The Most Popular
Artworks of All Time

The Art History Archive - Popularity


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In order to try and measure and gauge popularity of different artists we decided to consult a variety of sources (including Artcyclopedia and Artnet.com). We also consulted a list almanac called "The Book of Lists".

The 50 Most Popular Artworks of All Time

(According to Artcyclopedia Poster Sales.)

  • Gustav Klimt - The Kiss - 1907-1908

  • Vincent van Gogh - The Starry Night - 1889

  • Marc Chagall - La Mariée - 1950

  • Georges Seurat - Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte - 1886

  • E.R. Hughes - Midsummer Eve - 1908

  • Hieronymus Bosch - The Garden of Earthly Delights (Ecclesia's Paradise) - 1504

  • W.H. Beard - Dancing Bears

  • Jan Vermeer - Girl with a Pearl Earring - 1665

  • Hokusai - The Great Wave by at Kanagawa - c.1930

  • Pablo Picasso - The Old Guitarist - 1903

  • Paul Delaroche - The Young Martyr - 1855

  • Andrew Wyeth - Master Bedroom - 1965

  • Vincent van Gogh - Cafe Terrace at Night - 1888

  • William Holbrook Beard - Dancing Bears

  • Edward Hopper - Nighthawks - 1942

  • Pablo Picasso - Blue Nude - 1902

  • El Greco - View of Toledo - c.1597

  • Vincent van Gogh - Starry Night over the Rhone - 1888

  • Jasper Johns - Three Flags - 1958

  • Waterhouse - The Lady of Shalott - 1888

  • Pablo Picasso - Don Quixote - 1955

  • Pablo Picasso - Three Musicians - 1921

  • Vincent van Gogh - Sunflowers - 1888

  • Salvador Dali - The Persistence of Memory - 1931

  • Salvador Dali - Soft Watch at the Moment of Explosion - 1954

  • Leonardo da Vinci - Human Proportions (Vitruvian Man) - 1492

  • John Everett Millais - Ophelia - 1851-52

  • John Singer Sargent - Carnation, Lily, by Lily, Rose - 1885-86

  • Vincent van Gogh - Bedroom at Arles - 1888-89

  • Walter Crane - Neptune's Horses - 1892

  • Wassily Kandinsky - Squares with Concentric Circles - 1913

  • Pablo Picasso - Femme

  • Rosa Bonheur - The Horse Fair - 1853-55

  • Edward Hicks - The Peaceable Kingdom - 1834

  • Vincent van Gogh - Irises - 1889

  • Michelangelo - The Creation of Adam - 1511-12

  • Andrew Wyeth - Christina's World - 1948

  • Raphael - The School of Athens - 1509-10

  • Mark Rothko - Orange and Yellow - 1956

  • Emanuel Leutze - Washington Crossing the Delaware - 1851

  • Jean-Francois Millet - The Angelus (The Evening Prayer) - 1857-59

  • Marcel Duchamp - Nude Descending a Staircase - 1912

  • Theophile-Alexa Steinlen - Tournee du Chat Noir - 1896

  • Salvador Dali - Meditative Rose - 1958

  • Pablo Picasso - Guernica - 1937

  • Charles Demuth - Figure Five in Gold - 1928

  • George Bellows - George Dempsey and Firpo - 1924

  • Joseph Stella - The Brooklyn Bridge - 1941

  • Maud Lewis - Three Black Cats

  • Jackson Pollock - Number 8 - 1949

    The Picasso Scale of Popularity:

    This scale uses Picasso as the example of most popular artist (meaning his prints of artworks sell the most) and then compares other artist's popularity in comparison to total number of sales.

    Which means for every 100 copies of Picasso's work that is sold Van Gogh sells approx. 72 copies. (According to Artcyclopedia Poster Sales.)

    1. Pablo Picasso 100
    2. Vincent van Gogh 72
    3. Leonardo da Vinci 61
    4. Claude Monet 52
    5. Andy Warhol 43
    6. Salvador Dali 43
    7. Henri Matisse 40
    8. Georgia O'Keeffe 35
    9. Wassily Kandinsky 30
    10. Rembrandt 27
    11. Paul Cezanne 27
    12. Goya 26
    13. Gustav Klimt 25
    14. Rene Magritte 25
    15. Edgar Degas 24
    16. Joan Miro 24
    17. Michelangelo 23
    18. Frida Kahlo 23
    19. Jackson Pollock 23
    20. Raphael 22
    21. Peter Paul Rubens 22
    22. Titian 22
    23. Marc Chagall 21
    24. Diego Velazquez 21
    25. Pierre-Auguste Renoir 21
    26. Diego Rivera 21
    27. Paul Klee 21
    28. Edward Hopper 20
    29. Edouard Manet 20
    30. Piet Mondrian 20


