Top Twenty

Albert Pinkham Ryder by Marsden Hartley

I had thought about putting together what I consider the top ten greatest artist of all time. But then I couldn't decide what "great" really meant. It is not merely most important, meaning most influential, but also having a timeless quality. An example would be my friend Andy Warhol. I must grudgingly admit he is the most important, influential artist of the second half of the twentieth century extending into the present. But I feel that influence has been so damaging to the humanist tradition of painting that I can not consider him great. All I could come up with was three and one of those was a tie. They are (in order) Michelangelo, van Gogh/ Gauguin and Picasso with perhaps (don't know) maybe Giotto or Courbet or Manet? And I guess maybe the whole ancient Greek sculpture/ architecture team. So I put together a list of my top ten favorite artists:


1. Michelangelo

2. van Gogh

3. Gauguin

4. Picasso

5. Beckmann

6. Guston

7. Hartley

8. Bacon

9. Titian

10. Cornell

And now for the next ten:

11. Ryder

12. William Blake

13. Kitaj

14. Manet

15. de Kooning

16. Winslow Homer

17. The Mystical Beuys

18. Matisse

19. Gorky

20. Morris Graves

Of course this list can and will change without notice on the wings of whimsey. Notice that I am mostly attracted to dead artists. What can I say? Next I will try to put together a list of living artist I can tolerate. Pardon me for being a misanthrope!