50 Artists You Should Know

by Thomas Köster, Lars Röper

Now available in an updated edition, this attractive, useful, and entertaining collection of great artists and great art is a course in art history for readers of all ages. This bestselling reference guide profiles 50 major artists alongside their representative works. The entries are presented in an eye-catching format that features superb illustrations, brief biographies, and critical analyses. A glossary of important terms is also included in the book. Arranged chronologically, the selection of artists includes every major artistic movement and development since the Gothic period, giving readers a clear understanding of the evolution of the visual arts. Perfect for casual reading or easy reference, this accessible overview is a fun and practical art history lesson that everyone can enjoy.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Art History, History, Banned Books, Reference

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Louis Muñoz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only ONE woman was included in a list of 50 artists we should all know?!?! Could’ve been a 4 or even 5 star book, but I can’t give this book a better rating, not in good conscience, not in 2018.

[Willanny Darias · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is exactly what I needed, a quick, easy survey of 50 important artists from the 14th until the 20th centuries.

I am by no means an expert and I just wanted this book as a starting point for exploring the history of art. It's not intimidating (unlike many art books are, for "average" people) and the format is in easy-to-digest bits.

If you're interested in learning a bit about art history and you know nothing or next-to-nothing about it, I highly recommend this book. You could even read two artists a day before bed (which is about 4-8 pages, including pictures of artwork) and be done in less than a month.

Now, if you know a lot about art, are a painter or sculptor yourself, or if you've already read other books on art history, don't read this book because you'll only see what's lacking and maybe even catch some mistakes in the terminology which I believe is unavoidable in such an over-simplified book as this.

But of course, that simplification is precisely what makes it such a good starting point for learning about art. I mean, come on, the books title is "50 artists you should know", and it's 160 pages, artwork included. Don't expect lengthy analysis and don't expect every important artist to be on the book.

To me it was perfect, just what I needed. Great job to the authors on making art history so accessible!

[Karyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great overview of the most 50 most (according to this author) influential artists to date. I enjoyed the easy-to-read text explaining each artist's contribution to the world. The time lines were helpful, and I found it interesting to see who overlapped with whom. I was even introduced to some new painters. I am sure I will reference this book often.

[Hmmmmmmmm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not enough women.

[Sherrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction to 50 artists, this book provides a snapshot, from Giotto in the 13th century to present day artist David Hockney. One or two favourites aren't included, but there's not room for everyone.

[Denise Spicer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 163 page book includes brief bios of some major artists from the 1200s through the mid-20th century with short descriptions/critiques of their works. There is a picture of each artist (some photographs but also many drawings, paintings, self-portraits) and photographs (most in color) of selected examples of each artist’s work. Includes a Glossary. This would make a great reference book.

[Jeremy Goldstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book for people like me who can only learn things if they are presented in chronological order. And i did learn things, if only superficially, about many of the 50 artists covered in this book. Overall, it's a worthwhile book - at least to have around - for people with limited background but honest interest in the field.

[Amy W · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the idea of this book better than its execution. Basically 50 famous artists, in chronological order, are given a page with an overview, a short timeline of their life, and two or three paragraphs with more detail about notable events that shaped their work. The facing page is a photograph of a notable work of theirs.

It does serve as a snapshot of famous artists and all the usual suspects are here: Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Monet, Picasso and so on. Being in date order it was good to see the artistic styles changing throughout history. However, there were quite a few typos in this edition which is frankly sloppy. Someone should have picked that up. Also I didn't like the fact that the picture that had got the full page spread sometimes wasn't even mentioned in the text, or it would give me a few sentences about what seemed an interesting piece, which wasn't what was opposite. I had to Google myself to see what the book was talking about if I didn't already know it. That said, perhaps encouraging further research was part of the intention of this book?

I'm not sure what this was doing in the children's non-fiction section of the library as I couldn't see much attempt to simplify the language used or artistic terms. There is a small glossary at the back, but I think many younger readers would be put off by sentences like: The viewer's eye seems to be drawn into the energetic midst of this picture as if by a vortex. As much as I hate things being dumbed down, you don't want a child's first impression of art to be that it is inaccessible and confusing. Give them a chance!

[Summer M · Rating 2 out of 5]

You would think a person who writes a book about art wouldn't have shitty painters who draw blobs on a canvas and think it's great art, I had to skip past 50% of the book because of the dedication to these miserable clowns. I am happy that I found a couple of new artists that I like the style of, such as Gabriel Dante Rosetti and Caspar David Friedrich, though I found that the book didn't use the best of their paintings. That's another thing that was kind of off with this book, the author clearly had more bias to some artists than others, like they would dedicate three pages to one guy and then one page to the next, they would describe a painting with a really interesting story and then they wouldn't show the painting, so I had to pull out my phone and look it up, which was REALLY annoying. Also they said "this was the most important painter" on literally every page, I went to this book for facts not for you to give your opinion. I wish there was more written on the artists than what was provided, the second you start getting interested is when they switch to the next artist, they really just give dates, there's so little information and it's so very not interesting that I think reading the paragraphs is a waste of time. I really don't see the problem with having only one woman painter, it's about talent, not being a 'minority', honestly grow up. This could have been a lot better, which is why I gave it two stars.

