Greatest Art Photographers |
Venetian Canal (1894) |
Greatest Photographers (1880-present)
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From its roots in the early 19th century, photography has grown into a major branch of contemporary art, and now ranks alongside printmaking - as well as painting and sculpture - as an important type of fine art. Not surprisingly art collectors have not been slow to respond: the record auction price for a single photograph now stands at $4,338,500 - the price paid at Christie's New York, in November 2011, for Rhein II, 1999, by German lens-based artist Andreas Gursky. Among the great exponents of photography are such camera artists as Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), Edward Steichen (1879-1973), Man Ray (1890-1976), Ansel Adams (1902-84) and Cartier-Bresson (19082004) to name but a tiny few. Photography is associated historically with landscape painting: it was especially popular with Impressionist painters, for instance, who wanted to capture a fleeting moment of light. In addition it has been used by a number of modern art movements, notably Dada (c.1916-23), Die Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) (1920s), Surrealism (1924 onwards), Fluxus (1960s), and Pop Art (1960s/70s). Today it is linked with several different types of art, including silkscreen printing (see famous works like: Green Car Crash, 1963; and Eight Elvises, 1963; both by Andy Warhol), animation and computer art, and is frequently incorporated into installation art and collages. Photography embraces almost all the genres, notably portrait art, landscapes and still lifes, and captures everyday scenes with an immediacy and directness that oil painting can never match. It also brings to life other artforms, such as architecture, as well as land art. There are two basic types of photography: (1) Pictorialism, that is, soft-focus photos that are "manipulated" in the darkroom; and (2) Straight Photography, meaning the modern style of sharp focus pictures. Both types can be equally creative. (See: Is Photography Art?) Straight photography embraces a number of specialist areas, each with its own set of aesthetics, and camera artists. These specialties include: documentary photography and street photography, as well as fashion, beauty, celebrity portraits, sports, and humanistic photography, as well as photojournalism.
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Selecting the 20 greatest photographers is a highly subjective task. Here are our chosen favourites. Ansel
Adams (1902-84) Eugene
Atget (1857-1927) Richard
Avedon (1923-2004) Robert
Capa (1913-54) (Endre Erno Friedmann) Henri
Cartier-Bresson (19082004) Walker
Evans (19031975) Robert Frank (b.1924) Andreas
Gursky (b.1955) Dorothea
Lange (1895-1965) Annie
Leibovitz (b.1949) Man
Ray (1890-1976) Robert
Mapplethorpe (1946-89) Irving
Penn (1917-2009) Charles
Sheeler (1883-1965) Cindy
Sherman (b.1954) Edward
Steichen (1879-1973) Alfred
Stieglitz (1864-1946) Paul
Strand (1890-1976) Jeff
Wall (b.1946) Edward
Weston (1886-1958) |
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200 Greatest
Art Photographers Alexey Brodovitch (1898-1971) |
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Walker Evans (19031975) -
see above: "Top 20 Photographers" Heinrich Hoffmann (1885-1957)
Benjamin Katz (b.1939) |
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Peter Lindbergh (b.1944) Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) -
see above: "Top 20 Photographers" TO SEARCH FOR A PARTICULAR ARTIST, |
For more about lens-based artists,
see: History of Art. ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ART |