The Most Famous
PAINTERS from Mexico
Top 8
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Mexican Painters of all time. This list of famous Mexican Painters is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954)
With an HPI of 86.54, Frida Kahlo is the most famous Mexican Painter. Her biography has been translated into 150 different languages on wikipedia.
Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈfɾiða ˈkalo]; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country's popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist. She is also known for painting about her experience of chronic pain. Born to a German father and a mestiza mother, Kahlo spent most of her childhood and adult life at La Casa Azul, her family home in Coyoacán – now publicly accessible as the Frida Kahlo Museum. Although she was disabled by polio as a child, Kahlo had been a promising student headed for medical school until being injured in a bus accident at the age of 18, which caused her lifelong pain and medical problems. During her recovery, she returned to her childhood interest in art with the idea of becoming an artist. Kahlo's interests in politics and art led her to join the Mexican Communist Party in 1927, through which she met fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera. The couple married in 1929 and spent the late 1920s and early 1930s travelling in Mexico and the United States together. During this time, she developed her artistic style, drawing her main inspiration from Mexican folk culture, and painted mostly small self-portraits that mixed elements from pre-Columbian and Catholic beliefs. Her paintings raised the interest of surrealist artist André Breton, who arranged for Kahlo's first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1938; the exhibition was a success and was followed by another in Paris in 1939. While the French exhibition was less successful, the Louvre purchased a painting from Kahlo, The Frame, making her the first Mexican artist to be featured in their collection. Throughout the 1940s, Kahlo participated in exhibitions in Mexico and the United States and worked as an art teacher. She taught at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado ("La Esmeralda") and was a founding member of the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana. Kahlo's always-fragile health began to decline in the same decade. She had her first solo exhibition in Mexico in 1953, shortly before her death in 1954 at the age of 47. Kahlo's work as an artist remained relatively unknown until the late 1970s, when her work was rediscovered by art historians and political activists. By the early 1990s, not only had she become a recognized figure in art history, but she was also regarded as an icon for Chicanos, the feminism movement, and the LGBTQ+ community. Kahlo's work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions and by feminists for what is seen as its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.
2. Diego Rivera (1886 - 1957)
With an HPI of 75.18, Diego Rivera is the 2nd most famous Mexican Painter. His biography has been translated into 68 different languages.
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈdjeɣo riˈβeɾa]; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the mural movement in Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in, among other places, Mexico City, Chapingo, and Cuernavaca, Mexico; and San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City, United States. In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; this was before he completed his 27-mural series known as Detroit Industry Murals. Rivera had four wives and numerous children, including at least one natural (illegitimate) daughter. His first child and only son died at the age of two. His third wife was fellow Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, with whom he had a volatile relationship that continued until her death. His fourth and final wife was his agent. Due to his importance in the country's art history, the government of Mexico declared Rivera's works as monumentos históricos. As of 2018, Rivera holds the record for highest price at auction for a work by a Latin American artist. The 1931 painting The Rivals, part of the record-setting Collection of Peggy Rockefeller and David Rockefeller, sold for US$9.76 million.
3. David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896 - 1974)
With an HPI of 61.88, David Alfaro Siqueiros is the 3rd most famous Mexican Painter. His biography has been translated into 41 different languages.
David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros; December 29, 1896 – January 6, 1974) was a Mexican social realist painter, best known for his large public murals using the latest in equipment, materials and technique. Along with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, he was one of the most famous of the "Mexican muralists". Siqueiros was a member of the Mexican Communist Party. Although he went to Spain to support the Spanish Republic against the forces of Francisco Franco with his art, he volunteered and served in frontline combat as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army of the Republic through 1938 before returning to Mexico City. In 1940, he led a failed assassination attempt on Leon Trotsky in which Trotsky's 14-year-old grandson was shot and American communist Robert Sheldon Harte was executed. After spending several months on the run from Mexican authorities disguised as a peasant, Siqueiros was eventually apprehended in Jalisco, although he would never be brought to trial and was freed shortly. By accordance with Spanish naming customs, his surname would normally have been Alfaro; however, like Picasso (Pablo Ruiz y Picasso) and Lorca (Federico García Lorca), Siqueiros used his mother's surname. It was long believed that he was born in Camargo in Chihuahua state, but in 2003 it was proven that he had actually been born in the city of Chihuahua, but grew up in Irapuato, Guanajuato, at least from the age of six. The discovery of his birth certificate in 2003 by a Mexican art curator was announced the following year by art critic Raquel Tibol, who was renowned as the leading authority on Mexican Muralism and who had been a close acquaintance of Siqueiros. Siqueiros changed his given name to "David" after his first wife called him by it in allusion to Michelangelo's David.
