely recognized as a progenitor of the figuration libre movement that began in Paris around 1980 as a reaction to the art establishment in general and minimalism and...

     (1957–) painter
  • Jean-Yves Couliou
    Jean-Yves Couliou
    -Biography:Couliou was born in Landerneau, Finistère, France, and spent his youth in the neighbourhood of Pont-Aven, the village of his parents. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts of Rennes, Académies et Écoles Nationales Supérieures des Arts Décoratifs, des Arts Appliqués and the Beaux-Arts...

     (1916–1995) painter
  • Michel De Caso
    Michel De Caso
    Michel De Caso is a visual artist born in Toulouse, France. He is the creator of the painting technique known as Rectoversion . He is also the founder of the artistic movement Contemporary Rectoversion and of Circle Internet Rectoversion . Major works include massive rectoversion dung piles...

     (1956–) painter, sculptor
  • Jacques de la Villeglé (1926–) other media (ripped posters)
  • Thibaut de Reimpré
    Thibaut de Reimpré
    Thibaut de Reimpré is a contemporary French painter. Born in Paris in 1949, he attended the 'Beaux-Arts' in Paris and worked, in particular, in the 'Atelier Yankel' from 1968 to 1971. He currently works either in Paris or in the Sarthe region, mostly with acrylic paint , his style is abstract...

     (1949-) abstract painter
  • Niki de Saint-Phalle (1930–2002) sculptor
  • Michel de Sereville
    Michel de Sereville
    Michel de Séréville, a French artist, was born in Saumur, France 28 April 1922, and died February 23, 2006 in Paris.-Biography:Michel de Séréville spent his childhood living between two different worlds: a medieval castle in a very remote area of Lorraine, lit by the soft presence of a grandmother,...

     (1922–2006)- painter, illustrator
  • Nicolas de Staël
    Nicolas de Staël
    Nicolas de Staël was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting...

     (1914–1955) (French, Russian origin) painter
  • Daniel Dezeuze
    Daniel Dezeuze
    Daniel Dezeuze is a French artist and a founding member of the French group of artists called Supports-Surfaces. This group started to form in 1966...

     (1942–)other media
  • Hervé Di Rosa
    Hervé Di Rosa
    Hervé Di Rosa is a French painter.Born in Sète, France, Hervé Di Rosa is a French painter who brings to life the unique characters who populate his work through the making of paintings, sculptures, installations, animation movies, editions, portraying these unique individuals. In America we had...

     (1959–) painter
  • Jean Dubuffet
    Jean Dubuffet
    Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.-Life and work:Dubuffet was...

     (1901–1985) painter
  • Joel Ducorroy
    Joel Ducorroy
    Joel Ducorroy is an original French artist, born in 1955 and known as a "plate artist" .His art consists of stamping word or words onto license plates. He uses license plates as a way of breaking away from the traditional canvas...

     (1955- ) licence plate artist
  • Bracha L. Ettinger
    Bracha L. Ettinger
    Bracha L. Ettinger also known as Bracha Ettinger, Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger, Hebrew: ברכה אטינגר, ברכה ליכטנברג-אטינגר, is an artist, painter, photographer, theorist and psychoanalyst. Bracha L. Ettinger is a Professor at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland...

     (1948–) (Born in Tel Aviv) painter, photographer, new media, artist's books
  • Ivan Fayard (1969–) painter
  • Manu Farrarons
    Manu Farrarons
    Manu Farrarons is a Polynesian tattoo artist born in France in 1967 and grew up in Tahiti with the Polynesian culture.With his knowledge and mastery of Polynesian designs, he contributes actively to the fame of this ancestral art form....

     (1967–) tattoo artist, graphic designer, illustrator, other media
  • Robert Filliou
    Robert Filliou
    Robert Filliou was a French Fluxus artist, who produced works as a filmmaker, "action poet," sculptor, and happenings maestro....

     (1926–1987) other media
  • Bernard Frize
    Bernard Frize
    Bernard Frize is a French painter who works in a variety of materials and utilizes a multitude of techniques. As an artist he explores the bare minimal essence of painting, devoid of conception and aesthetic, instead focusing on an industrial approach to making art...