[Daze]

Wonderful book that provides definitions of some of the most important figures and various art movements in sequential order from High Gothic (1200s) Giotto di Bondone to Pop Art (late 1900s) Andy Warhol. Though it looks simple enough, there were many artists I took forgranted and, while I may have seen their art, knew zip about them. I like how we get a glimpse of the personal life as well as how it affected their art and the techniques and mediums they experimented with as well as lasting influence they had in the upcoming art movements. I have to admit, I've been pretty snobby about modern artists due to the "found objects" artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys. However, I made some happy discoveries of modern artists I had never heard of i.e. Paul Klee (abstract minimalist), Edward Hopper (impressionist realist), Marc Chagall (such gorgeous abstract color art), and Max Beckman (caricature medieval-like artist). I wrote thorough notes to help me remember their most famous pieces but I feel I will have to dive deeper into the artists, maybe watch some art history videos on them. Enjoyed every bit of it.

[Emilee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The content of this book was pretty interesting. It gets only 2.75 stars because of the numerous grammar mistakes (no Oxford commas, at least 5 spelling errors, words without spaces between them, and punctuation outside of quotation marks). For a published work, the standards of grammar are poor. Also, I found the choice to include a single female artist in a book of "50 Artists You Should Know" to be very disappointing. I find it hard to believe that they could not find more than a single highly talented and influential female artist to fill some of the spots, especially since they had room for a male "artist" who simply signed a urinal and called it fine art.

[Lena Carroll · Rating 1 out of 5]

50 Artists You Should Know includes only one female artist, which renders this book totally sexist and obviously a poor representation of the repertoire of artists one should know about if they intend to familiarize themselves with only 50 artists in the entire history of art. One out of fifty is a ridiculous imbalance. I am shocked that this book was allowed to go to print with such an astonishing gap in its contents.

[Tracee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting little tidbits and timelines for each author. The timeline grid at the top of each artist page was a smart addition to provide historical context. As for the layout, my preference would be to start the artist's page on the left side of the book, otherwise you have to flip the page back to see who's art is on the left page. Just a logical layout annoyance.

[Christi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pictures in this series are great, but the amount of typos are horrendous. Even worse, in this book there is incorrect information. Manet is listed as marrying Berthe Morisot, when Morisot was instead married to Manet’s brother. Andy Warhol is also listed as working at MTV in 1968...

[Nicole Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

It did give me a better timeline of art, particularly for more modern and contemporary artists. However, out of 50 artists, 49 of them wer white men. Very limited to Europe and the Americas. An okay starting point, but I'm looking forward to branching out.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

An introduction is missing. I would like to know how the author decided that those were the "50 artists you should know". Some major artists are missing from the collection while others barely known are included. Would like to know why.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

So so so many formatting errors and typos

[Lynne Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and broad in styles of art. Wonderful exposure!

[Jin-Ah Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential read for those new to art

[Ellie Rhodes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disappointed that only one female artist was mentioned, however I enjoyed learning about artists across the ages.

[Nicky Brinsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book to learn about artists and what made them so unique!

[Asiuol K · Rating 2 out of 5]

It might have just been my edition, but there were so many typos in the book. There also could have been a few more female artists.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick superficial intro to 50 different artists. God I despise modern art.

[green beetle els · Rating 2 out of 5]

I recall nothing about this book

[Brianna Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty much a list of the artists taught and recognized by most. Although out of fifty artists theres only one woman included.

[Ostap Bender · Rating 3 out of 5]

50 Artists You Should Know probably makes those who truly study art cringe, much in the same way USA Today might to someone interested in serious journalism. It selects 50 artists in chronological order, from Giotto to David Hockney, provides a one page overview on each, and one or more of his works of art. I say “his”, and while I suppose I should say “his or her”, the fact is 49 of the artists are men, with Frida Kahlo being the only exception. The artists are also all western, and nearly all of them are painters. Perhaps with slight adjustments it would be better titled 50 Western Male Painters You Should Know.

That wasn’t really what was disappointing about the book though. My first problem was the format, which placed silly historical timelines on the top of 20% of the pages in horizontal stripes. When large works of art are viewed in a book they are minimized considerably, thereby lessening their effect, and these timelines as well as decisions by the editors to put additional works in at very small sizes made that worse. A rough idea of this at its extreme: Watteau’s ‘L’Embarquement pour Cynthere’, a work larger than 4 x 6 feet, was reduced to a puny 2 x 3 inches. For several of the paintings I thought, why include it at all?