4. José Clemente Orozco (1883 - 1949)
With an HPI of 59.53, José Clemente Orozco is the 4th most famous Mexican Painter. His biography has been translated into 39 different languages.
José Clemente Orozco (November 23, 1883 – September 7, 1949) was a Mexican caricaturist and painter, who specialized in political murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others. Orozco was the most complex of the Mexican muralists, fond of the theme of human suffering, but less realistic and more fascinated by machines than Rivera. Mostly influenced by Symbolism, he was also a genre painter and lithographer. Between 1922 and 1948, Orozco painted murals in Mexico City, Orizaba, Claremont, California, New York City, Hanover, New Hampshire, Guadalajara, Jalisco, and Jiquilpan, Michoacán. His drawings and paintings are exhibited by the Carrillo Gil Museum in Mexico City, and the Orozco Workshop-Museum in Guadalajara. Orozco was known for being a politically committed artist, and he promoted the political causes of peasants and workers.
5. Rufino Tamayo (1899 - 1991)
With an HPI of 53.07, Rufino Tamayo is the 5th most famous Mexican Painter. His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.
Rufino del Carmen Arellanes Tamayo (August 25, 1899 – June 24, 1991) was a Mexican painter of Zapotec heritage, born in Oaxaca de Juárez, Mexico. Tamayo was active in the mid-20th century in Mexico and New York, painting figurative abstraction with surrealist influences.
6. Juan O'Gorman (1905 - 1982)
With an HPI of 49.62, Juan O'Gorman is the 6th most famous Mexican Painter. His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.
Juan O'Gorman (6 July 1905 – 17 January 1982) was a Mexican painter and architect.
7. Emmanuel Lubezki (1964 - )
With an HPI of 49.29, Emmanuel Lubezki is the 7th most famous Mexican Painter. His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.
Emmanuel Lubezki Morgenstern (Spanish pronunciation: [emaˈnwel luˈβeski]; born November 30, 1964) is a Mexican cinematographer. He sometimes goes by the nickname Chivo, which means "goat" in Spanish. Lubezki has worked with many acclaimed directors, including Mike Nichols, Tim Burton, Michael Mann, Joel and Ethan Coen, David O. Russell, and frequent collaborators Terrence Malick, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu. Lubezki is known for groundbreaking uses of natural lighting and continuous uninterrupted shots in cinematography, often utilizing a Steadicam, a 3-axis gimbal, or hand-held camera to orchestrate fluid, uninterrupted camera movements during particularly significant scenes. Lubezki is a member of both the Mexican Society of Cinematographers and the American Society of Cinematographers. His work has been praised by audiences and critics alike, which earned him multiple awards, including eight Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography. He won in this category three times, becoming the first person to do so in three consecutive years, for Gravity (2013), Birdman (2014), and The Revenant (2015). In 2020, he shot and narrated a short film for Apple displaying the camera capabilities of the iPhone 12 Pro, the first device ever to capture, edit and playback in Dolby Vision.
8. Francisco Toledo (1940 - 2019)
With an HPI of 46.00, Francisco Toledo is the 8th most famous Mexican Painter. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.
Francisco Benjamín López Toledo (17 July 1940 – 5 September 2019) was a Mexican Zapotec painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. In a career that spanned seven decades, Toledo produced thousands of works of art and became widely regarded as one of Mexico's most important contemporary artists. An activist as well as an artist, he promoted the artistic culture and heritage of Oaxaca state. Toledo was considered part of the Breakaway Generation of Mexican art.
Pantheon has 8 people classified as painters born between 1883 and 1964. Of these 8, 1 (12.50%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living painters include Emmanuel Lubezki. The most famous deceased painters include Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. As of April 2022, 1 new painters have been added to Pantheon including Francisco Toledo.
Living Painters
Go to all RankingsDeceased Painters
Go to all Rankings
Frida Kahlo
1907 - 1954
HPI: 86.54
Diego Rivera
1886 - 1957
HPI: 75.18
David Alfaro Siqueiros
1896 - 1974
HPI: 61.88
José Clemente Orozco
1883 - 1949
HPI: 59.53
Rufino Tamayo
1899 - 1991
HPI: 53.07
Juan O'Gorman
1905 - 1982
HPI: 49.62
Francisco Toledo
1940 - 2019
HPI: 46.00
Newly Added Painters (2022)
Go to all RankingsWhich Painters were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 7 most globally memorable Painters since 1700.
