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Mar 17 2008

75 Artists You Must Know and Where to Find Them

Posted by: Dani in Inspiration
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Illustrators

Great artists educate you, influence your style, and inspire great artwork by setting a high standard. But how familiar are you really with illustration history? I asked myself this the other day and was ashamed to realize that my knowledge was a bit fuzzy.

So, I started to research some of the great artists that influence illustrators today. This list is the result. If you are a student, practitioner, or fan of illustration, I truly believe you should know all these artists by name and their work.

I am certain I’ve left out plenty of great artists that deserve to be on this list. If you know of any artist or link that I failed to include, please leave a comment on this post. Now…click away!

Add your own favorite links and artists by leaving a comment on DaniDraws.com.

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    • This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

    36 Responses to “75 Artists You Must Know and Where to Find Them”

    1. constance says:
      March 17th, 2008 at 11:25 am

      James Jean? http://www.processrecess.com

    2. tim says:
      March 17th, 2008 at 11:52 am

      damn, nice post. thanks for sharing.
      will go through them soon on a rainy afternoon i think.

    3. David says:
      March 17th, 2008 at 11:56 am

      Please add-Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, and Roger Dean to the list.

    4. Rob says:
      March 17th, 2008 at 1:21 pm

      Wow! Great List! I would’ve added David Wiesner (Picture books Tuesday and Flotsam) in the modern list, and I have to agree with David that the Hildebrandt brothers need a nod, but I am very impressed with everyone that you did include in the list. Fantastic!

    5. chickengirl says:
      March 17th, 2008 at 2:04 pm

      Thats some great research, thanks for the list. I have to agree with Rob that David Wiesner deserves to be on this list. And maybe Richard Scarry? (because he is one of my favorites of all time.)

      I’ve been wondering this for a long time, I wished there were more well known female illustrators out there. Looking at this list, the women makes up for only 10%? I know there should be plenty more. Perhaps that would make a great post!? Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

    6. Dani says:
      March 17th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

      Thanks for the suggestions so far, everybody. That is a great idea, chickengirl. I can think of a few great female illustrators right off; I’m surprised I didn’t include more on my list. Doh!

      In fact, shortly after I posted this, I had already come up with a good long list of illustrators that totally slipped my mind and should be up here as well. I might have to make another post. But I really could go on forever though. There’s just too many great artists out there. :)

      And check it out,everybody…this post made Lines and Colors: http://www.linesandcolors.com/2008/03/17/75-artists-you-must-know-and-where-to-find-them-from-danidrawscom/

    7. smacleod says:
      March 17th, 2008 at 4:18 pm

      Nice list. Here’s a little timeline I made a while back with a list of some of my favorite illustrators (a lot of them are the same as yours):

      HERE

    8. Rodrigo Avilés says:
      March 17th, 2008 at 4:35 pm

      Great list

      as constance said, James Jean must be in the list.

      Sugestions:
      -Ashley wood
      -Joao Ruas
      -Kent Williams

    9. Jonathan B. says:
      March 18th, 2008 at 3:20 am

      Foiled!
      I knew 25 out of 75 by memory alone, without checking links. And here I thought I knew a something about art history!
      Instead of making artist’s suggestions to this list, might I recommend a great resource book? Genius Moves, compiled by Steven Heller and Mirko Illic. A must for referencing the history of illustration styles, arranged by subject, featuring many of these artists. I cannot recommend this enough, especially for commercial work.

    10. Rob says:
      March 18th, 2008 at 7:42 am

      Great list! I would also mention William Stout, Mike Mignola, Ralph McQuarrie, Moebius, Geoff Darrow , Gustav Dore, Tamara De Lempicka, Kay Nielsen, Aubrey Beardsley, Gustav Klimt,Edmund Dulac, Charles Macintosh, M C Escher, Egon Schiller, Heath Robinson and many, many more. Yes I agree Dani you could go on forever but what a great list to inspire!

      http://www.williamstout.com/

    11. Carlos Zapf says:
      March 18th, 2008 at 8:56 am

      Very impressive Artists. By the way, i would add Todd Lockwood, he’s also a well known Fantasy Artist
      http://www.toddlockwood.com/

    12. Newborn baby says:
      March 18th, 2008 at 1:41 pm

      Al Parker should probably be put in. He was THE illustrator for women’s magazines during the 50s, and ran the table for all other
      artists working in the same genre.

      I think, perhaps, Brian Bolland needs to be more celebrated about now. He’s been pumping out cover after cover of great comic book illustrations for the past 2 decades. Some of them are quite iconic.

      As for James Jean, he’s just starting a wonderful career. And yet, I’m not sure I would put him in “list material” yet. Maybe after another 10 years?

    13. Li-An says:
      March 18th, 2008 at 2:36 pm

      A very US centered list :-( And what about Franquin, Moebius, Hugo Pratt, Bofa, Chaland, Tardi, Sempé…

    14. Newborn baby says:
      March 18th, 2008 at 2:37 pm

      Someone also mentioned female artists. I believe Jessie Wilcox Smith deserves a shout out. She was one of the most successful female artists of the “Golden Age” (probably THE most successful) and was especially desired by clients to paint children, or child-heavy illustrations.

    15. Artist at Large says:
      March 18th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

      This is great, but you can’t forget about Sergio Aragones!!!

    16. Dani says:
      March 18th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

      Reader Joseph just emailed me this very cool list:

      (I’m very surprised that no one has mentioned these two illustration juggernauts)

      James Montgomery Flagg: http://www.bpib.com/illustra2/flagg.htm http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTflagg.htm
      Joseph Clement Coll: http://www.fleskpublications.com/galleries/coll/ http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/coll.htm

      Yoshitaka Amano: http://www.amanosworld.com/
      Yoji Shinkawa: http://www.creativeuncut.com/profile_shinkawa.html http://www.creativeuncut.com/artmgs.html
      Claire Wendling: http://www.claire-wendling.net/
      Katsuya Terada
      Bill Sienkiewicz: http://www.billsienkiewiczart.com/
      Posy Simmonds
      John Cassaday: http://www.johncassaday.com
      Sam Weber: http://www.sampaints.com/
      David Downton: http://www.daviddownton.com/index.htm
      John Foster: http://www.jonfoster.com/index.html
      Mark Harrison: http://www.2000ad.org/markus/
      Danijel Zezelj: http://www.dzezelj.com/
      Juan Gimenez: http://www.juangimenez.com/
      Bernie Wrightson: http://wrightsonart.com/forums/index.php?
      David Foldvari: http://www.davidfoldvari.co.uk/index.html
      Marko Djurdjevic: http://www.sixmorevodka.com/
      Sean Phillips: http://www.seanphillips.co.uk/index.htm
      Barry Windsor-Smith: http://www.barrywindsor-smith.com/
      Craig Mullins: http://www.goodbrush.com/
      Ashley Wood: http://ashleybambaland.blogspot.com/
      Roger Dean: http://www.rogerdean.com/
      Todd Lockwood: http://www.toddlockwood.com/

    17. Scott Conner says:
      March 19th, 2008 at 2:38 am

      All good suggestions. I’d add Michael Kaluta, Charles Vess, Gary Gianni, Mark Schultz, P. Craig Russell, Julek Heller, Victor Ambrus, Virgil Finlay, J. Allen St John, and Roy Krenkel.

    18. Peter says:
      March 19th, 2008 at 6:58 am

      A fine list, but very US-centric.
      Don’t you think that Miyazaki deserves a place?

    19. David says:
      March 19th, 2008 at 12:14 pm

      This is a terrific list– very thought-provoking assortment of talented artists. It caused me to go back and look a a number of artists that I have taken for granted for years. And I was amused by the suggestions from some of your readers. Thanks for all of your effort.

      Since you have compiled this list partially because great illustrators “educate” us, I feel compelled to note that your American Art Archives link for JC Leyendecker contains a large section entitled “JC Leyendecker: The Studies” which are in fact not by Leyendecker at all. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but I would hate to see the brilliant JC Leyendecker’s reputation tarnished by association with these vastly inferior copies of his work by art students. Leyendecker experts have raised this concern with the owner of the site, who purchased these studies inexpensively because they were labeled “after Leyendecker” and changed the attribution to “by Leyendecker” on his own. If they visit the site, I would urge your readers to contrast the counterfeit “studies” with the real Leyendecker work they see at the other sites.

