Timeline of art | paul-carney-arts

Timeline of Art for Teachers

The purpose of this page is to set out a simple, chronological timeline of Western art development from Prehistory up to the present day. There is, of course, much more fantastic art of other artists & and cultures not included here due to time and space, but I have tried to make it as relevant and appropriate as I can. The kinds of art children see in our classrooms that we hold up as being images or icons we want them to learn from and about, are really important. They should ideally reflect them, be a mirror of their lives, their culture, and of cultures we want them to see and learn from. If children can view artists as aspirational figures to learn from and emulate; people who are like them and yet who have overcome adversity, they can find their own voice and in doing so, create more informed, inspired art.

Download the Art History Timeline as a teaching resource, including Powerpoint, and Pdf.

Contemporary artists
The following is not intended to be an exhaustive list of contemporary artists, but rather to provide non-specialist art teachers with names and starting points for classroom art practice. The links will take you to general information about the artist from which you can begin searching about the wonderful art they have created.
Download the art timeline classroom resource

Contemporary Painters

Chris Ofili Turner Prize winning painter who utilises layers of paint, resin, glitter, dung (mainly elephant) and other materials to create collages and paintings.

Paula Rego Portuguese visual artist who is particularly known for her paintings and prints based on storybooks. Her work often reflects feminism, and native folk-themes.

Jenny Saville contemporary British painter known for her large-scale painted depictions of nude women. Ŵarning: nude images are featured in Jenny’s work, so care is needed when referring to her work with children.

The Singh Twins British twin sisters who work together on their artworks. Their work draws on both traditional Sikh Indian tradition, Western medieval illuminated manuscripts and contemporary Western pop culture.

Frank Auerbach Auerbach is a figurative painter, who focuses on portraits and city scenes in and around his home in London. Famous for painting in thick, impasto paint.

Francis Bacon figurative painter known for his raw, unsettling imagery, often of religious themes.

Michael Craig-Martin painter, printmaker famous for creating paintings, prints, sculptures and drawings of everyday objects.

Lucian Freud British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists.

David Hockney is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.

Jean-Michel Basquiat American painter and graffiti artist who sadly died in 1989 from an overdose aged 27.

Contemporary Abstract/Painting

Cy Twombly - crude scribbles and scribbles in crayon and paint.

Helen Frankenthaler - large mysterious paintings with strange symbols.

Howard Hodgkin - painter and printmaker using bright painterly colours and bold abstract shapes.

Anselm Kiefer - large-scale paintings using paint and even mud based on deep, profound themes.

Keith Tyson - Nature Painting series were made by reactions between paints and chemicals poured onto metal plates.

Helen Marten - bold, bright, splashes of colour with some figurative elements.

Contemporary Geometric art/Pattern

Agnes Martin - intricate patterns with muted colours.

Bridget Riley - bold optical patterns.

Victor Vaserely - optical, geometric patterns.

Yayoi Kusama – semi-abstract patterns and dots applied to a whole host of surfaces!

Becky Allen – brilliant and beautiful patterns and geometric art.

Sean Scully - Minimalistic, geometric colour fields.

Contemporary Drawing

Drawing encompasses a broad spectrum of processes, actions, feelings, events, observations and the whole senses. Engaging with contemporary drawing requires the viewer to open their mind, to be receptive to new experiences.

Paul Noble - draws incredibly detailed microcosmic worlds and strange labyrinths in semi-abstract worlds.

Amy Cutler – figurative, surreal, quirky, but beautiful drawings.

Britta Lumer - haunting pen and ink wash drawings on figurative and architectural themes.

Chia Guo-Chiang – gunpowder drawings! Say no more.

Becky Allen – brilliant and beautiful patterns and geometric art

Michael Geddis - abstract microscopic structures and patterns meticulously drawn in graphite

Nedko Solakov - Bulgarian artist who uses abstraction, absurdity and humour in his drawings to make us think and question.

Shahzia Sikander – wide variety of drawing media that reflect her Pakistani cultural heritage.

Michael Landy – The Self-constructing, Self-destroying, Tinguely Machine! Drawing for Invention.

Conceptual artists

Conceptual art, also referred to as installation art, is art in which the concepts or ideas involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns.

Jeff Koons is a conceptual artist who creates huge balloon dogs & large, quirky, pop sculptures on contemporary life.

