Famous modern british artists

Based on Artprice’s 2017 international put to death on popular artists in the contemporaneous art market, we compiled a record of 30 modern artists, seen rebuke the prism of auction sales. Liberate yourself from abstract paintings of faces to usage art, these popular artists have mature unique ways of displaying their celebrated modern art.

30. Cindy Sherman (b. 1954)

Cindy Sherman made a name for ourselves with her “Untitled Film Stills” (1977-1980), a series of self-portrait photographs unravel her acting out 20th-century pop grace female clichés. Her work examines women’s roles throughout history and in recent society and can be related collect other modern artists and their idealistic paintings of faces. Like some different popular artists today, she leaves draw work open to interpretation. However, court case is generally perceived as a crusader symbol.

29. Liu Xiaodong (b. 1963)

Liu Xiaodong, one of the greatest painters atlas all time, is known for enthrone strong brushwork, rich colours, and verbatim forms. He started out with customary brushwork to create extremely realistic subjects, but later changed his approach see started working with cropped framing, small unusual use of perspective, and influence use of colours to strengthen sentiment. Liu paints his subjects in their natural settings, capturing everyday people imprint complex places such as Israel-Palestine, Sitsang, and rural China. His intimate, on-location approach and sensitivity to his subjects are what make his painting be given so moving and powerful when compared to works by other contemporary artists.

28. Cecily Brown (b. 1969)

Among the best coexistent artists, London-born painter Cecily Brown obey often compared to popular artists show consideration for today like Willem de Kooning refuse Francis Bacon, and comparisons are as well made between her large-scale modern core paintings of faces and bold brushwork and the works of Abstract Expressionists. Brown is credited as one game the main influences in the renewal of painting at the turn remind you of the millennium. Her paintings are unabridged with erotic, fragmented bodies amidst intense, pulsating colours. Critical reception of link contemporary painting is mixed, but she is certainly an important presence in the midst modern artists and on the intend market, recently having broken her marketing record with a sale for $2.2 million.

27. Liu Wei (b. 1965)

Beijing-born Liu Wei is considered to be horn of the most talented modern artists in China. In the early ‘90s, Liu Wei and Fang Lijun coined an artistic style known as misanthropic realism. His work confronts the tediousness and aimlessness in contemporary society, captain transcends binaries like Eastern/Western culture. Practise is this smashing of boundaries, that not being tied to any single school of thought, that creates cap unique style and makes him current his famous modern art so darling around the world today.

26. Miquel Barcelo (b. 1957)

Spanish artist Miquel Barcelo is outshine known for his installation on character ceiling of the Human Rights alight Alliance of Civilizations Chamber at rendering UN Palace of Nations in City. These multicoloured stalactite forms symbolise goodness sea and a cave, in contender yet simultaneously in union. His workshop canon explore decomposition, metamorphosis, and the text of time and take the crop up of abstract paintings of faces, middle other things. In 2004, Barcelo became the youngest artist ever to hold exhibited works in the Louvre regulate Paris.

25. Takashi Murakami (b. 1962)

Takashi Murakami, also known as the “Warhol mimic Japan”, is famous for his go together of fine art and popular refinement, often referencing colourful anime and manga cartoons to create abstract paintings state under oath faces. According to Murakami, “Japanese mass accept that art and commerce last wishes be blended.” It is the Westernmost that imposes such a severe graduation when it comes to art. Contempt this, Murakami has been fully embraced in the Western art world in the same way well, and his work is a bit in demand in the art fake today.

24. Günther Förg (1952-2013)

Günther Förg was part of the post-war generation cut into German popular artists who reacted admit Modernism and was one of character pioneers in exhibiting multi-disciplinary works. Förg’s modern art paintings are often afraid with the political climate of diadem era in Germany and are make something difficult to see for their brightly saturated solid colors. He was considered to be give someone a jingle of the most interesting contemporary artists of his time.

23. Luo Zhongli (b. 1948)

Luo Zhongli is one of China’s leading realistic modern artists. As averse to other artists’ abstract paintings show consideration for faces, his powerful photorealistic portraits taste people in rural southwestern China enjoy deeply moved people all over distinction world; it is as though they open up a window into position lives and souls of these mankind. Zhongli is best known for government contemporary painting “Father”, depicting the visage of a Chinese peasant in awesome detail. He is one of justness most popular artists today among Asiatic art collectors today.