     (1954–) painter
  • Gérard Fromanger
    Gérard Fromanger
    Gérard Fromanger is a French artist born on 6 September 1939 in Jouars-Pontchartrain, Yvelines. A painter who has also used collage, sculpture, photography, cinema and lithography, he is associated with the French artistic movement of the 1960s and 1970s called Figuration Narrative , somewhat like...

     (1939–) painter, other media
  • Gérard Garouste
    Gérard Garouste
    Gérard Garouste is a French painter, illustrator, and decorator. Since 1979, he has lived and worked in Marcilly-sur-Eure in the department of Eure, where he founded an educational and social action group to help children with art called La Source.-Biography:Gérard Garouste was born in Paris...

     (1946–) sculptor, painter, other media
  • Gérard Gasiorowski (1930–1986) painter, other media
  • Alberto Giacometti
    Alberto Giacometti
    Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.Alberto Giacometti was born in the canton Graubünden's southerly alpine valley Val Bregaglia and came from an artistic background; his father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-Impressionist painter...

     (1901–1966) (Swiss, worked in Paris) sculptor, painter
  • Pierre Gilou (1938-) Painter (Trompe-l’oeil – Réalité] (Son of painter Henri Cadiou), works in Paris
  • Alvaro Guillot
    Alvaro Guillot
    Alvaro Guillot was a French artist born in Uruguay. He was a notable exponent of the "new surrealist school".- External links :***...

     (1931–2010) (Uruguay/French, died in Santa Fe New Mexico) abstract Realism
  • Raymond Hains
    Raymond Hains
    Raymond Hains was a French artist and photographer.-Biography:In 1945, Hains briefly enrolled in the sculpture course at the École des Beaux-Arts, Rennes and met Jacques de la Villeglé that same year. He then collaborated with E. Sougez as a photographer for France-Illustration...

     (1926–2005) other media
  • Simon Hantaï
    Simon Hantaï
    Simon Hantaï is a painter generally associated with abstract art.-Biography:...

     (1922–) (Born in Hungary) painter
  • Hans Hartung
    Hans Hartung
    Hans Hartung was a German-French painter, known for his gestural abstract style. He was also a decorated World War II veteran of the French Foreign Legion.-Life:...

     (1904–1992) (Born in Germany) painter
  • Jean Hélion
    Jean Hélion
    Jean Hélion was a French painter whose abstract work of the 1930s established him as a leading modernist. His midcareer rejection of abstraction was followed by nearly five decades as a figurative painter...

     (1904–1987) painter
  • Lucien Hervé
    Lucien Hervé
    Lucien Hervé was a Jewish Hungarian-French photographer well known for his black-and-white photos of architecture, especially that of Le Corbusier, with whom he had a nearly 20-year collaboration....

     (László Elkán) (1910–2007) photographer (Born in Hungary)
  • Pierre Huyghe
    Pierre Huyghe
    Pierre Huyghe is a French artist who works in a variety of media from film and video to public interventions. He won the Hugo Boss Prize from the Guggenheim Museum in 2002.-Biography:...

     (1962–) media, film, video
  • Jean Jacques Surian
    Jean Jacques Surian
    Jean Jacques Surian is a French painter born in 1942 in Marseille. He studied in Marseille and Paris and lives in Marseille. He carried out a lot of exhibitions since its first exposure in Marseille in 1965...

     (1942–) (painter and ceramist, lives in Marseille)
  • Yves Klein
    Yves Klein
    Yves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...

     (1928–1962) painter
  • Olivier Kosta-Théfaine
    Olivier Kosta-Théfaine
    Olivier Kosta-Théfaine is a French artist who lives and works in Paris. He was the chief redactor of Wordlsigns Magazine and Nusign magazine, Paris, 2007.Graduated in Art History, he is a Self-taught artist....

     (1972–) (Lives in Paris) other media
  • Pierre Laffillé
    Pierre Laffillé
    Pierre Laffillé was a French painter, born at Envermeu, Seine-Maritime.- Biography :Pierre Laffillé studied at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1956 then studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts from 1959 to 1961. His first exhibition was in 1960 at Dieppe...

     (1938–) painter
  • François Lanzi
    François Lanzi
    François Lanzi was a French-born artist who lived a large part of his adult life in the United Kingdom.- His life :...

