Artists Famous Artists from Germany

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List of the most popular artists from Germany, listed alphabetically with photos when available. Be sure to also check out weird quirks of history's greatest artists and famous surrealist artists. For centuries artists have been among the world's most important people, helping chronicle history and keeping us entertained with one of the earliest forms of entertainment. Whether they're known for painting, sculpting, etching or drawing, the famous German artists on this list have kept that tradition alive by creating renowned pieces of art that have been praised around the world. You can find useful information below about these notable German artists, such as when they were born and where their place of birth was.

This list below has everything from Paul Klee to Hans Bellmer. Whether you're looking for great German painters, contemporary artists, or sculptors, you'll surely find the most renown below.

This list answers the questions, "Which famous artists are from Germany?" and "Who are the most well-known German artists?"

For further information on these historic German artists, click on their names. If you're a fine art lover use this list of celebrated German artists to discover some new paintings that you will enjoy.

1

Paul Klee Angelus Novus, Revolution des Viadukts, Der Goldfisch Paul Klee was a Swiss-German painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who ...more

2

Hans Bellmer The Machine Gun(neress) in a State of Grace, La Poupee, The Doll Hans Bellmer was a German artist, best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist

3

Lucian Freud Two Japanese Wrestlers by a Sink, Woman with a Daffodil, Girl with a White Dog Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a German-born British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impastoed portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of ...more

4

Lyonel Feininger Longeuil, Normandie, Spook I Lyonel Charles Feininger was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist. He was born and grew up in New York ...more

5

Joseph Beuys Lightning with Stag in its Glare, The End of the Twentieth Century, 7000 Oaks Joseph Beuys was a German Fluxus, happening and performance artist as well as a sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art. His extensive work is grounded ...more

6

Caspar David Friedrich Moonrise Over the Sea, Wreck in the Ice-sea, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period ...more

7

Max Ernst The Elephant Celebes, Napoleon in the Wilderness, Aquis Submersus Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism.

8

Albrecht Dürer Christ among the Doctors, Altarpiece of Ober-St. Veit, Lamentation for Christ Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His high-quality woodcuts established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was ...more

9

Hans Hartung T1974- E10, T 1966–H36, T1989-A1 38-0 Hans Hartung was a German-French painter, known for his gestural abstract style. He was also a decorated World War II veteran of the French Foreign Legion.

10

Andrew Dasburg Improvisation, November in New Mexico Andrew Michael Dasburg was an American modernist painter and "one of America's leading early exponents of cubism".

11

Hermann Hesse Lago Maggiore, Casa Bodmer, Piktors Verwandlungen Hermann Hesse was a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search ...more

12

Hans Holbein the Younger Portrait of Henry VIII, Noli me Tangere, Portrait of Robert Cheseman Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced ...more

13

Hans Hofmann City Horizon, Fruit Bowl with Apples, Table--Version II Hans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.

14

Lucas Cranach the Elder Rest of the Virgin during The Flight into Egypt, The Golden Age, A Princess of Saxony Lucas Cranach the Elder was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his ...more

15

Sebastian Stoskopff Sebastian Stoskopff was an Alsatian painter. He is considered one of the most important German still life painters of his time. His works, which were rediscovered after 1930, portray goblets, ...more

16

Master MS Master M. S. was a 16th-century painter who specialized in late Gothic art and in early Renaissance art. He was active in Banská Štiavnica and probably led a workshop there. Since his ...more

17

Matthias Grünewald The Small Cruxifixion, The Mocking of Christ, Stuppach Madonna Matthias Grünewald was a German Renaissance painter of religious works who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the expressive and intense style of late medieval Central European art ...more

18

Lucas Cranach the Younger Last Supper Lucas Cranach the Younger was a German Renaissance artist, known for his woodcuts and paintings.

19

Stefan Jäger Stefan Jäger was a painter known for his depiction of and deep identification with the Danube Swabian community to which he belonged. There are some grounds for categorising him as a ...more

20

Hans Holbein the Elder Basilica of St. Mary, Basilica of St. Paul, St. Catherine Altar Hans Holbein the Elder was a German painter.

21

Hans Baldung Dürer's Rhinoceros, Knight, Death and the Devil Hans Baldung Grien or Grün was a German artist in painting and printmaking who was considered the most gifted student of Albrecht Dürer. Throughout his lifetime, Baldung developed a ...more

22

Jacob Marrel Jacob Marrel was a German still life painter active in Utrecht during the Dutch Golden Age.

23

Max Wolf Sternkarten (Star Map), from Photographische Sternkarten ... Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was Chairman of Astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and Director of the ...more

24

Jan Boeckhorst Jan Boeckhorst, was a German-born Flemish Baroque painter whose style was heavily influenced by Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens.

25

Georg Flegel Georg Flegel was a German painter, best known for his still life works.

26

E.T.A. Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, who was born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist. His ...more

27

Wols Painting Wols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France. Though broadly unrecognized in his lifetime, he is considered a pioneer ...more

28

Peter Weiss Peter Weiss was a writer, painter, graphic artist and filmmaker.

29

Hans Arp Leaves and Navels, Two Heads, Bell and Navels Jean Arp or Hans Arp was a German-French, or Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper. When Arp spoke in German he referred to himself ...more

30

Emil Nolde Young Prince and Dancers, Flower Garden, Christ and the Children Emil Nolde was a German Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolor ...more

31

Leni Riefenstahl Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, photographer, actress and dancer widely known for directing the Nazi propaganda film ...more

32

Dieter Roth Literaturwurst, Basel on the Rhine, Snow Dieter Roth was a Swiss artist best known for his artist's books, editioned prints, sculptures, and works made of found materials, including rotting food stuffs. He was also known as Dieter Rot ...more

33

Otto Dix Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden, Stehender Akt mit Hut (Standing Nude with Hat), The Nun Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is ...more

34

Wilhelm Busch Self-portrait Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch was a German humorist, poet, illustrator and painter. He published comic illustrated cautionary tales from 1859, achieving his most notable works in the 1870s. ...more

35

Erwin Panofsky Erwin Panofsky was a German art historian. His academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work remains highly influential in the modern academic ...more

36

Kurt Schwitters Censored, Revolving, Drawing A2: Hansi Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German artist who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, ...more

37

Gerhard Richter Spiegel, blutrot (Blood Red Mirror), Seestucke (Seascape) Gerhard Richter is a German visual artist and one of the pioneers of the New European Painting that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. Richter has produced abstract as well as ...more

38

Helmut Newton Sie Kommen (Naked and Dressed), Saddle I, Paris Helmut Newton was a German-Australian photographer. He was a "prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos were a mainstay of ...more

39

Robert Gernhardt Robert Gernhardt was a German writer, painter, caricaturist and poet.

40

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chair, Court House, Brno chair Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German-American architect. He is commonly referred to and was addressed as Mies, his surname. Along with Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright, he is ...more

41

George Grosz The Funeral, The Poet Max Herrmann-Neisse, Street Scene George Grosz was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group during the ...more

42

El Lissitzky Self-Portrait, Design for USSR under Construction, Photogram Lazar Markovich Lissitzky, better known as El Lissitzky, was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian Avant ...more

43

Oscar Krackow Von Wickerode Oscar Krackow Graf von Wickerode was a German animal painter. Wickerode was born at Thine in Pomerania. At the age of seventeen he entered the studio of Wilhelm Krause. In 1849 he went to ...more

44

John Gutmann Dagger from the Door, Gold Country, California John Gutmann was a German-born American photographer and painter. After fleeing Nazi Germany for being a Jew, Gutmann acquired a job in the United States as a photographer for various German ...more

45

Oskar Schlemmer Treppenszene, Abstract Figure, Bauhaus Stairway Oskar Schlemmer was a German painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school. In 1923 he was hired as Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, after ...more

46

F.K. Waechter Friedrich Karl Waechter was a renowned German cartoonist, author, and playwright.

