Famous Art Prints

Starry Night (1889) by Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh’s sensational sky signified by a swirl of blue and lit by a dazzle of yellow stars and moon is one of the most memorable landscapes in all of art history.

Pictured is the starry sky above the small village of Saint-Remy, France, which van Gogh captured from his bedroom window inside an asylum.

The Impressionist artist was in isolation when he painted Starry Night, clearly taken by the natural beauty filling his imagination.

If you like Starry Night, perhaps you’ll equally like van Gogh’s other starry landscape Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888), painted a year before.

The Mona Lisa (1503) by Leonardo da Vinci

One of the most iconic faces (and pieces of famous art) around the world can be found in a painting that dates to the 1500s.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is a portrait whose beauty and mystery has stayed the test of time.

This comes after the fact that the portrait was painted on poplar wood rather than canvas, causing it to warp over time and thus sear the stunning face with a crack.

One question curiously surrounding the painting for centuries is the identity of the smiling subject.

Nowadays, The Mona Lisa sits safely behind solid glass in the Louvre’s largest room, smiling down on hordes of spectators visiting the museum to admire her.

The Kiss (1908) by Gustav Klimt

The Austrian artist Gustav Klimt depicted two lovers embracing in The Kiss.

This famous painting was amongst a series of artworks from his Gold Period, identified by the lavish golden leaves and inspired by Byzantine art.

He had been exposed to the mosaics of Byzantine art in 1903 when he came upon the beauty of the San Vitale church while on a trip to Ravenna, Italy.

Inspired by the church’s gold tiles, symbolizing Christian piety, Klimt would also paint the famously known Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907) and Judith I (1901).

For a twenty-first century audience, The Kiss may seem like a tame depiction of love, but at the time of its creation, the painting stirred conventional Austrian waters.

The subject herself, thought to be Emilie Flöge, was no stranger to controversy with her uncorseted fashion sense. Klimt intended to express harmless affection and without the weight of the conservative falling on him.

Water Lilies series by Claude Monet

In the small village of Giverny in the south of Paris, France, Claude Monet tended to a small but colourful garden bursting with inspiration leading to the creation of many famous prints based on Water Lilies (1840–1926).

For the last thirty years of life, Monet surrounded himself with the pleasantries of water lilies, flower buds, bees, and a Japanese bridge.

These famous art prints are a pleasure for the eyes, with Monet using as many colours as can be found in nature.

There are more than two hundred and fifty paintings that Monet did of the water lilies, and they can be found in museums all over the world.

Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) by Vermeer

The Dutch Golden Age produced a range of famous masterpieces, and one of the most famous from this period is Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.

The depiction is of a girl wearing an oriental headdress, her head turned slightly with a large pearl earring dangling from her ear.

Her beauty is enhanced by the black background. Girl with a Pearl Earring wasn’t intended to be a portrait of anyone in particular, but rather a ‘tronie’, a style of painting that sought to depict a sitter’s exaggerated expressions or people in costume.

As with da Vinci’s The Mona Lisa, mystery surrounds the identity of the girl, with some speculating it could be Vermeer’s mistress or daughter. She even has a nickname: “Mona Lisa of the North”.

The Scream (1893) by Edvard Munch

The Norwegian painter Edvard Munch once experience a bout of anxiety and “sensed an endless scream passing through nature.”

This feeling was expressed in The Scream, marking the painting as one of the first examples of Expressionism.

The story goes that Munch walked along the outskirts of Christiania, Norway with friends, and as the sky turned a blood-red, his friends walking on, Munch became paralysed with angst.

The hairless figure on the bridge, hands to his face, remains haunting for centuries after its creation.

Gripped by the intense feeling, Munch created many versions of The Scream in a variety of materials.

The Birth of Venus (1482-85) by Sandro Botticelli

Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus depicts the goddess Venus being born as she emerges from the sea.

Zephyr and Chloris blow the goddess towards the shoreline of the island of Cyprus.