     (1916–1988) painter
  • Andrey Lekarski
    Andrey Lekarski
    Andrey Lekarski is a French-Bulgarian painter and sculptor born in 1940 in Sofia , living in Paris.- Biography :Second son of general Krum Lekarski and Nadezhda Lekarska, born on December 2, 1940 in Sofia . From 1954 to 1959 he studied at the School of Visual Arts in Moscow. In 1962 he enrolled at...

     (1940–) painter,sculptor, media artist (Bulgarian born)
  • Claude-Max Lochu
    Claude-Max Lochu
    French artist, painter and designer, Claude-Max Lochu was born in 1951 in Delle in Territoire de Belfort, Franche-Comté and completed his degree at the École des Beaux-Arts of Besançon...

     (1951–) painter
  • Etienne Martin
    Etienne Martin
    - Biography :Born 4 February 1913 in Loriol, Drôme, France, Étienne Martin attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Lyon from 1929 to 1933, where he met Marcel Michaud...

     (1913–1995) sculptor
  • Ervin Marton (1912–1968) photographer and artist
  • Georges Mathieu
    Georges Mathieu
    Georges Mathieu is a French painter in the style of lyrical abstraction.-Biography:He was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, and gained an international reputation in the 1950s as a leading Abstract Expressionist. His large paintings are created very rapidly and impulsively...

     (1921–) painter
  • Ksenia Milicevic
    Ksenia Milicevic
    Ksenia Milicevic is a French painter, architect and town planner. She is based in Paris, with a studio in Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre. She also maintains a base in South West France.- Life :...

     (1942-) painter
  • Jules Michel
    Jules Michel
    Jules Michel is a French artist.As a child of eight, while exploring the family attic, Jules Michel discovered an old oil paint box. With it, he quickly improvised his first paintings....

     (1931–) painter, sculptor
  • François Morellet
    François Morellet
    François Morellet is a contemporary French painter, engraver, sculptor and light artist. His early work prefigured Minimal art and Conceptual art, and he has played an important role in geometrical abstraction over the past half century.-Career:After a short period of figurative/representational...

     (1926–) painter
  • Marcel Mouly
    Marcel Mouly
    Marcel Mouly was a French artist who painted in an abstract style.-Early life:Mouly was born in Paris France on February 6, 1918. His Interest in art developed in grade school. A precocious, mischievous child, Mouly was first sent to drawing class as a form of punishment...

     (1918-2008) painter, print maker
  • Patrick Moya
    Patrick Moya
    - Patrick Moya :Patrick Moya is a Southern French artist, born in 1955 in Troyes, France living in Nice on the French Riviera. He is a part of the Nice contemporary art movement, the new wave of the École de Nice . Moya has been at the forefront since the 1970s of straddling the latest forms of...

     (1955–) painter, sculptor, media artist (see :fr:Patrick Moya )
  • Orlan
    Orlan
    ORLAN is a French artist, born May 30, 1947 in Saint-Étienne, Loire. She lives and works in Los Angeles, New York, and Paris. She was invited to be a scholar in residence at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, for the 2006-2007 academic year...

     (1947–) performance artist, body artist
  • François Ozenda
    François Ozenda
    François Ozenda was a painter born in Marseille, France. He spent his childhood there, in a modest family. He left school at age 14 as a result of a motorcycle accident. He worked various trades, generally living off the barter of his art and support from his friends.He claims to have learned...

     (1923–1976) painter
  • Zaven Paré
    Zaven Paré
    Zaven Paré is a French new media artist who was born in 1961. He met Piotr Kowalski and Nicolas Schöffer from 1981 to 1983, and exposed his first bionic structure the same year in the Modern Art Museum of Paris...

     (1961–) New media artist
  • Jacques Pellegrin (painter)
    Jacques Pellegrin (painter)
    Jacques Pellegrin is a French painter.-Biography:Jacques Pellegrin paints portraits, landscapes and still lifes. He started to paint at age eight. When he was eleven years old, he carried off the first prize from the Aix-en-Provence city hall.His style connected first to classic and realist art...

     (1944–) painter
  • Anne Poirier (1942–) painter, other media
  • Patrick Poirier (1942–) painter, other media
  • Martial Raysse
    Martial Raysse
    Martial Raysse is a French artist born in Golfe-Juan on 12 February 1936. He lives in Issigeac - France.-Biography: Raysse was born in a ceramicist family in Vallauris and began to paint and write poetry at age 12. After studying and practising athleticism at a high level, he began to accumulate...