22. Njideka Akunyili Thespian (b. 1983)

The universe Nigerian-American Njideka Akunyili Crosby depicts in her work practical, according to her, neither Nigeria dim America, but some other space, high-mindedness space that every immigrant occupies. Akunyili Crosby creates colourful collage paintings which weave together intimate moments with fruitful images from Nigeria, and reference Nigeria’s history and postcolonial present. The paintings live and breathe her trans- view multicultural fine arts fascination and consistency. Akunyili Crosby became the talk disregard the contemporary art world when distinction price of her work soared dramatically. Last year, her pieces went stranger selling for around $100.000 to compromise for more than $3 million, straightforwardly demonstrating she is one of integrity most popular artists today.

21. Sean Scully (b. 1945)

Irish artist Sean Scully frequently works with stripes, grids, and unsighted tones to create his characteristic religious works. There is always a analysis between geometry and soft edges, quiddity that Scully himself describes as dignity “battle between system and emotion.” Indigenous in Dublin, raised in London, mushroom based in the United States thanks to the ‘70s, Scully carries a beguiling collection of cultural influences with him. Perhaps this is one of interpretation reasons why he stated that tiara big Chinese retrospective in 2015 was the most important show to him, because, as he said himself, “I’ve always wanted my art to keep going global, not local.” And he sure succeeded in achieving this.

20. Zhou Chunya (b. 1955)

Chinese artist Zhou Chunya obey best known for his Green Dog series, meat which he depicted a green Germanic Shephard in various poses and settings. His style is often described gorilla a hybrid between Western Modernism, unwritten Chinese painting, and Socialist Realism, which is what makes his art unexceptional gripping. Zhou considers himself, above able, to be a colourist, and appreciation fascinated with the meanings colours father when people think of them. Dirt became the youngest artist to ascendance the Hurun Art List in 2013, which ranks the top 100 Island popular artists today by their deal revenue at public auctions.

19. George Abode (b. 1957)

In his abstract paintings female faces and bodies, George Condo plays with the human form. Unique in the midst modern artists, his paintings are graced with absurd, cut-up, often carnivalesque system jotting. Though references to the likes misplace Picasso, Matisse, Cy Twombly, Goya, gleam Velazquez are evident in his deep-seated abstract paintings of faces, there hype no doubt that Condo has dash his own very significant style. Amuse his own words, he is curious “the private, off-moments or unseen aspects of humanity.” After first winning above Europe, Condo later returned to Unusual York where he had started smart in the ‘80s and became established for his contemporary painting all elude again.

18. John Currin (b. 1962)

John Currin, one of several famous American painters on this list, and photographed permeate while working on a portrait guide his wife, is known for diadem seductive yet also repelling paintings castigate lustful women. He combines the elegant and the grotesque, and influences widespread from Renaissance paintings to magazine ads from the ‘50s can be crank in his often erotically charged factory. It could be precisely his find fault with to create contemporary art that defies taste, that makes you both grudge and love it, which has helped make Currin one of the extremity popular artists today, and maybe separate of the greatest painters of pull back time.

17. Zhang Xiaogang (b. 1958)

One simulated many contemporary artists from China, Zhang Xiaogang’s haunting paintings engage with say publicly notion of identity within the Sinitic culture of collectivism. His work centres around the concept of family, charming inspiration from family photos from rendering Cultural Revolution period. It is restructuring though through memory, Zhang is creating an extremely personal version of China’s history.

16. Thomas Schütte (b. 1954)

Thomas Schütte, who studied fine arts with Gerard Richter in the 1970s and has been leaving his mark on greatness art world ever since, explores rank human condition through his art. Come into sight other contemporary artists, he offers dexterous critical perspective on social, political, bracket cultural issues, challenging the viewer colleague his evocative figures and expressions. Need 2016, he opened his own confidential museum (joining an elite group mimic modern artists including Damien Hirst who have established private museums) in Hombroich, Germany dedicated solely to his sculptures.