47

Franz Marc The Bewitched Mill, The Lamb, The Tower of Blue Horses Franz Marc was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement. He was a founding member of Der Blaue Reiter, a journal whose name later became ...more

48

Käthe Kollwitz Parents with Child, March of the Weavers, Prisoners Listening to Music Käthe Kollwitz was a German painter, printmaker, and sculptor whose work offered an eloquent and often searing account of the human condition, and the tragedy of war, in the first half of ...more

49

Karl Lagerfeld Karl Lagerfeld is a German fashion designer, artist, and photographer based in Paris. He is the head designer and creative director of the fashion house Chanel as well as the Italian house Fendi ...more

50

Christian Schad Frieda Cornelius, Appendectomy in Geneva, Woman from Pozzuoli Christian Schad was a German painter associated with Dada and the New Objectivity movement. Considered as a group, Schad's portraits form an extraordinary record of life in Vienna and Berlin in ...more

1 Paul Klee Angelus Novus, Revolution des Viadukts, Der Goldfisch Paul Klee was a Swiss-German painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who ...more

2 Hans Bellmer The Machine Gun(neress) in a State of Grace, La Poupee, The Doll Hans Bellmer was a German artist, best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist

3 Lucian Freud Two Japanese Wrestlers by a Sink, Woman with a Daffodil, Girl with a White Dog Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a German-born British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impastoed portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of ...more

4 Lyonel Feininger Longeuil, Normandie, Spook I Lyonel Charles Feininger was a German-American painter, and a leading exponent of Expressionism. He also worked as a caricaturist and comic strip artist. He was born and grew up in New York ...more

5 Joseph Beuys Lightning with Stag in its Glare, The End of the Twentieth Century, 7000 Oaks Joseph Beuys was a German Fluxus, happening and performance artist as well as a sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art. His extensive work is grounded ...more

6 Caspar David Friedrich Moonrise Over the Sea, Wreck in the Ice-sea, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period ...more

7 Max Ernst The Elephant Celebes, Napoleon in the Wilderness, Aquis Submersus Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism.

8 Albrecht Dürer Christ among the Doctors, Altarpiece of Ober-St. Veit, Lamentation for Christ Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His high-quality woodcuts established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was ...more

9 Hans Hartung T1974- E10, T 1966–H36, T1989-A1 38-0 Hans Hartung was a German-French painter, known for his gestural abstract style. He was also a decorated World War II veteran of the French Foreign Legion.

10 Andrew Dasburg Improvisation, November in New Mexico Andrew Michael Dasburg was an American modernist painter and "one of America's leading early exponents of cubism".

11 Hermann Hesse Lago Maggiore, Casa Bodmer, Piktors Verwandlungen Hermann Hesse was a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search ...more

12 Hans Holbein the Younger Portrait of Henry VIII, Noli me Tangere, Portrait of Robert Cheseman Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced ...more

13 Hans Hofmann City Horizon, Fruit Bowl with Apples, Table--Version II Hans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.

15 Sebastian Stoskopff Sebastian Stoskopff was an Alsatian painter. He is considered one of the most important German still life painters of his time. His works, which were rediscovered after 1930, portray goblets, ...more

16 Master MS Master M. S. was a 16th-century painter who specialized in late Gothic art and in early Renaissance art. He was active in Banská Štiavnica and probably led a workshop there. Since his ...more

17 Matthias Grünewald The Small Cruxifixion, The Mocking of Christ, Stuppach Madonna Matthias Grünewald was a German Renaissance painter of religious works who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the expressive and intense style of late medieval Central European art ...more

18 Lucas Cranach the Younger Last Supper Lucas Cranach the Younger was a German Renaissance artist, known for his woodcuts and paintings.

19 Stefan Jäger Stefan Jäger was a painter known for his depiction of and deep identification with the Danube Swabian community to which he belonged. There are some grounds for categorising him as a ...more

20 Hans Holbein the Elder Basilica of St. Mary, Basilica of St. Paul, St. Catherine Altar Hans Holbein the Elder was a German painter.

21 Hans Baldung Dürer's Rhinoceros, Knight, Death and the Devil Hans Baldung Grien or Grün was a German artist in painting and printmaking who was considered the most gifted student of Albrecht Dürer. Throughout his lifetime, Baldung developed a ...more

22 Jacob Marrel Jacob Marrel was a German still life painter active in Utrecht during the Dutch Golden Age.

23 Max Wolf Sternkarten (Star Map), from Photographische Sternkarten ... Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was Chairman of Astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and Director of the ...more

24 Jan Boeckhorst Jan Boeckhorst, was a German-born Flemish Baroque painter whose style was heavily influenced by Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens.