     (1936–) painter
  • Paul Rebeyrolle
    Paul Rebeyrolle
    Paul Rebeyrolle was a French painter.-Life and works:As a child he had tuberculosis of the bone, which caused for long periods of immobility. Later he studied in Limoges and joined the French Communist Party...

     (1926–2005) painter
  • Alfred-Georges Regner
    Alfred-Georges Regner
    Alfred-Georges Regner , was a French surrealist painter and engraver.-Books of Regner's work:* Georges Turpin. A-G. Regner. Les palettes nouvelles. Paris: R. Debresse, 1951. ...

     (1901–1987) painter, engraver
  • Claude Rutault (1941–) conceptualist, painter
  • Dominique Sanson
    Dominique Sanson
    Dominique Sanson is an artist, born in Paris, France, in 1949. He lives and works in Ibiza.Dominique’s paintings can be found in private collections in Chile, Argentina, the USA and many European countries....

     (1949–) (French, lives and works in Ibiza, Spain) painter
  • Jean-Michel Sanejouand
    Sanejouand
    Jean-Michel Sanejouand was born in Lyon, France, on July, 18, 1934.His work has many facets, ranging from environments to monumental sculptures, fromreadymade like objects to paintings of oneiric landscapes in which one of his sculptures stands....

     (1934–) sculptor, painter
  • Denis Schneider
    Denis Schneider
    - Biography :Denis Schneider studied at the famous School of Beaux-Arts in Paris and started exhibiting in 1967 on the Parisian’s art market. In 1970, he took the decision to leave Paris to free himself from any restraints and dedicate himself to his art. Since then, he has been creating his works...

     (1946–)-painter
  • Pierre Soulages
    Pierre Soulages
    Pierre Soulages is a French painter, engraver, and sculptor.-Biography:Born in Rodez in 1919, Soulages also is known as "the painter of black" because of his interest in the colour, "...both a colour and a non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up...

     (1919–) painter
  • Pierre Tal-Coat
    Pierre Tal-Coat
    Pierre Tal-Coat was a French artist considered to be one of the founders of Tachisme.-Life and work:...

     (1905–1985) painter
  • Yves Tanguy
    Yves Tanguy
    Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy , known as Yves Tanguy, was a French surrealist painter.-Biography:Tanguy was born in Paris, France, the son of a retired navy captain. His parents were both of Breton origin...

     (1900–1955) (Naturalized American) painter
  • Jean Tinguely
    Jean Tinguely
    Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...

     (1925–1991) (Swiss) sculptor
  • Jacques Toutain-Dorbec (1923–) (French, lives and work in Spain) painter
  • Pierre Toutain-Dorbec
    Pierre Toutain-Dorbec
    Pierre Toutain-Dorbec, in Orbec, Normandy, France is a photographer, artist, author, and publisher whose work emphasizes a humanist perspective. Pierre Toutain-Dorbec currently resides in New Mexico, USA.-Biography:...

     (1951–) painter, sculptor, photographer, writer
  • Damien Valero
    Damien Valero
    Damien Valero is a French mixed media visual artist and professor of art and space through a partnership between Georgia Tech Paris Program USA, and l'École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris-La Villette...

     (1965-) mixed media artist
  • Victor Vasarely
    Victor Vasarely
    Victor Vasarely was a Hungarian French artist whose work is generally seen aligned with Op-art.His work entitled Zebra, created by Vasarely in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of Op-art...

     (1908–1997) (Born in Hungary) painter
  • Ben Vautier
    Ben Vautier
    Ben Vautier , also known simply as Ben, is a French artist.Vautier lives and works in Nice, where he ran a record shop called Magazin between 1958 and 1973...

     (called "Ben") (dates?) painter, other media
  • Bernar Venet (1941–) (Lives in America) sculptor
  • Jean Vignes (1915–1958) monk/ artist
  • Pierre Wemaëre (1913–2010) artist
  • Raymond Wintz
    Raymond Wintz
    Raymond Wintz was a Paris-born painter and engraver whose most famous paintings were of marine and coastal views in Brittany. He is best known for his painting The Blue Door, which is still widely available as a poster and print.-Life:Raymond Wintz was born on 25 March 1884...

     (1884–1956) painter
  • Wols
    Wols
    Wols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze , a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France....