    Norton Simon's 11 Greatest Paintings in History

    1. Francisco de Zurbaran - Still Life: Lemons, Oranges and a Rose - 1633
    2. Raphael - Madonna and Child with Book - c.1504
    3. Rembrandt - Portrait of the Artist's Son, Titus - 1653-54
    4. Vincent Van Gogh - Portrait of a Peasant - 1888
    5. Jacopo Bassano - Flight into Egypt - c.1540
    6. Giovanni di Paolo - The Branchini Madonna - 1427
    7. Pablo Picasso - Woman with Book - 1932
    8. Paul Cezanne - Tulips in a Vase - c.1890-92
    9. Filippo Lippi - Saints Benedict and Apollonia - c.1483
    10. Filippo Lippi - Saints Paul and Frediano - c.1493
    11. Edgar Degas - The Ironers - c.1884

    Andrew Wyeth's 8 Greatest American Paintings

    1. Winslow Homer - Fox Hunt - 1893
    2. Fitz Hugh Lane - Riverdale - 1863
    3. Charles Willson Peale - Colonel George Washington - 1772
    4. Thomas Eakins - Hunting - 1874
    5. Albert Pinkham Ryder - The Race Track - 1910
    6. Grant Wood - Daughters of Revolution - 1932
    7. Edward Hicks - Noah's Ark - 1846
    8. George Caleb Bingham - Fur Traders Descending the Missouri - 1845

  • 300 Most Popular Artists


    (According to Artnet.com)