Venus is surrounded by symbols of spring, from the flowers to the female figure to her right, which is said to be Hora, the Goddess of Spring.

The famous patrons to the arts, the Medici family, commissioned the painting.

Venus was said to be modelled after a mistress of the Medicis, who Botticelli was apparently in love with.

Guernica (1937) by Pablo Picasso

It can be argued that no twentieth-century artist has made memorable the horrors of war quite like the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso has.

The Cubist painting Guernica was created as a reaction to the Nazi bombardment of the town of Guernica in the Basque region.

This occurred during the Spanish Civil War, when Spain fascist leader General Francisco Franco was attempting to take full control of the country.

The symbols of war are present in Guernica. The bull stands for the onslaught of fascism while the horse represents the people of Guernica.

The colour palette is restricted to pale blue, black, and grey to really communicate the bleakness of the aftermath of the bombing.

Guernica remains as Picasso’s most significant and famous art print, and an icon of modern art.

The Last Supper (1494-98) Leonardo da Vinci

In The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci depicts Christ dining for one last time with the Twelve Apostles.

Da Vinci captured the moment where Christ informs his disciples that one of them would betray him, and so we have a table of twelve men wearing expressions of shock, anger, and horror.

In his hand, the betrayer Judas holds a bag of silver, his bribe money.

Over the years, the painting’s paint and colour have begun to fade and flake while its iconic status has grown, making The Last Supper even more precious.

Liberty Leading the People (1830) Eugene Delacroix

France’s July Revolution of 1830 was a significant moment in history and best commemorated by the French artist Eugene Delacroix.

Liberty Leading the People depicts a bare-breasted woman, personifying liberty, leading armed civilians towards liberty.

They walk over several dead bodies, a tragic consequence of the civil war.

In Liberty’s hands is a bayonet and the Flag of the French Revolution, which would then become the national flag of France.

Also symbolic of liberty is the Phrygian cap she wears. The fighters with Liberty represent French society, from the bourgeoisie man in the top hat to the young student in the traditional bicorne hat, and the urban worker.

Liberty Leading the People remains Delacroix’s best-known work, and one of the most important and famous pieces of art to come out of France.

Vincent van Gogh

During his lifetime, much of Vincent van Gogh’s body of work was ignored by the public.

In fact, he was a ridiculed man and found little success in the art world. He scarcely sold his paintings and would be left desolate if not for the love and support of his brother Theo.

Today, van Gogh is one of the best-recognized artists around the world thanks to his unique style of painting. Despite his unpopularity and the crippling bouts of mental illness that plagued his life, the Dutch artist was compelled to paint.

He tackled many subject matters, from still life to portraiture, and landscape, each painted via his unique eye.

He painted scenes from his daily life, like the famous Café Terrance at Night (1888); he immortalised his mental illness in Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889); and shared the beauty of his surroundings in Sunflowers (1888), The Starry Night (1889), and Almond Blossoms (1890).

Pablo Picasso

No other artist from the twentieth century is perhaps better known than Pablo Picasso.

Born in Malaga, Spain, Picasso and his family moved to Barcelona to study at the School of Fine Arts after showing great promise in the arts.

He turned the art world on its head with his experiments in painting, including Cubism, and influenced a range of artists.

His masterpieces include Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), The Weeping Woman (1937), and the politically motivated Guernica (1937).

He would go on to experiment with a range of materials outside of painting, opting to play with illustration, ceramics, and collage.

The artist was so prolific in artmaking that there are three museums devoted to his body of work, along with large collections kept at the Tate, the Hermitage Museum, and MOMA, among others.

Salvador Dali

Of all the Surrealists, none are as memorable as Salvador Dali.

He was part of the Surrealist movement, which rejected the rational in art in order to tap into the unconscious mind and the imagination.

His famous masterpiece The Persistence of Memory (1931), made memorable by the clocks melting in the desert, is one of the well-known artworks from the Surrealist movement, despite being expelled from the group for clashing with its members.

