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The Most Famous

PAINTERS from Austria

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This page contains a list of the greatest Austrian Painters. The pantheon dataset contains 1,421 Painters, 30 of which were born in Austria. This makes Austria the birth place of the 14th most number of Painters behind Japan and Switzerland.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Austrian Painters of all time. This list of famous Austrian Painters is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Austrian Painters.

Photo of Gustav Klimt

1. Gustav Klimt (1862 - 1918)

With an HPI of 81.01, Gustav Klimt is the most famous Austrian Painter.  His biography has been translated into 87 different languages on wikipedia.

Gustav Klimt (14 July 1862 – 6 February 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. Amongst his figurative works, which include allegories and portraits, he painted landscapes. Among the artists of the Vienna Secession, Klimt was the most influenced by Japanese art and its methods.Early in his career, he was a successful painter of architectural decorations in a conventional manner. As he began to develop a more personal style, his work was the subject of controversy that culminated when the paintings he completed around 1900 for the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna were criticized as pornographic. He subsequently accepted no more public commissions, but achieved a new success with the paintings of his "golden phase", many of which include gold leaf. Klimt's work was an important influence on his younger peer Egon Schiele. Since the 1990s, he has been one of the artists whose paintings fetch top prices at auctions.

Photo of Egon Schiele

2. Egon Schiele (1890 - 1918)

With an HPI of 75.10, Egon Schiele is the 2nd most famous Austrian Painter.  His biography has been translated into 63 different languages.

Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele (German: [ˈeːɡɔn ˈʃiːlə] ; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism. Gustav Klimt, a figurative painter of the early 20th century, was a mentor to Schiele.

Photo of Oskar Kokoschka

3. Oskar Kokoschka (1886 - 1980)

With an HPI of 70.68, Oskar Kokoschka is the 3rd most famous Austrian Painter.  His biography has been translated into 49 different languages.

Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expressionist movement.

Photo of Angela Hitler

4. Angela Hitler (1883 - 1949)

With an HPI of 62.95, Angela Hitler is the 4th most famous Austrian Painter.  Her biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Angela Franziska Johanna Hammitzsch (née Hitler; 28 July 1883 – 30 October 1949) was the elder half-sister of Adolf Hitler. She was the mother of Geli Raubal by her first husband, Leo Raubal Sr.

Photo of Koloman Moser

5. Koloman Moser (1868 - 1918)

With an HPI of 60.88, Koloman Moser is the 5th most famous Austrian Painter.  His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Koloman Moser (German: [ˈkoːloman ˈmoːzɐ]; 30 March 1868 – 18 October 1918) was an Austrian artist who exerted considerable influence on twentieth-century graphic art. He was one of the foremost artists of the Vienna Secession movement and a co-founder of Wiener Werkstätte. Moser designed a wide array of art works, including books and graphic works from postage stamps to magazine vignettes; fashion; stained glass windows, porcelains and ceramics, blown glass, tableware, silver, jewelry, and furniture.

Photo of Hans Makart

6. Hans Makart (1840 - 1884)

With an HPI of 59.60, Hans Makart is the 6th most famous Austrian Painter.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Hans Makart (28 May 1840 – 3 October 1884) was a 19th-century Austrian academic history painter, designer, and decorator. Makart was a prolific painter whose ideas significantly influenced the development of visual art in Austria-Hungary, Germany, and beyond.

Photo of Raoul Hausmann

7. Raoul Hausmann (1886 - 1971)

With an HPI of 59.38, Raoul Hausmann is the 7th most famous Austrian Painter.  His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Raoul Hausmann (July 12, 1886 – February 1, 1971) was an Austrian artist and writer. One of the key figures in Berlin Dada, his experimental photographic collages, sound poetry, and institutional critiques would have a profound influence on the European Avant-Garde in the aftermath of World War I.

Photo of Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller

8. Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793 - 1865)

With an HPI of 57.54, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller is the 8th most famous Austrian Painter.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (Austrian German: [ˈfɛrdɪnand ˈɡeːɔrɡ ˈvaltmʏlɐ] ; 15 January 1793 – 23 August 1865) was an Austrian painter and writer. Waldmüller was one of the most important Austrian painters of the Biedermeier period.

Photo of Peter Fendi

9. Peter Fendi (1796 - 1842)

With an HPI of 57.36, Peter Fendi is the 9th most famous Austrian Painter.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Peter Fendi (4 September 1796 – 28 August 1842) was an Austrian court painter, portrait and genre painter, engraver, and lithographer. He was one of the leading artists of the Biedermeier period.

Photo of Friedrich von Amerling

10. Friedrich von Amerling (1803 - 1887)

With an HPI of 56.53, Friedrich von Amerling is the 10th most famous Austrian Painter.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Friedrich von Amerling (14 April 1803 – 14 January 1887) was an Austro-Hungarian portrait painter in the court of Franz Josef. He was born in Vienna and was court painter between 1835 and 1880. With Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, he is one of the outstanding Austrian portrait painters of the 19th century.

Pantheon has 30 people classified as painters born between 1485 and 1984. Of these 30, 1 (3.33%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living painters include Matthias Laurenz Gräff. The most famous deceased painters include Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Oskar Kokoschka. As of April 2022, 7 new painters have been added to Pantheon including Richard Gerstl, Peter Johann Nepomuk Geiger, and Carl Moll.

Living Painters

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Deceased Painters

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Newly Added Painters (2022)

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Which Painters were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 25 most globally memorable Painters since 1700.