Get to know Tadao Ando, the only architect to have won the discipline’s four most prestigious prizes: the Pritzker, Carlsberg, Praemium Imperiale, and Kyoto Prize. This succinct introduction explores Ando’s unique blend of...

Largely self-taught as an artist, Francis Bacon (1909-1992) developed a unique ability to transform interior and unconscious impulses into figurative forms and intensely claustrophobic compositions. Emerging into notoriety in the period following World...

An icon of 1980s New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) first made his name under the graffiti tag "SAMO," before establishing his studio practice and catapulting to fast fame at the age of 20. Although his career lasted barely a decade, he remains a...

In a fleeting fourteen year period, sandwiched between two world wars, Germany's Bauhaus school of art and design changed the face of modernity. With utopian ideals for the future, the school developed a pioneering fusion of fine art, craftsmanship, and...

As cryptic as they are compelling, the masterpieces of Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) remain some of the most enduring enigmas of the art world. Their intricate, allegorical, and often startling content has captivated not only art historians, but also...

With the patronage of the powerful Medici family, a canon of secular and religious work, and contributions to the celebrated Sistine Chapel, Sandro Botticelli (1444/45-1510) was well placed for fame. After his death, however, his work was eclipsed for...

The great Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1526/31-1569) was an astoundingly inventive painter and draftsman, who made his art historical mark with beautiful, evocative landscapes as well as religious subjects, both notable for their...

Spanish visionary Santiago Calatrava is renowned around the world as an architect, structural engineer, sculptor, and artist. Famed for bridges as much as buildings, he has made his name with neofuturistic structures that combine deft engineering...

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was always a name to be reckoned with. Notorious bad boy of the Italian Baroque, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial, violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on...

The Case Study House program (1945-1966) was a unique event in the history of American architecture. Sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine, the program sought to respond to the postwar building boom with prototype modern homes that could be both...

In the latter half of the 19th century, in the verdant countryside near Aix-en-Provence, Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), busily plied his brush to landscapes and still lifes that would become anchors of modern art. With compact, intense dabs of paint and bold...

For Marc Chagall (1887-1985), painting was an intricate tapestry of dreams, tales, and traditions. His instantly recognizable visual language carved out a unique early 20th-century niche, often identified as one of the earliest expressions of psychic...

Pioneered by Picasso and Braque, Cubism has been described as the first avant-garde art movement of the 20th century. With inspiration from African and Native American art and sculpture, its practitioners deconstructed European conventions of viewpoint,...

With his Pittura Metafisica, Greek-born Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) was a major influence in Europe's interwar avant-garde, hailed by the likes of Pablo Picasso and Paul Eluard. The artist's Pittura Metafisica set statues or...

Most commonly associated with the birth of the Impressionist movement in mid-19th-century Paris, Edgar Degas (1834-1917) in fact defied easy categorization and instead developed a unique style, strongly influenced by Old Masters, the body in motion, and...

A polymath of the German Renaissance, Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) was a prolific artist, theorist, and writer whose works explored everything from religion to art theory to philosophy. His vast body of work includes altarpieces, portraits, self-portraits,...