Like Picasso, Dali dabbled in many mediums besides painting, including sculpture, illustration, film, writing. He liked celebrity as much as Andy Warhol did, and even collaborated with rock legend Alice Cooper in a range of famous wall art.

Claude Monet

The Impressionist movement would not have its name without French artist Claude Monet.

In 1872, Monet painted Impressionism, Sunrise, angering critics, and subsequently leading a young group of painters away from the rigid confines of Naturalism.

Born in the Normandy region, Monet moved to Paris at 19. He gained recognition for the vibrant paintings of the fast-changing modern Paris, depicting city skylines, bridges, and train stations, as in Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877).

Monet used en plein air to further develop the Impressionist style, often painting directly onto the large canvases, in the bosom of nature as seen in Poppies (1873) and Woman with a Parasol (1875).

He is best known for his Water Lilies series. By 1883, Monet was ready for a quiet life in Giverny, and rented a house in the bosom of nature, remaining there until he died in 1926.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance. Having completed only a handful of paintings, Da Vinci is the example that quality trumps quantity.

Da Vinci was born in Vinci, outside of Florence, Italy. At fifteen, he began an apprenticeship with Andrea del Verrocchio where he demonstrated great talent and skill for the arts.

The Mona Lisa and The Last Supper are two of the most revered and famous paintings in the Western world. Besides painting, da Vinci was also a draughtsman, engineer, theorist, and sculpture.

His notebooks were filled with ground-breaking inventions, one which included drawings of human flying apparatuses which has tickled curious minds for centuries.

Andy Warhol

Tomato soup will forever be associated with the American artist Andy Warhol thanks to his 1961 famous print Campbell’s Soup Cans.

Warhol was fascinated by consumer culture and, along with the soup cans, used Brillo boxes and Coca-Cola in his art.

Warhol changed the face of modern art by making art out of subjects from pop culture as a response to mass-media America.

Warhol began as a commercial artist before delving into the fine art world. He is the most recognizable name in Pop art.

He was also fascinated by celebrity and most of his works are known for depicting Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, and Elvis Presley.

While consumer culture and celebrity were subjects for Warhol, it would be his own mystery and subsequent celebrity that would establish him as one of the most well-known artists in history.

Michelangelo

The Vatican’s favourite artist Michelangelo is considered one of the master artists of the Renaissance, along with Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael.

It’s a title worthy of the man who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, sculpted David (1504) and Pieta (1499), and assisted in the design of St. Peter’s Basilica.

His contributions to Catholic art are notable, revered, and timeless. His talent in sculpture was noted at a young age, and he was sent to live in the Medici household.

After Michelangelo won a commission to carve the Pieta, he cemented his name as an artist and opened doors to more commissions, eventually creating art for nine different popes.

Michelangelo continued to work in his home studio even in his old age.

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo is famously known for her colours, animal-crowding series of self-portraits.

She famously started painting in 1925 after being horrifically injured in a bus accident, using a mirror hanging from the ceiling to better see her reflection.

She painted her spinal injury in The Broken Column (1944). The Mexican artist continued painting over the next three decades, depicting herself in a series of identities as seen in The Two Fridas (1939), The Wounded Deer (1946), Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940).

Banksy

There has never been a bigger name in graffiti than British artist Banksy.

The contemporary artist first popped onto the scene in the 1990s and became better known with his works Balloon Girl (2002) and Kissing Coppers (2004).

He is one of the few street artists that has made the leap to the fine art world, with many famous art pieces.

The recently auctioned Show me the Monet (2005) surprised the world when a shredder within the frame began to shred the painting to pieces.

Banksy remains anonymous and continues to create work around the world.

Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock was a major figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement thanks to his unique drip technique.

He preferred to lay the canvas flat on the ground. The first of these drip-style paintings is No. 5, 1948.

The painting was a drastic change from Pollock’s earlier works like The She-Wolf (1943) which depicted the founding myth of Rome.

Though unconventional, this allowed him to view the canvas from all angles.

Pollock was a long time alcoholic, dying at the age of forty-four following a car accident.

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