SCULPTORS from Greece

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Greek Sculptors of all time. This list of famous Greek Sculptors 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 Greek Sculptors.

1. Phidias (-490 - -430)

With an HPI of 79.20, Phidias is the most famous Greek Sculptor.  His biography has been translated into 68 different languages on wikipedia.

Phidias or Pheidias (; Ancient Greek: Φειδίας, Pheidias; c. 480 – c. 430 BC) was an Ancient Greek sculptor, painter, and architect, active in the 5th century BC. His Statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Phidias also designed the statues of the goddess Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, namely the Athena Parthenos inside the Parthenon, and the Athena Promachos, a colossal bronze which stood between it and the Propylaea, a monumental gateway that served as the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens. Phidias was the son of Charmides of Athens. The ancients believed that his masters were Hegias and Ageladas.Plutarch discusses Phidias' friendship with the Greek statesman Pericles, recording that enemies of Pericles tried to attack him through Phidias – who was accused of stealing gold intended for the Parthenon's statue of Athena, and of impiously portraying himself and Pericles on the shield of the statue. The historical value of this account, as well as the legend about accusations against the 'Periclean circle', is debatable, but Aristophanes mentions an incident with Phidias around that time.Phidias is often credited as the main instigator of the Classical Greek sculptural design. Today, most critics and historians consider him one of the greatest of all ancient Greek sculptors.

2. Myron (-500 - -500)

With an HPI of 75.36, Myron is the 2nd most famous Greek Sculptor.  His biography has been translated into 49 different languages.

Myron of Eleutherae (480–440 BC) (Ancient Greek: Μύρων, Myrōn [mý.rɔːn]) was an Athenian sculptor from the mid-5th century BC. He was born in Eleutherae on the borders of Boeotia and Attica. According to Natural History, a Latin encyclopedia by Pliny the Elder (AD 23 – 79), a scholar in Ancient Rome, Ageladas of Argos was his teacher.None of his original sculptures are known to survive, but there are many of what are believed to be later copies in marble, mostly Roman.

3. Praxiteles (-395 - -330)

With an HPI of 74.16, Praxiteles is the 3rd most famous Greek Sculptor.  His biography has been translated into 52 different languages.

Praxiteles (; Greek: Πραξιτέλης) of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attica sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubitably attributable sculpture by Praxiteles is extant, numerous copies of his works have survived; several authors, including Pliny the Elder, wrote of his works; and coins engraved with silhouettes of his various famous statuary types from the period still exist. A supposed relationship between Praxiteles and his beautiful model, the Thespian courtesan Phryne, has inspired speculation and interpretation in works of art ranging from painting (Gérôme) to comic opera (Saint-Saëns) to shadow play (Donnay). Some writers have maintained that there were two sculptors of the name Praxiteles. One was a contemporary of Pheidias, and the other his more celebrated grandson. Though the repetition of the same name in every other generation is common in Greece, there is no certain evidence for either position.

4. Polykleitos (-450 - -500)

With an HPI of 72.62, Polykleitos is the 4th most famous Greek Sculptor.  His biography has been translated into 46 different languages.

Polykleitos (Ancient Greek: Πολύκλειτος) was an ancient Greek sculptor, active in the 5th century BCE. Alongside the Athenian sculptors Pheidias, Myron and Praxiteles, he is considered as one of the most important sculptors of classical antiquity. The 4th century BCE catalogue attributed to Xenocrates (the "Xenocratic catalogue"), which was Pliny's guide in matters of art, ranked him between Pheidias and Myron. He is particularly known for his lost treatise, the Canon of Polykleitos (a canon of body proportions), which set out his mathematical basis of an idealised male body shape. None of his original sculptures are known to survive, but many marble works, mostly Roman, are believed to be later copies.

5. Lysippos (-390 - -300)

With an HPI of 71.33, Lysippos is the 5th most famous Greek Sculptor.  His biography has been translated into 48 different languages.

Lysippos (; Greek: Λύσιππος) was a Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC. Together with Scopas and Praxiteles, he is considered one of the three greatest sculptors of the Classical Greek era, bringing transition into the Hellenistic period. Problems confront the study of Lysippos because of the difficulty of identifying his style among the copies which survive. Not only did he have a large workshop and many disciples in his immediate circle, but there is understood to have been a market for replicas of his work, supplied from outside his circle, both in his lifetime and later in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The Victorious Youth or Getty bronze, which resurfaced around 1972, has been associated with him.

6. Scopas (-395 - -350)

With an HPI of 68.04, Scopas is the 6th most famous Greek Sculptor.  His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

Scopas (Greek: Σκόπας; born in Paros, fl. 4th century BCE) was an ancient Greek sculptor and architect, most famous for his statue of Meleager, the copper statue of Aphrodite, and the head of goddess Hygieia, daughter of Asclepius.

7. Leochares (-400 - -400)

With an HPI of 63.46, Leochares is the 7th most famous Greek Sculptor.  His biography has been translated into 30 different languages.

Leochares (Greek: Λεοχάρης or Λεωχάρης) was an ancient Greek sculptor from Athens, who lived in the 4th century BC.

8. Alcamenes (-500 - -400)

With an HPI of 60.98, Alcamenes is the 8th most famous Greek Sculptor.  His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.

Alcamenes (Ancient Greek: Ἀλκαμένης) was an ancient Greek sculptor of Lemnos and Athens, who flourished in the 2nd half of the 5th century BC. He was a younger contemporary of Phidias and noted for the delicacy and finish of his works, among which a Hephaestus and an Aphrodite of the Gardens were conspicuous.Pausanias says that he was the author of one of the pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, but this seems a chronological and stylistic impossibility. Pausanias also refers to a statue of Ares by Alcamenes that was erected on the Athenian agora, which some have related to the Ares Borghese. However, the temple of Ares to which he refers had only been moved from Acharnes and re-sited in the Agora in Augustus's time, and statues known to derive from Alcamenes' statue show the god in a breastplate, so the identification of Alcamenes' Ares with the Ares Borghese is not secure. At Pergamum there was discovered in 1903 a Hellenistic copy of the head of the Hermes "Propylaeus" of Alcamenes. As, however, the deity is represented in a Neo-Attic, archaistic and conventional character, this copy cannot be relied on as giving us much information as to the usual style of Alcamenes, who was almost certainly a progressive and original artist.It is safer to judge him by the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon, in which he must almost certainly have taken a share under the direction of Phidias. He is said to be the most eminent sculptor in Athens after the departure of Phidias for Olympia, but enigmatic in that none of the sculptures associated with his name in classical literature can be securely connected with existing copies.

9. Chares of Lindos (-400 - -280)

With an HPI of 59.97, