The Most Famous
ARTISTS from Italy
This page contains a list of the greatest Italian Artists. The pantheon dataset contains 78 Artists, 5 of which were born in Italy. This makes Italy the birth place of the 7th most number of Artists behind France and Netherlands.
Top 5
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Italian Artists of all time. This list of famous Italian Artists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Luca Signorelli (1450 - 1523)
With an HPI of 66.07, Luca Signorelli is the most famous Italian Artist. His biography has been translated into 46 different languages on wikipedia.
Luca Signorelli (c. 1441/1445 – 16 October 1523) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Cortona, in Tuscany, who was noted in particular for his ability as a draftsman and his use of foreshortening. His massive frescos of the Last Judgment (1499–1503) in Orvieto Cathedral are considered his masterpiece. In his early 40s he returned to live in Cortona, after working in Florence, Siena and Rome (1478–84, painting a now lost section of the Sistine Chapel). With an established reputation, he remained based in Cortona for the rest of his life, but often travelled to the cities of the region to fulfill commissions. He was probably trained by Piero della Francesca in Florence, as his cousin Giorgio Vasari wrote, and his Quattrocento style became rather out of date in the new century. Cortona will host a major exhibition in 2023 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of his death.
2. Bruno Munari (1907 - 1998)
With an HPI of 55.12, Bruno Munari is the 2nd most famous Italian Artist. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.
Bruno Munari (24 October 1907 in Milan – 29 September 1998 in Milan) was "one of the greatest actors of 20th-century art, design and graphics". He was an Italian artist, designer, and inventor who contributed fundamentals to many fields of visual arts (painting, sculpture, film, industrial design, graphic design) in modernism, futurism, and concrete art, and in non-visual arts (literature, poetry) with his research on games, didactic method, movement, tactile learning, kinesthetic learning, and creativity. On the utility of art, Munari once said, "Art shall not be separated from life: things that are good to look at, and bad to be used, should not exist".
3. Luigi Serafini (1949 - )
With an HPI of 49.52, Luigi Serafini is the 3rd most famous Italian Artist. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Luigi Serafini (born 4 August 1949 in Rome) is an Italian artist and designer based in Milan. He is best known for creating the Codex Seraphinianus, an illustrated encyclopedia of imaginary things in what was believed to be a constructed language. This work was published in 1981 by Franco Maria Ricci.
4. James Rivière (1949 - )
With an HPI of 44.91, James Rivière is the 4th most famous Italian Artist. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
James Rivière (born 1949) is an Italian artist, designer, and sculptor. His jewellery designs are held in private collections, and in museums including the Louvre, Victoria and Albert, and Vatican Museums. He is a faculty member at Istituto Europeo di Design, Milan.
5. Vanessa Beecroft (1969 - )
With an HPI of 38.34, Vanessa Beecroft is the 5th most famous Italian Artist. Her biography has been translated into 16 different languages.
Vanessa Beecroft (born April 25, 1969) is an Italian-born American contemporary performance artist; she also works with photography, video art, sculpture, and painting. Many of her works have made use of professional models, sometimes in large numbers and sometimes naked or nearly so, to stage tableaux vivants. She works in the United States, and is based in Los Angeles as of 2009. Her early work was focused on gender and appeared to be autobiographical; her later work is focused on race. Starting in 2008 she began working with Kanye West on collaborations and commercial projects.
Pantheon has 5 people classified as artists born between 1450 and 1969. Of these 5, 3 (60.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living artists include Luigi Serafini, James Rivière, and Vanessa Beecroft. The most famous deceased artists include Luca Signorelli and Bruno Munari. As of April 2022, 1 new artists have been added to Pantheon including Luigi Serafini.
Living Artists
Go to all Rankings
Luigi Serafini
1949 - Present
HPI: 49.52
James Rivière
1949 - Present
HPI: 44.91
Vanessa Beecroft
1969 - Present
HPI: 38.34