     (1913–1951) (Born in Germany) painter
  • Jean-Pierre Yvaral
    Jean-Pierre Yvaral
    Jean-Pierre Vasarely , professionally known as Yvaral, was a French artist working in the fields of op-art and kinetic art from 1954 onwards. He was the son of Victor Vasarely.-Life and work:...

     (1934–2002) (son of Victor Vasarely ) painter
  • Patrick Mimran
    Patrick Mimran
    Patrick Mimran is a French multimedia artist and is one of the Mimran brothers.-Biography:Mimran initially devoted himself to the business world. Along with his brother, Jean Claude, he was co-director of Lamborghini until 1987, when it was sold to Chrysler...

     (1956–) multimedia artist
  • Y Liver
    Y Liver
    Y Liver is a contemporary art duo created in 1999 by David Liver and Rugiada Cadoni .Y Liver's work spans video, performance, drawing, installation and storytelling...

     (1977-) (Lives and works in Paris) video-maker and performance artists
  • Corinne Tounsi (1956 - ) (Lives and works in Vence) painter, visual artist
  • Victor Orly
    Victor Orly
    Victor Orly is a French painter, born in Ukraine. He lives in Marseille, France since 2004. His works were exhibited in France, Ukraine, Russia and China...

     (1962 - ) (Lives and works in Marseille) painter, ceramist

French photographers

  • Joseph Nicéphore Niépce
    Nicéphore Niépce
    Nicéphore Niépce March 7, 1765 – July 5, 1833) was a French inventor, most noted as one of the inventors of photography and a pioneer in the field.He is most noted for producing the world's first known photograph in 1825...

     (1765–1833) — Inventor of Photography
  • Louis-Jacques Daguerre (1787–1851)
  • Hippolyte Bayard
    Hippolyte Bayard
    -Late career:Despite his initial hardships in photography, Bayard continued to be a productive member of the photographic society. He was a founding member of the French Society of Photography...

     (1807–1887)
  • Adolphe Braun
    Adolphe Braun
    Adolphe Braun was a French photographer, best known for his floral still-lifes, Parisian street scenes, and grand Alpine landscapes. One of the most influential French photographers of the 19th century, he used contemporary innovations in photographic reproduction to market his photographs...

     (1812-1877)
  • Charles Marville
    Charles Marville
    -Biography:Charles Marville was the pseudonym of Charles François Bossu , a French photographer who mainly photographed architecture and landscapes. He used both paper and glass negatives...

     (1816–1879)
  • Nadar
    Nadar (photographer)
    Félix Nadar was the pseudonym of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon , a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist and balloonist. Some photographs by Nadar are marked "P. Nadar" for "Photographie Nadar" .-Life: born in April 1820 in Paris...

     (Gaspard Félix Tournachon, called "Nadar") (1820–1910)
  • Etienne-Jules Marey
    Étienne-Jules Marey
    Étienne-Jules Marey was a French scientist and chronophotographer.His work was significant in the development of cardiology, physical instrumentation, aviation, cinematography and the science of labor photography...

     (1830–1904)
  • Eugène Atget
    Eugène Atget
    Eugène Atget was a French photographer noted for his photographs documenting the architecture and street scenes of Paris....

     (Jean-Eugène Auguste Atget) (1857–1927)
  • Constant Puyo
    Constant Puyo
    Émile Joachim Constant Puyo was a French photographer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the leading advocate of the Pictorialist movement in France, he championed the practice of photography as an artistic medium...

     (1857-1933)
  • Jacques Henri Lartigue
    Jacques Henri Lartigue
    Jacques Henri Lartigue was a French photographer and painter.Born in Courbevoie to a wealthy family, he is most famous for his stunning photos of automobile races, planes and fashionable Parisian women from the turn of the century.He started taking photos when he was 7, his subject matter being...

     (1894–1986)
  • Brassaï
    Brassaï
    Brassaï was a Hungarian photographer, sculptor, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerous Hungarian artists who flourished in Paris beginning between the World Wars...

     (Gyula Halasz) (1899–1984) (born in Hungary)
  • Henri Cartier-Bresson
    Henri Cartier-Bresson
    Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography...

     (1908–2004)
  • Lucien Hervé
    Lucien Hervé
    Lucien Hervé was a Jewish Hungarian-French photographer well known for his black-and-white photos of architecture, especially that of Le Corbusier, with whom he had a nearly 20-year collaboration....