    1. Andy Warhol
    2. Diane Arbus
    3. Damien Hirst
    4. Sally Mann
    5. Nan Goldin
    6. Andy Goldsworthy
    7. Nobuyoshi Araki
    8. David LaChapelle
    9. Gregory Crewdson
    10. Takashi Murakami
    11. Banksy
    12. Frank Stella
    13. Roy Lichtenstein
    14. Jock Sturges
    15. Andreas Gursky
    16. Wayne Thiebaud
    17. Jeff Koons
    18. Vuk Vidor
    19. Thomas Ruff
    20. Pablo Picasso
    21. Jim Dine
    22. Cindy Sherman
    23. Yoshitomo Nara
    24. Helmut Newton
    25. Cy Twombly
    26. Fernando Botero
    27. David Hockney
    28. Gerhard Richter
    29. Robert Mapplethorpe
    30. Fiona Rae
    31. Robert Rauschenberg
    32. Julian Schnabel
    33. Alex Katz
    34. Yue Minjun
    35. Richard Prince
    36. Louise Bourgeois
    37. Lucian Freud
    38. Elizabeth Peyton
    39. Chuck Close
    40. Marilyn Minter
    41. Marina Abramovic
    42. Jasper Johns
    43. Thomas Struth
    44. Philip-Lorca diCorcia
    45. Francis Bacon
    46. Victor Vasarely
    47. Cornelis Kloos
    48. Irving Penn
    49. Joan Miró
    50. Salvador Dalí
    51. Mark Chamberlain
    52. Alexander Calder
    53. Sam Taylor-Wood
    54. Bettina Rheims
    55. Tom Wesselmann
    56. Bridget Riley
    57. Jeff Wall
    58. Julian Opie
    59. Sol LeWitt
    60. Peter Max
    61. Wolfgang Tillmans
    62. George Condo
    63. Jean-Michel Basquiat
    64. Sam Francis
    65. Milton Avery
    66. Helen Frankenthaler
    67. Louise Nevelson
    68. Ed Ruscha
    69. Robert Longo
    70. Richard Misrach
    71. Robert Indiana
    72. Egon Schiele
    73. Keith Haring
    74. Vik Muniz
    75. Andrew Wyeth
    76. Ellsworth Kelly
    77. Wolf Kahn
    78. James Rosenquist
    79. Adam Fuss
    80. Janet Fish
    81. Anselm Kiefer
    82. Jennifer Bartlett
    83. Andres Serrano
    84. Francesco Clemente
    85. Erwin Wurm
    86. Kara Walker
    87. Mark Ryden
    88. Hong Hao
    89. Jenny Saville
    90. Kiki Smith
    91. William Wegman
    92. Hiroshi Sugimoto
    93. Rufino Tamayo
    94. Marc Chagall
    95. Candida Höfer
    96. Antoni Tàpies
    97. Sean Scully
    98. Henri Matisse
    99. William Kentridge
    100. Arman
    1. Ismail Gulgee
    2. Tracey Emin
    3. Joel-Peter Witkin
    4. Jenny Holzer
    5. Shirin Neshat
    6. Gert und Uwe Tobias
    7. Jürgen Teller
    8. Vanessa Beecroft
    9. Cecily Brown
    10. Man Ray
    11. Cindy Bernard
    12. Chris Ofili
    13. Beatriz Milhazes
    14. Claude Monet
    15. Bernard Buffet
    16. Annie Leibovitz
    17. Ken Matsuyama
    18. Yayoi Kusama
    19. David Hamilton
    20. Duane Michals
    21. Paul McCarthy
    22. Joan Mitchell
    23. Richard Estes
    24. Donald Sultan
    25. Richard Avedon
    26. Bernd and Hilla Becher
    27. Rineke Dijkstra
    28. Richard Serra
    29. Gilbert & George
    30. Spencer Tunick
    31. John Chamberlain
    32. Georg Baselitz
    33. Walton Ford
    34. Donald Judd
    35. Peter Doig
    36. Norbert Bisky
    37. John Baldessari
    38. Maurice Utrillo
    39. Peter Lik
    40. Elger Esser
    41. Andreas Gefeller
    42. Jackson Pollock
    43. Henry Moore
    44. Sigmar Polke
    45. Karel Appel
    46. Anselm Reyle
    47. Joseph Cornell
    48. Robert Arneson
    49. Mel Ramos
    50. Gary Gross
    51. Christopher Wool
    52. Anish Kapoor
    53. Emil Nolde
    54. Gary Hume
    55. Ghada Amer
    56. Christo
    57. David Salle
    58. Eric Fischl
    59. Niki de Saint Phalle
    60. Subodh Gupta
    61. Robert Polidori
    62. Mimmo Rotella
    63. Marlene Dumas
    64. Lucien Clergue
    65. Grandma Moses
    66. Joseph Beuys
    67. Jack Pierson
    68. Michael Goldberg
    69. Hans Bellmer
    70. Peter Hujar
    71. Ross Bleckner
    72. Robert Motherwell
    73. Käthe Kollwitz
    74. Richard Phillips
    75. Richard Diebenkorn
    76. Marcel Dzama
    77. John Currin
    78. Louis Icart
    79. Mark Rothko
    80. Agnes Martin
    81. Zhang Xiaogang
    82. Karen Kilimnik
    83. George Segal
    84. Paul Klee
    85. Robert Williams
    86. Donald Baechler
    87. Diego Rivera
    88. Maurice de Vlaminck
    89. Philip Guston
    90. José Bedia
    91. Nikki S. Lee
    92. Henri Cartier-Bresson
    93. Thomas Hirschhorn
    94. Barbara Kruger
    95. Claes Oldenburg
    96. Ansel Adams
    97. Zhang Huan
    98. Fang Lijun
    99. Yves Klein
    100. Katy Grannan
    1. Ron Arad
    2. Red Grooms
    3. Wilhelm Sasnal
    4. Beate Gütschow
    5. Stephen Shore
    6. René Gruau
    7. Lucio Fontana
    8. Josef Albers
    9. Jim Shaw
    10. Sandy Skoglund
    11. Mike Kelley
    12. Carl Andre
    13. Jean Dubuffet
    14. Edward Hopper
    15. Jason Martin
    16. Liu Xiaodong
    17. James Turrell
    18. Robert Adams
    19. Richard Hamilton
    20. Olivo Barbieri
    21. Neo Rauch
    22. Willem de Kooning
    23. Sarah Morris
    24. Frank Auerbach
    25. Yan Pei Ming
    26. Mario Testino
    27. Paul Cadmus
    28. Lorna Simpson
    29. Dale Chihuly
    30. Mark Wallinger
    31. Raoul Dufy
    32. Romare Bearden
    33. Francesca Woodman
    34. Ellen von Unwerth
    35. Didier Massard
    36. Peter Beard
    37. Kenny Scharf
    38. Deborah Butterfield
    39. Tony Cragg
    40. Arshile Gorky
    41. Peter Blake
    42. Naoya Hatakeyama
    43. Brice Marden
    44. Rachel Whiteread
    45. Gustav Klimt
    46. Uta Barth
    47. Frida Kahlo
    48. Mary Frank
    49. Luis González Palma
    50. Bruce Nauman
    51. Christian Boltanski
    52. Euan Uglow
    53. René Magritte
    54. Ugo Rondinone
    55. Lee Friedlander
    56. Julie Mehretu
    57. Raymond Pettibon
    58. Wang Guangyi
    59. Vija Celmins
    60. Thomas Cyrill Demand
    61. Zeng Fanzhi
    62. Franz West
    63. Nancy Spero
    64. John De Andrea
    65. Yoko Ono
    66. Alison Guest
    67. Patrick Heron
    68. Roni Horn
    69. Michael Craig-Martin
    70. Marc Quinn
    71. Robert Ryman
    72. Sophie Calle
    73. Jörg Immendorff
    74. William Eggleston
    75. Bill Brandt
    76. Ben Shahn
    77. Slim Aarons
    78. Justine Kurland
    79. Laura Owens
    80. Darren Almond
    81. Adam Pendleton
    82. Fred Tomaselli
    83. Gordon Matta-Clark
    84. Joseph Stella
    85. Otto Dix
    86. Rudolf Stingel
    87. Mary Heilmann
    88. Max Ernst
    89. Alberto Giacometti
    90. A.R. Penck
    91. Tom of Finland
    92. Nils Udo
    93. Lee Krasner
    94. Arnulf Rainer
    95. Markus Lüpertz
    96. Berenice Abbott
    97. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
    98. Manolo Valdés
    99. Elizabeth Murray
    100. Jorge Pardo

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