PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: illustration
Italian artist, engineer, and scientist
Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal....
British writer and artist
William Blake was an English engraver, artist, poet, and visionary, author of exquisite lyrics in Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) and profound and difficult “prophecies,” such...
French artist
Henri Matisse was an artist often regarded as the most important French painter of the 20th century. He was the leader of the Fauvist movement about 1900, and he pursued the expressiveness of color throughout...
Belorussian-born French artist
Marc Chagall was a Belorussian-born French painter, printmaker, and designer who composed his images based on emotional and poetic associations, rather than on rules of pictorial logic. Predating Surrealism,...
German painter
Lucas Cranach, the Elder was a leading painter of Saxony, and one of the most important and influential artists in 16th-century German art. Among his vast output of paintings and woodcuts, the most important...
German painter
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German painter, draftsman, and designer, renowned for the precise rendering of his drawings and the compelling realism of his portraits, particularly those recording the...
American author and illustrator
Dr. Seuss was an American writer and illustrator of immensely popular children’s books noted for their nonsense words, playful rhymes, and unusual creatures. After graduating from Dartmouth College (B.A.,...
American artist
Winslow Homer was an American painter whose works, particularly those on marine subjects, are among the most powerful and expressive of late 19th-century American art. His mastery of sketching and watercolour...
Japanese artist
Hokusai was a Japanese master artist and printmaker of the ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”) school. His early works represent the full spectrum of ukiyo-e art, including single-sheet prints of...
American artist, art director, and designer
Mary Blair was an American artist, art director, and designer known for her colorful and modern illustrations that helped define the visual style of Disney’s classic animated movies, including Cinderella...
French artist
Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, a member of the group of artists called the Nabis and afterward a leader of the Intimists. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest colourists...
English illustrator and author
Quentin Blake is a prolific and award-winning English illustrator and children’s author, with a distinct and recognizable style of drawing. He is perhaps best known for illustrating books written by British...
American artist
Frank Frazetta was an American artist regarded as one of the most gifted in the fantasy and science-fiction genres. His distinct style, epitomized by muscular men and voluptuous women commonly rendered...
Belgian physician
Andreas Vesalius was a Renaissance physician who revolutionized the study of biology and the practice of medicine by his careful description of the anatomy of the human body. Basing his observations on...
British painter and designer
Vanessa Bell was a British painter, designer, and founding member of the Bloomsbury group who was known for her colourful portraits and still-life paintings and for her dust-jacket designs. Bell was born...
French artist
Georges Rouault was a French painter, printmaker, ceramicist, and maker of stained glass who, drawing inspiration from French medieval masters, united religious and secular traditions divorced since the...
British artist and cartoonist
Ralph Steadman is a British artist and cartoonist known for his provocative, often grotesque, illustrations frequently featuring spatters and splotches of ink and for his collaboration with American author...
Inca nobleman, author, and illustrator
Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala was an Inca nobleman who wrote and illustrated El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1612–15; “The First New Chronicle and Good Government”), a critical account of Spanish...
American author and illustrator
Art Spiegelman is an American author and illustrator whose Holocaust narratives Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History (1986) and Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began (1991)...
Iranian artist and writer
Marjane Satrapi is an Iranian artist, director, and writer whose graphic novels explore the gaps and junctures between Iran and the West. She lives in Paris. Satrapi was born in Rasht, Iran, in 1969. An...
American author and illustrator
Richard Scarry was an American author and illustrator known for his large detailed picture books for young children. He published more than 250 books that collectively have sold over 100 million copies...
American cartoonist
R. Crumb is an American counterculture comic book artist and social satirist, known for his distinctive artwork and excellent marriage of drawing and narrative and for creating such well-known characters...
American author and illustrator
Marc Brown is an American children’s book author and illustrator, best known as the creator of the Arthur series, of which he wrote dozens of books. He also helped to create the Arthur television series,...
American artist and author
Bryan Collier is an American author and illustrator who created children’s books about African Americans and their experiences. Collier was recognized with many honors for his work, including several Coretta...
American artist, illustrator, and author
Kadir Nelson is an American artist, illustrator, and author whose paintings have been featured in museum exhibits worldwide as well as on multiple covers of The New Yorker magazine. Nelson won the Caldecott...
Russian artist
Olga Vladimirovna Rozanova was a Russian artist who was one of the main innovators of the Russian avant-garde. By the time of her death in 1918, she had embraced in her painting the use of pure colour,...