Barbara Kruger a conceptual artist and photographer who produces thought provoking black and white photo collages.

Yayoi Kusama performance artist, sculptor, painter working with pattern and famously - dots!

Lee Bul sculptor, conceptual artist producing strange costumes of mangled forms and limbs to comment on patriarchal authoritarianism and marginalisation of women.

Mark Wallinger conceptual artist who won the Turner Prize in 2007 for his recreation of a protest camp set up in London.

Ai Weiwei Chinese multi-disciplinary conceptual artist who makes protest art with thought-provoking meanings about Chinese totalitarianism.

Cornelia Parker conceptual artist best known for blowing up a garden shed and steamrollering silver objects! Disciplinary knowledge by the boat load!

Fiona Banner also known as The Vanity Press is a British artist whose work encompasses sculpture, drawing, installation and text. Sculptures include life-size fighter aircraft and hand written, text-based pieces based on movie scripts.

Martin Creed installation artist whose works deal with absurd, Dadaist themes and humour. Won the Turner Prize in 2001 for his piece: the lights going on and off, which was literally a light being switched on and off. Other pieces include Blue-Tac and a crumpled piece of paper. Controversial figure, loved and loathed!

Tacita Dean conceptual artist, filmmaker who works with old, analogue film. It’s hard to appreciate her work until you’ve seen it. Her huge chalkboard drawings of glaciers are superb.

Tracey Emin conceptual artist who uses explicit, adult themes. Her 1998 piece My Bed, is an iconic work of art that explores depression and contemporary feminine themes.

Susan Hiller installation artist, best known for her innovative large-scale multimedia installations, that examined marginalised aspects of culture including paranormal beliefs and anthropology.

Damien Hirst probably the richest, most famous living artist in the world! He became famous for a series of artworks in which dead animals (including a shark, a sheep, and a cow) are preserved, sometimes having been dissected, in formaldehyde.

Morag Myerscough is an installation artist who transforms public spaces using colour, pattern and words into joyful places.

Hew Locke is a Guyanese-British sculptor and contemporary artist whose work examines how different nations fashion their identities through visual symbols of authority, and how these representations are altered by the passage of time.

Marina Abramović performance artist whose work explores body art, endurance art, the relationship between the performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. Warning: her work frequently features adult themes and nudity.

Gilbert and George are two performance artists, known for their formal appearance, esoteric manner, and for their brightly coloured, graphic-based artworks.

Contemporary Sculptors

Rachel Whiteread is a sculptor, and the first woman to win the Turner Prize in 1993. She specialises in casting familiar objects, including whole houses!

El Anatsui is a Ghanaian sculptor and installation artist who makes sculptures from recycling materials and, famously, bottle tops.

Marc Quinn art work includes sculpture, installation, and painting. His art explores "what it is to be human in the world today" through subjects including the body, genetics, identity, environment, and the media. He has used blood, bread, flowers, marble and stainless steel in his work.

Yinka Shonibare art work explores cultural identity, and colonialism. A hallmark of his art is the brightly coloured African fabrics he uses.

Tony Cragg is a Turner Prize winning contemporary sculptor who works across disciplines and genres. His iconic piece, Britain Seen from the North, is a map of Britain made from assorted pieces of coloured waste.

Louise Bourgeois is a French-American artist best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art. She explored a variety of themes over her long career including domesticity and the family, sexuality, death and the body.

Louise Nevelson was a sculptor who created monochromatic abstract black or white sculptures out of wood, heavily based on symbolism.

Andy Goldsworthy sculptor, land artist, photographer who creates small-scale, temporary, environmental sculptures using natural materials.

Antony Gormley is an iconic, Turner Prize winning, British sculptor who created the Angel of the North and many other sculptures from casts of the human body.

Anish Kapoor is a British-Indian sculptor famous for using abstract biomorphic forms, rich colours and polished surfaces.

Found Object Sculptors

El Anatsui is a Ghanaian sculptor and installation artist who makes sculptures from recycling materials and, famously, bottle tops.

David Mach - master of making huge sculptures of tigers, gorillas, animals and heads from familiar objects.

Joseph Cornell abstract, symbolic, 3D sculptural collages using found objects

Eileen Agar - created surrealist masterpieces from found objects.

Contemporary Printmakers

Louise Bourgeois - this links to a series of etchings the artist did based on plants, leaves and eucalyptus plants

Terry Winters - Fourteen etchings is a series of monochrome prints based on anatomy and pattern.

