Art History Resource Guide

The American Abstract Expressionist painter, Willem de Kooning was born in Rotterdam and apprenticed as a commercial painter and decorator. In 1926 he went to New York, initially with no idea of becoming an artist.

Gorky was an American painter who played a key role in the merging of abstraction and Surrealism to prepare for the new style of Abstract Expressionism.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
American painter and engraver, b. Nyack, N.Y., studied in New York City with Robert Henri. Hopper lived in France for a year but was little influenced by the artistic currents there.

From The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women
Grandma Moses has been described as an “authentic primitive” – that is, a painter whose talent developed in complete isolation from contemporary artistic trends.

Kenneth Noland is one of the best known contemporary American Minimalist painters. He works within a range of 1960s styles collectively named “post-painterly abstraction” by Clement Greenberg.

The American painter Georgia O'Keeffe was born in Wisconsin. After 1949 she lived in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Distinctive features of her work are the ambivalence of its imagery, and the breadth of its artistic language; this ranges from abstraction to representation, but always has its origins in nature.

The American painter Jackson Pollock was the leading figure of the New York School of the 1940s. Brought up in California, he moved to New York in 1929 and studied at the Art Students' League under Thomas Hart Benton, the American Regionalist.

1925–, American painter. Rauschenberg became a pivotal figure in the emerging pop art movement.

US artist and illustrator. He is known for his lively paintings, sculptures, and sketches of the American West, which he recorded during several trips to the region. In his detailed, rugged bronzes, he focused on movement to depict the vigorous, energy of cowboys, American Indians, and horses.

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
American painter Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was born and spent his childhood in New York City.

Russian-born American abstract expressionist painter whose works are characterized by horizontal bands of subtle color with blurred edges.

American painter whose abstract works are characterized by geometric forms, brilliant colors, and often irregularly shaped canvases.

U.S. painter. Influenced by Chinese calligraphy, he devised a style of improvisatory abstract painting called “white writing”.

A founder of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s. Much of his work was collaborative and produced in a loft called ‘the Factory’.

American photographer, b. San Francisco. He began taking photographs in the High Sierra and Yosemite Valley, with which his name is permanently associated, becoming professional in 1930.

American photographer. Began, in the late 1950s, to make the intimate and powerful visual record of life on the freakish margins of society, for which she became renowned.

From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Fashion and Fashion Designers
American photographer; used a wide-angle lens, exaggerated camera angles, and strobe lighting to capture the unusual, often disassociated, expressions on the faces of his subjects.

From The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women
In a career that spanned 75 years Imogen Cunningham drew on a wide range of subjects for her photographs, including people, landscapes, cityscapes, and, especially, plants and flowers. Her work reflected the major advances in art photography that took place in the 20th century.

American photographer, b. Hoboken, N.J. During the 1930s, the state of California commissioned a report on the way of life of migrant laborers.

From The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography
American photographer, best known for her portraits of celebrities, from rock musicians to politicians. She has done fashion photography, magazine work and advertising and many of her images are famous.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
American photographer, brother of Arthur Penn, b. Plainfield, N.J.; studied Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (1934–38). Best known for his fashion work, he is also a master of portraiture and still life.

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
The first major documentary photographer in America, Jacob Riis used the camera to expose the appalling living conditions of the immigrants of the Lower East Side in New York City toward the end of the nineteenth century.

US photographer. A leading experimental photographer and pioneer in staged photography, Sherman specializes in taking pictures, using herself as the model, in various staged roles suggested by cinema, advertising, and art.

American photographer, editor, and art exhibitor. The first art photographer in the United States, Stieglitz more than any other American compelled the recognition of photography as a fine art.

(Arthur Fellig), American photojournalist. Drawn to the grotesque and illicit, he created contrasty black-and-white shots of grisly crime scenes, fires, and car crashes and of New Yorkers at pleasure spots and grim scenes.

American photographer, b. Highland Park, Ill. Weston began to make photographs in Chicago parks in 1902, and his works were first exhibited in 1903 at the Art Institute of Chicago.