Russian artist
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel was a Russian painter, sculptor, and draftsman who was a pioneer of Modernism with an original vision. An innovator by nature, Vrubel rejected tradition, but he was out of...
French illustrator
Albert Robida was an early pioneer of science fiction and founding father of science fiction art. Despite severe myopia, Robida as a child had a passion for drawing. He produced his first series of satiric...
Australian author and illustrator
Bob Graham is an Australian author, illustrator, and creator of picture books for children. Graham received several awards for his illustrations and books. Graham was born in 1942 in Sydney and grew up...
American children’s author and illustrator
Eric Carle was an American writer and illustrator of children’s literature who published numerous best-selling books, among them The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969), which by 2018 had sold some 50 million...
American writer and illustrator
Edward Gorey was an American writer, illustrator, and designer, noted for his arch humor and gothic sensibility. Gorey drew a pen-and-ink world of beady-eyed, blank-faced individuals whose dignified Edwardian...
British artist
David Hockney is an English painter, draftsperson, printmaker, photographer, and stage designer whose works are characterized by economy of technique, a preoccupation with light, and a frank mundane realism...
American author and illustrator
Tomie dePaola was an American author and illustrator who illustrated 268 children’s books, many of which he wrote. He also wrote but did not illustrate three books. His accomplishments earned him the 1981...
American cartoonist and author
William Steig was an author, illustrator, and cartoonist who developed a national reputation in the latter half of the 20th century for his thought-provoking, doodle-style cartoons. He quickly gained prominence...
German artist
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a German painter and printmaker who was one of the leaders of a group of Expressionist artists known as Die Brücke (“The Bridge”). His mature style was highly personal and notable...
American author and illustrator
Wesley Dennis was an American author and illustrator of children’s books who was especially well known for his drawings of horses that captured their movement and expression, giving them character and...
British sculptor
John Flaxman was an English sculptor, illustrator, and designer, a leading artist of the Neoclassical style in England. As a youth, Flaxman worked in his father’s plaster-casting studio in London while...
Dutch illustrator and writer
Dick Bruna was a Dutch illustrator and writer who was best known as the creator of the beloved children’s character Nijntje (Miffy in English), a sparingly drawn white bunny that featured in 32 books....
Australian painter
Arthur Boyd was an Australian painter and ceramic pottery maker. His best-known works included impressionistic paintings of the Australian bush, or countryside, and expressionistic depictions of the maimed...
Russian artist
Simon Ushakov was an iconographer, portrait painter, builder of monuments, designer, cartographer, book illustrator, theoretician, and teacher who was the most distinguished Russian artist of the 17th...
British painter
John Everett Millais was an English painter and illustrator, and a founding member of the artistic movement known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In 1838 Millais went to London and at the age of 11...
British painter
George Stubbs was an outstanding English animal painter and anatomical draftsman. The son of a prosperous tanner, Stubbs was briefly apprenticed to a painter but was basically self-taught. His interest...
Russian artist and writer
Yelena Genrikhovna Guro was a Russian painter, graphic artist, book illustrator, poet, and prose writer who developed new theories of colour in painting. These theories were implemented by her husband,...
British artist and printer
Eric Gill was a British sculptor, engraver, typographic designer, and writer, especially known for his elegantly styled lettering and typefaces and the precise linear simplicity of his bas-reliefs. Gill...
British author
Beatrix Potter was an English author of children’s books, who created Peter Rabbit, Jeremy Fisher, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, and other animal characters. Potter, the only daughter of heirs...
French painter
Jacques Villon was a French painter and printmaker who was involved in the Cubist movement; later he worked in realistic and abstract styles. Villon was the brother of the artists Suzanne Duchamp, Raymond...
American artist
Maurice Sendak was an American artist and writer best known for his illustrated children’s books. Sendak was the son of Polish immigrants and received his formal art training at the Art Students League...
British illustrator and painter
Walter Crane was an English illustrator, painter, and designer primarily known for his imaginative illustrations of children’s books. He was the son of the portrait painter and miniaturist Thomas Crane...
American graphic designer and illustrator
Milton Glaser was an American graphic designer, illustrator, and cofounder of the revolutionary Pushpin Studio. Glaser graduated from Cooper Union in New York City in 1951 and studied printmaking with...
American illustrator and writer
Rose Cecil O’Neill was an American illustrator, writer, and businesswoman remembered largely for her creation and highly successful marketing of Kewpie characters and Kewpie dolls. O’Neill grew up in Battle...