Dame Elizabeth Frink - beautiful animal prints and figurative work.

Norman Ackroyd - stunning atmospheric landscape and seascape prints, notably of Scottish Highlands.

Helen Frankenthaler - this links to a series of etchings and aquatints the artist called Magellan; splashes of red ochre colour and fine line work.

Sir Terry Frost - bold, abstract, vibrant, colourful prints using elementary symbolic shapes.

Barry Flanagan - this is a link to a series of personal, autobiographical etchings based on hands.

Contemporary Collage

These artists are highly regarded and have been carefully chosen to reflect various aspects of collage-based art that may be utilised in different ways in the classroom.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby - Nigerian autobiographical figurative storytelling. Painting, photo-transfer & Collage. A wonderful artist to study when working on family-based themes, or cultural identity.

Harri Kalha - Analogue black and white collages on surreal, figurative themes. Could be used when studying Surrealism and/or figurative photography.

Barbara Kruger - Powerful slogan-based collages that combine text and photographic image. Great to link to protest, slogan-based art, that develop pupils’ identity and voice.

Thomas Hirschhorn - Designer, artist and collage artist making collages that challenge stereotypes of feminine beauty and fashion. Some female nudity.

Cold War Steve Political collages with humour.

Contemporary Ceramics

Grayson Perry – flamboyant ceramic artist and tapestry artist who creates works based on reflections of contemporary life.

Hermannsburg potters – group of indigenous Aboriginal women potters reflecting the spirit of Australian life.

Katie Spragg – beautiful realistic recreations of natural forms.

Klara Kristalova - beautiful figures based on folk tales, mystical figures, animals and flora!

Coille Hooven - ceramic shoes, blouses and teapots with animal figures (some mild nudity!)

Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran - Bold, bright, wacky, crude figures on the theme of idols, monuments and icons.

Sally Saul - naive figurative sculptures full of humour, narrative and expression.

Contemporary Film, Photography

Tacita Dean - analogue film maker, photographer and artist who also painted huge iceberg pictures.

Cindy Sherman - portrait photographer taking humorously twisted selfies.

Gillian Waring - (adult themes) Wearing Masks is a concept photograph that investigates identity and self-image.

Shirley Baker Chris Killip - social documentary photographers of working-class northern life scenes.

Robert Rauschenberg - multi-disciplinary artist who made photographs, lithographs, and screen prints of everyday objects

Cristina de Middel - photographer who created a series of photographs about the unofficial Zambian Space Program of the 1960s

Gaudi Gill, Rajesh Vangard - the eye in the sky is a combined work between the two artists, where Vangard drew over Gill’s photograph.

Contemporary Graphic Designers

Modern artists

19th century

Impressionism – a 19th century movement originating in Paris during the 1870s and 1880s. Four young painters: Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Frédéric Bazille shared an interest in painting outdoors or en plein air to capture the fleeting effects of the sun. They painted overall visual effects instead of details and used short, broken brushstrokes of pure, unmixed colours, not blended or shaded, as was typical. They faced considerable criticism in their day, but eventually won over their critics.

Other significant artists of this period: Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot

In the classroom: use to teach about painting techniques or colour theory.

Post-impressionism emerged as a reaction against Impressionists' concern for the naturalistic depiction of light and colour. Post-Impressionists built on the style of Impressionism but rejected its limitations: they continued using vivid colours, sometimes using impasto (thick application of paint) and painting from life, but were more inclined to emphasise geometric forms, distort form for expressive effect, and use unnatural or modified colour.

Significant artists of this period: Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Rousseau

In the classroom: use to teach about painting techniques or colour theory.

Pointillism

A technique of painting with small dots of pure colour in patterns to form an image. Significant artists of this period: Georges Seurat, Paul Signac

In the classroom: use to teach about painting techniques or colour theory.

Symbolism used art and poetry symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realism. Significant artists of this period: Odilon Redon, Edvard Munch, James Whistler

In the classroom: link to poetry, English work and study of symbolism and metaphors.

Art Nouveau

International style of art, and architecture, often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and flowers. It was popular between 1890 and 1910.

In the classroom: use as a style to apply to decorate objects, products or designs.

20th century

Abstract art uses visual elements of shape, form, colour and line to represent a departure from reality, either partially or fully.