    20. Dani says:
      March 19th, 2008 at 12:39 pm

      This is a great comment. Thank you, David.

    21. Kelly says:
      March 20th, 2008 at 4:10 am

      Dani, what about the comic book artist? Or are you one of the elitist that don’t think comics are true art? :)
      Thanks for the list, though. You’ve shown that I have to look beyond the realm of contemporary comic book artists to the wider universe of art in order to become better. I always look forward to your posts and I can’t thank you enough for how you have helped me in the past and how you contnue to help budding artists in any type of medium.

    22. Dani says:
      March 20th, 2008 at 7:45 am

      Kelly,

      Thanks for your comments. Take a closer look, and you’ll see Art Spiegelman, Alex Ross, Steve Rude, and Dave McKean. They are all highly respected in the graphic novel industry and no doubt influence the comic book artists that you are thinking about. There is a wide variety of fields represented here - comics, animation, sci-fi, children’s book, editorial, etc. - and I did not ignore anything because I thought it was lesser than the other. Even so, I am not as familiar with comics as other fields, so if you feel strongly that I left someone out, by all means, leave a link.

    23. beto says:
      March 20th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

      Maybe still not as well known outside the comics world, but I’d put Jeff Smith, Kazu Kibuishi and Andy Runton in that list, specially considering you share a lot of style qualities with them, IMHO.

    24. Kelly says:
      March 20th, 2008 at 3:43 pm

      My bad, Miss Jones, I missed Alex Ross completely. I love how you paint your child characters, though. Do you think whenever you find the time in your busy schedule you can put out a step by step by step video tutorial on how you paint up your characters in photoshop with a voice over and everything? There’s alot of speed paintings out there, but almost none where the artist is explaining why they are taking a particular action or setting. And I know you specialize more in Photoshop, but do you know of any detailed drawing tutorials for adobe illustrator? Those are even harder to find than photoshop ones. I’d appreciate any advice or direction you could point me in. Thanks.

    25. Jeff says:
      March 21st, 2008 at 1:50 pm

      Great List! If you haven’t heard of Barron Storey though, you must check out http://www.barronstorey.com and http://www.geocities.com/negsleep/main/links/barron/barron.html

    26. Jacob Thomas says:
      March 21st, 2008 at 3:07 pm

      I wanted to add John Ritter (www.ritterillustration.net). He has been a great mentor to me and helped me break into the illustration field in a big way. The man gets a ton of work and is an incredible thinker/ problem solver.

    27. Madeline says:
      March 21st, 2008 at 3:32 pm

      There’s a giant missed in your list.
      Will Eisner.
      All graphic novelists trail in his wake.
      Also Howard Chaykin, comic artist, and Mel Odom.

    28. Shawn says:
      March 25th, 2008 at 7:34 pm

      What about Julie Bell and Boris Vallejo?

    29. Luca says:
      March 27th, 2008 at 6:58 am

      Great List!
      This is another good list : http://www.zarqun.com/605/100-portafolios-de-artistas-del-mundo-digital/

    30. Luella says:
      March 31st, 2008 at 12:30 am

      you really should include todd lockwood on your list, his influence on concept game art and his book cover work rank with the best and he is a Chelsey Award winner too.

    31. abeoh! says:
      April 1st, 2008 at 7:02 pm

      Wow that’s a pretty impressive list! :D

    32. manny says:
      April 9th, 2008 at 7:21 pm

      How about Sergio Aragones??? Just a thought…
      Thanks…
      Manny

    33. Simon says:
      April 10th, 2008 at 12:18 pm

      The unmissable: Gir / Moebius / Jean Giraud

    34. javier says:
      April 12th, 2008 at 2:13 pm

      Could you be as kind as to add Yoshitomo Nara to the list? he is a must!

    35. julie b says:
      April 17th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

      Don’t forget Kaye Nielsen… I love his bold style and great line work! http://nielsen.artpassions.net/

    36. Jasmine says:
      April 29th, 2008 at 1:16 pm

      Hey I love your website. I’m having a great time looking around and learning alot.

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