25 Georg Flegel Georg Flegel was a German painter, best known for his still life works.

26 E.T.A. Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, who was born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist. His ...more

27 Wols Painting Wols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France. Though broadly unrecognized in his lifetime, he is considered a pioneer ...more

28 Peter Weiss Peter Weiss was a writer, painter, graphic artist and filmmaker.

29 Hans Arp Leaves and Navels, Two Heads, Bell and Navels Jean Arp or Hans Arp was a German-French, or Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper. When Arp spoke in German he referred to himself ...more

30 Emil Nolde Young Prince and Dancers, Flower Garden, Christ and the Children Emil Nolde was a German Danish painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolor ...more

31 Leni Riefenstahl Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, photographer, actress and dancer widely known for directing the Nazi propaganda film ...more

32 Dieter Roth Literaturwurst, Basel on the Rhine, Snow Dieter Roth was a Swiss artist best known for his artist's books, editioned prints, sculptures, and works made of found materials, including rotting food stuffs. He was also known as Dieter Rot ...more

34 Wilhelm Busch Self-portrait Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Busch was a German humorist, poet, illustrator and painter. He published comic illustrated cautionary tales from 1859, achieving his most notable works in the 1870s. ...more

35 Erwin Panofsky Erwin Panofsky was a German art historian. His academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work remains highly influential in the modern academic ...more

36 Kurt Schwitters Censored, Revolving, Drawing A2: Hansi Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German artist who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, ...more

37 Gerhard Richter Spiegel, blutrot (Blood Red Mirror), Seestucke (Seascape) Gerhard Richter is a German visual artist and one of the pioneers of the New European Painting that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. Richter has produced abstract as well as ...more

38 Helmut Newton Sie Kommen (Naked and Dressed), Saddle I, Paris Helmut Newton was a German-Australian photographer. He was a "prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos were a mainstay of ...more

39 Robert Gernhardt Robert Gernhardt was a German writer, painter, caricaturist and poet.

40 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chair, Court House, Brno chair Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German-American architect. He is commonly referred to and was addressed as Mies, his surname. Along with Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright, he is ...more

41 George Grosz The Funeral, The Poet Max Herrmann-Neisse, Street Scene George Grosz was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Objectivity group during the ...more

42 El Lissitzky Self-Portrait, Design for USSR under Construction, Photogram Lazar Markovich Lissitzky, better known as El Lissitzky, was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian Avant ...more

43 Oscar Krackow Von Wickerode Oscar Krackow Graf von Wickerode was a German animal painter. Wickerode was born at Thine in Pomerania. At the age of seventeen he entered the studio of Wilhelm Krause. In 1849 he went to ...more

44 John Gutmann Dagger from the Door, Gold Country, California John Gutmann was a German-born American photographer and painter. After fleeing Nazi Germany for being a Jew, Gutmann acquired a job in the United States as a photographer for various German ...more

45 Oskar Schlemmer Treppenszene, Abstract Figure, Bauhaus Stairway Oskar Schlemmer was a German painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school. In 1923 he was hired as Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, after ...more

46 F.K. Waechter Friedrich Karl Waechter was a renowned German cartoonist, author, and playwright.

47 Franz Marc The Bewitched Mill, The Lamb, The Tower of Blue Horses Franz Marc was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement. He was a founding member of Der Blaue Reiter, a journal whose name later became ...more

48 Käthe Kollwitz Parents with Child, March of the Weavers, Prisoners Listening to Music Käthe Kollwitz was a German painter, printmaker, and sculptor whose work offered an eloquent and often searing account of the human condition, and the tragedy of war, in the first half of ...more

49 Karl Lagerfeld Karl Lagerfeld is a German fashion designer, artist, and photographer based in Paris. He is the head designer and creative director of the fashion house Chanel as well as the Italian house Fendi ...more

50 Christian Schad Frieda Cornelius, Appendectomy in Geneva, Woman from Pozzuoli Christian Schad was a German painter associated with Dada and the New Objectivity movement. Considered as a group, Schad's portraits form an extraordinary record of life in Vienna and Berlin in ...more