     (László Elkán) (1910–) photographer (Born in Hungary)
  • Willy Ronis
    Willy Ronis
    Willy Ronis was a French photographer, the best-known of whose work shows life in post-war Paris and Provence.-Early life:...

     (1910–2009) photographer
  • Robert Doisneau
    Robert Doisneau
    Robert Doisneau was a French photographer. In the 1930s he used a Leica on the streets of Paris; together with Henri Cartier-Bresson he was a pioneer of photojournalism...

     (1912–1994)
  • Wols
    Wols
    Wols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze , a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France....

     (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze) (1913–1951) (German, worked in France) photographer
  • Marc Riboud
    Marc Riboud
    Marc Riboud is a French photographer, best known for his extensive reports on the East: The Three Banners of China, Face of North Vietnam, Visions of China, and In China.-Early life and education:...

     (1923–) photographer
  • Pierre Boulat (1924–1998) photographer
  • Georges Rousse
    Georges Rousse
    "Georges Rousse is a French artist.When he was 9 years old, Rousse received the legendary Kodak Brownie camera as a Christmas gift. Since then, the camera has never left his side. While attending medical school in Nice, he decided to study professional photography and printing techniques, then...

     (1947–) photographer
  • Pierre et Gilles
    Pierre et Gilles
    Pierre et Gilles, Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard, are French artists and romantic partners. They produce highly stylized photographs, building their own sets and costumes as well as retouching the photographs...

     (Pierre: 1949, Gilles: 1953) photographers (active since 1976)
  • Pierre Toutain-Dorbec
    Pierre Toutain-Dorbec
    Pierre Toutain-Dorbec, in Orbec, Normandy, France is a photographer, artist, author, and publisher whose work emphasizes a humanist perspective. Pierre Toutain-Dorbec currently resides in New Mexico, USA.-Biography:...

     (1951–)
  • Pierre Dubreuil
    Pierre Dubreuil
    Pierre Dubreuil, born in Lille in 1872 and died in Grenoble in 1944, was a French photographer.- Biography :Pierre Dubreuil was born in a wealthy family, well-established in the wallpaper trade. In 1888 he joined the Jesuit College of Saint-Joseph in Lille and started to take pictures with a...

     (1872–1944), photographer
  • Bettina Rheims
    Bettina Rheims
    Bettina Rheims is a French artist and photographer. She is the daughter of Maurice Rheims, of the French Academy. Her sister Nathalie is an actress, writer and film producer...

     (1952–) photographer
  • Ange Leccia
    Ange Leccia
    Ange Leccia is a contemporary French painter, photographer and film-maker. He works in Paris primarily with photography and video.Leccia was born in Minerbio, Barrettali commune, in Corsica, and studied the fine arts...

     (1952–) photographer, filmmaker
  • Sophie Calle
    Sophie Calle
    Sophie Calle is a French writer, photographer, installation artist, and conceptual artist. Calle's work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and evokes the French literary movement of the 1960s known as Oulipo. Her work frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines...

     (1953–) other media, photographer
  • Alexandra Boulat
    Alexandra Boulat
    Alexandra Boulat was a leading French photographer born in Paris, France. She was trained in graphic art and art history at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 2001, she co-founded the VII Photo Agency. Before then she had been represented by Sipa Press and by her mother's agency, Cosmos...

     (1962–2007) photographer
  • Xavier Veilhan
    Xavier Veilhan
    Xavier Veilhan is a French artist who lives and works in Paris. His work consists of photography, sculpture, film, painting and installation art.-Works:...

     (1963–) photographer, other media
  • Michel Poivert
    Michel Poivert
    Michel Poivert is professor of the history of contemporary art and photography at the Sorbonne. He has taken a special interest in pictorialism, the subject of his doctorate thesis...

     (1965–) photography historian, president Société française de photographie
  • Jean-Christophe Destailleur (1966-) photographer

See also

  • Art history
    Art history
    Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

  • European art history
  • History of painting
    History of painting
    The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts from pre-historic humans, and spans all cultures. It represents a continuous, though periodically disrupted tradition from Antiquity. Across cultures, and spanning continents and millennia, the history of painting is an ongoing river of...

  • List of Bulgarian artists
  • List of French painters
  • List of Spanish artists
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