Significant artists of this period: Wassily Kandinsky, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Piet Mondrian Hilma af Klint, Paul Klee

In the classroom: great to teach in its own right, but excellent to link to investigations into the formal elements.

Fauvism – is the style of les Fauves (French for the wild beasts), a group of artists whose works emphasised strong colour and bold brush strokes over realistic depiction. Significant artists of this period: André Derain, Henri Matisse

In the classroom: use Matisse for cut out pictures or figurative/nature/animal pictures.

Art Deco

Art Deco is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first appeared in France in the 1910s and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920s to early 1930s. It featured bold geometric designs and bright colours. During its heyday, it represented luxury, glamour, and technological progress.

In the classroom: use as a style to apply to decorate objects, products or designs.

Expressionism is an art movement from Northern Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. It tried to represent emotional experience, moods or ideas rather than physical reality. Significant artists of this period: Käthe Kollwitz, Marc Chagall, Leon Kossoff, Franz Marc, Oskar Kokoschka

In the classroom: great for producing emotional portraits, printmaking or storytelling.

Cubism Cubist works of art, depict subjects broken up and reassembled in an abstract form. Instead of depicting objects from a single perspective, the artist depicts the subject from multiple perspectives to represent the subject in a greater context. Significant artists of this period: Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger

In the classroom: usually used for still life painting or portraiture.

Dada Developed in reaction to World War 1, the Dada movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason and appearance of modern society.

Significant artists of this period: Jean Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Kurt Schwitters, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Hannah Höch

In the classroom: great to link with silly poetry and word/text-based art.

Surrealism is an art movement in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Significant artists of this period: René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning

In the classroom: Drawing and painting in a Surrealist style is hard because it takes so much skill, so use the style for collage or digital photography.

American Modernism stemmed from a rejection of Enlightenment thinking, seeking to better represent reality in a new, more industrialised world. Significant artists of this period: Georgia O'Keeffe

In the classroom: O’Keeffe is the queen of flower painting.

Sculpture is the art of making three-dimensional representative or abstract forms, especially by carving stone or wood or by casting metal or plaster. Significant artists: Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth Louise Nevelson

In the classroom: Giacometti works well with wire sculptures. Hepworth is great for soap sculptures, Henry Moore for WW2 shelter drawings, and Louise Nevelson for junk sculptures.

Abstract expressionism is an art movement in American painting, developed in New York in the 1940s. Significant artists: Joan Mitchell, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler

In the classroom: great to teach the formal elements of art.

Feminist Art refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists to produce art that reflects women’s lives and experiences. Significant artists: Judy Chicago, Barbara Kruger, Yoko Ono, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, Guerrilla Girls

Land art also known as Earth art, and environmental art, is an art movement that uses the materials of the Earth, including the soil, rocks, vegetation, and water to create natural sculptures in remote locations. Significant artists: Jean-Claude & Christo, Richard Long, Andy Goldsworthy, Betty Beaumont

Pop art uses images of popular culture in art, to emphasise the banal or kitschy elements of any culture, most often through the use of irony. Significant artists: Richard Hamilton, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, David Hockney

Op art a form of abstract art (specifically non-objective art) that uses optical illusions as its theme. Victor Vasarely Bridget Riley Francis Picabia, MC Escher

Architecture Le Corbusier was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture. Antoni Gaudi was a Spanish architect and designer known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's work was influenced by his passions in life: architecture, nature, and religion

Traditional art

Art from about 500 - 600AD to 1870AD

Medieval

Medieval art of the Western world covers a huge period of over a thousand years across Europe, Western Asia and Northern Africa. There were many periods and styles; Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and Viking. Links to information and images: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_art

Anglo-Saxon

Important art from the Anglo-Saxon period includes the Sutton Hoo hoard, the Bayeux Tapestry, the Franks Casket, Hildegard of Bingen and the Lindisfarne Gospels

Links to information and images: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_art

Viking art

Saxon period Known also as Norse art, Viking art is similar to Celtic, Germanic and Eastern European art. It is predominantly craft-based, mostly sculptural and textile based; metal, stone, wood, bone, ivory and textiles. Important art from this period are the Gotlandic picture stones the Oseberg Ship grave and Runestones.

Links to information and images: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_art

Renaissance Baroque art encouraged – the rebirth of Classical antiquity and the emergence of realistic art. A new understanding of the natural and scientific world emerged. It began in Italy then spread throughout Europe.