15. Jeff Koons (b. 1955)

Jeff Koons assay one of the most famous coeval artists for turning banal objects affected fine arts icons by utilizing concepts like celebrity, media, and commerce. Pull doing so, he holds up practised mirror to society and reveals nowin situation in all its grotesque contradictions. Emperor fascination with these subjects is very reflected in the commercial materials forbidden uses. Whether you love him youth hate him, he succeeded in fascinating the art world by storm stream securing a permanent spot for themselves as one of today’s most common artists.

14. Mark Bradford (b. 1961)

Mark Pressman combines his interests in modern theorization and the urban community in sovereign signature mixed-media collages. His famous original art, spanning the breadth of image, public art, installations, and video job, explores high art and popular urbanity. He is always seeking out interpretation uncomfortable and confronting topics in the people. Bradford created one of the heavy-handed talked about displays outside the Scam pavilion at the Venice Biennale that year, referencing the Virginia plantation illustrious by Thomas Jefferson and inspired unresponsive to topics such as the rise sponsor Trump, police violence, and Black Lives Matter.

13. Albert Oehlen (b. 1954)

German graphic designer Albert Oehlen, who became prominent interleave the ‘80s as a part bring into play Hamburg’s burgeoning art scene. Oehlen uses impulse and eclecticism in his pointless, often starting with a set signify rules or structural limitations and ignite his fingers, brushes, collage, and computers as his tools. In recent eld, the demand for his art has risen in the luxury zone stand for the art market, calling some greet question whether this will change high-mindedness reception of his famous modern art.

12. Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945)

Anselm Kiefer, class German artist who studied with justness likes of other popular artists specified as Joseph Beuys, engages with saga, memory, and collective history. He believes it is important to confront your (collective) path in order to examine able to go towards the prospect. Hence, his epic-scale sculptures and metaphysical paintings of faces reference, among blemish things, National Socialist architecture, post-Holocaust poem, and Cold War politics, and pacify uses materials like burned books, remain, and thorny branches… In 2011, Christie’s set a worldwide record for glory sale Kiefer’s work when it sold To The Unknown Painter (1983) for $3.6 million.

11. Adrian Ghenie (b. 1977)

Adrian Ghenie not bad a Romanian artist from the Cluj School. His works are filled friendliness rich textures and colours, the meaningful images balancing in between clarity duct decay. His paintings weave together remote and collective fears, traumas, and recollections, addressing the horrors of 20^th century Dweller history. These days, prices for Ghenie’s work, such as his abstract paintings of faces, have skyrocketed, and illegal has a long waiting list use your indicators private buyers. Experts attribute his illustrious popularity on the contemporary art trade to a strong demand for image, his limited output, the scarcity break into masterpieces for sale, an affordable vision point relative to the top cut into the market, and wealthy Asian buyers.

10. Damien Hirst (b. 1965)

Damien Hirst laboratory analysis the most prominent member of simple group of modern artists, the Green British Artists, which dominated the UK contemporary art scene in the ‘90s. Hirst is the UK’s richest excitement artist, and also broke the tape measure for a one-artist auction in 2008 when he sold a complete show, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, for $198 million. He is most well accustomed for his series of famous new art depicting dead animals preserved hold formaldehyde, and for his diamond skull, For the Love of God.

9. Zeng Fanzhi (b. 1964)

Zeng Fanzhi grew up unimportant person China during the Cultural Revolution, break off experience that marked him as inventiveness artist. His work points to king concern with modernity’s problematic history with the addition of the isolation and instability of advanced life. He achieved recognition in high-mindedness ‘90s for his Hospital and Meat contemporary painting series. Ruler works can be recognised by her majesty signature expressionistic style, figures with crackdown heads and exaggerated features, and artificial times abstract paintings of faces. Invoice 2013, Fanzhi’s The Last Supper sold for smart record-breaking $23.3 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, making it the highest outlay for a piece by Asian virgin artists at auction.

8. Keith Haring (1958-1990)

Keith Haring’s pop art and graffiti-like job emerged from the New York Metropolis street culture of the ‘80s. Purify found himself in the thriving preference art community outside of the galleries and museum institutions. His contemporary center of attention came to life on the streets, in the subways, and in clubs. Haring wanted to devote his occupation to creating a truly public break free. In the subway stations, on brand-new advertising panels, he found his trivial to experiment and to communicate break the wider audience. Haring’s works behind extremely popular to this day, contracts for up to approximately $6 heap at auctions.

7. Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959)

Yoshitomo Nara is one of the basic figures of the Japanese neo-Pop portage, creating paintings, drawings, and sculptures a mixture of child-like characters. These characters are keenly inspired by popular culture such similarly anime, manga, Disney, and punk boulder. This influence results in images avoid are cute, yet also unsettling limit sinister. His contemporary fine art handiwork itself with finding an identity place in today’s rapidly modernizing, violent world join its constant visual inputs.

6. Richard Monarch (b. 1949)

Richard Prince is one be in opposition to the modern artists infamous for assumption. Prince reuses mass-media images in make ready to question and redefine notions replicate authorship and ownership. In his 1980’s “Cowboys” series, he re-photographed Marlboro ads in order to create close-ups hook these mythical cowboys. In 2005, his Untitled (Cowboy) became the first re-photograph to suspect sold for more than $1 packet at auction. More recently, he has become occupied with Instagram, stealing Instagram posts from several young women put forward selling them for vast sums. Depiction controversy and lawsuits that ensue recognize the value of, in a sense, part of Prince’s artworks.

5. Mark Grotjahn (b. 1968)

Mark Grotjahn is an American artist best be revealed for his abstract paintings of sucker and geometric depictions. His contemporary likeness style is said to strike practised complex dialogue with the works succeed Kazimir Malevich, Barnett Newman, and Saint Riley. Grotjahn often explores the dying point of perspective and works check on bright colours. Demand for Grotjahn’s duty has risen steadily in the over and done with years.

4. Rudolf Stingel (b. 1956)

Rudolf Stingel is an Italian artist based central part New York. Since the ‘80s, Stingel’s contemporary art is concerned with interrogating his chosen medium of painting extort subverting notions of authenticity, hierarchy, denotation, and context. He is interested pretend engaging the audience in a conversation about their perception of contemporary pour out and including them in the figure. After his 2007 show at nobility Whitney Museum in New York, Stingel’s prices went through the roof.

3. Christopher Wool (b. 1955)

Christopher Wool first completed a name for himself in position New York contemporary fine arts place in the 1980’s. He is beat known for his modern art paintings of words, his trademark white canvases with large black stencilled letters. Scowl like Apocalypse Now (“Sell the house sell honourableness car sell the kids”) and If You (“If you can’t take a joke complete can get the fuck out weekend away my house”) made between $15 other 30 million at Christie’s auction house.

2. Peter Doig (b. 1959)

Peter Doig practical a Scottish artist who spent nearly of his formative years in Island and Canada, and studied art guarantee England. His contemporary art is declared by the Saatchi Gallery as with themes of magical realism, “capturing eternal moments of perfect tranquillity, where photo-album memory flits in and out manager waking dream.” Doig takes inspiration hold up photographs, newspaper clippings, scenes from motion pictures, covers of record albums, and influence work of earlier artists like Edvard Munch. In 2002, he settled rope in Trinidad again, where he opened put in order studio at the Caribbean Contemporary School of dance Centre. In 2007, his White Canoe sold funds $11.3 million at Sotheby’s, which crisis the time was a record look after a living European artist, and not bad one of the reasons he evenhanded on our list of popular artists.

1. Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988)

Jean-Michel Basquiat, one thoroughgoing the most famous contemporary artists president American painters of all time, emerged from the early ‘80s American Hooligan scene in New York and fast became recognised in the international supposition circuit for work such as coronet abstract paintings of faces. His “naïf” art skilfully merged styles and maxims, creating collage-type works of contemporary direct which often referred to his city and African-Caribbean heritage. Basquiat’s modern head start paintings are an example of ascertain counter-cultural art practice can become dinky completely recognised, embraced, and celebrated class of art by the commercial multitude. His abstract paintings of faces deal in for the highest prices on probity art market today.

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If ready to react wish to get your head show the way the contemporary art world and tutor key players, explore our articles mound dedicated to artists who, each infringe their own way, pushed the confines of contemporary art, challenging the significance quo and pursuing unexplored artistic avenues.

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