The other problem I had was in the writing. Examples, for Da Vinci, this at the end: “He observed, for example, that the sun did not move in the firmament in the way people thought it did at the time.” (Really? In what way? There is oodles of white space left on the page at the point the text abruptly stops.) On Van Gogh: “By the time he died, van Gogh had sold only one painting: people found his approach too strange. Before long, however, his art began to influence many young painters. Today, his paintings fetch high prices. The man who believed he could not paint is now not just one of the most important painters in the world, but also one of the most expensive.” (Is this written for young children?!? And ‘By the time he died’? No mention of suicide?). And on Andy Warhol, not only the typo crediting him with getting his MTV show in 1968 (ugh), but this sentence: “Pop art suggests the everyday, and the Pop artists from England and the USA did, indeed wanted (sic) to depict popular, everyday items artistically.”

Moreover, unlike Impressionism: 50 Paintings You Should Know which I loved, the book does not focus its commentary enough on the art shown, nor does it offer nearly as many interesting nuggets of information about the artists’ lives.

Now you may wonder, wow, despite all that, how does it even get three stars? Well, there are some redeeming features. I liked seeing Klimt, De Goya, Edward Hopper, and Dali. Hans Holbein the Younger’s works were good, including the oblique skull in The Ambassadors which I loved in the National Gallery in London.

There were some nuggets as well: Michelangelo’s jealousy for Titian. Raphael spying on Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel, so that Raphael could emulate the techniques before the chapel was officially opened. The link from Caravaggio’s play of light and dark in the ‘Chiaroscuro’ style to Rembrandt was interesting, though I suppose known to most who seriously study art. Lastly, the story of Henry VIII sending Hans Holbein the Younger off to paint possible candidates for marriage, so that he could ‘check them out’ first.

I found a common thread in the artists being inspired in the colors they saw in nature, sometimes while traveling, changing them for life. It must be interesting to see the world through an artist’s eyes! This included Turner seeing the eruption of Vesuvius and “changing his approach to painting radically after seeing the glowing lava pour down the volcano, gleaming in the incomparable southern light”, Klee having “discovered colour in Africa”, and proclaiming “Colour has got me. I do not need to go out and catch it. It has got me for ever, I know. That is the meaning of this happy hour, I and colour are one. I am a painter.”, and finally Alexander Calder having “never forgotten the way the sun rose off the coast of Guatemala”.

I have to say that while I’m not a huge modern art fan, the book helped broaden me in this direction, both for Picasso’s “Jacqueline with Crossed Hands”, and the works of Marc Chagall.

And so, all in all, not the greatest, but decent as an overview, and interesting to thumb through.

[Caitlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dear Mr.Koster,

Please let me correct you on a couple of things and point out a few others.

1) Manet was never an impressionist. He never displayed with them. He to the end of of his career wanted to get recognition from the salon, so please do not refer to him as an impressionist painter.

2) How could you forget some artists like Eugene Delacroix, Paul Gougain or Rodin? Really I mean really? These were some top notch artists.

3)How come you don't have any classical artists? You know those famous ones who created great works that went in the Parthenon and the were shipped back to England and influenced the neoclassical artists. I think we should know who they are.

Also when you put down a movement like Dadism, or Impressionism or Romatism it would be helpful for the general puplic to know the key features that the group focused on. Just a helpful though it the future.

This is book is good for a coffee table book only, and even then I would not have it in my house.

[Dave Christian · Rating 2 out of 5]

So I read "50 Paintings You Should Know" and gave it 5 stars. It did what I wanted it to do - give me a nice intro to major works of art.

My expectations on THIS book would be that it might expand upon some of that. I expected some overlap and some different examples. And there were a few. But not as much as one might expect.

I suspect that the issue is copyrights. That limits what this publisher can put in these books so, in the end, you kind of get the same thing simply repackaged.

If you own one there's no reason to get the other.

A few things bothered me about this book. There is discussion of works that are not shown. And the works that are shown are not discussed.

And the editorial quality of this book is terrible. Typos, grammatical errors, some paintings are either mistitled or misnamed in the text. Terrible. Low quality.

I'm giving it 2 stars. If this were the first one I bought I might give it 4 stars. But in light of the repetition with "50 Paintings You Should Know" I believe that 2 stars may be 1 star too many.

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good introduction for an art noob like me - was able to get a sense of how art has evolved over the years, in terms of material and techniques. But one thing I thought was lacking, was the accompanying art - the elaborations on the artists mention many works that are not shown in the book, so Google was a good friend during the reading process. Not sure if that was the intent... But I guess the more pictures in the book means more costs in terms of copyright and printing...

[Abcdarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting introduction to 50 influential artists from Medieval to Modern. Conveys a good bit of information in a small space, and a brief list of other books, museums, and/or internet sites is provided for further investigation of each artist.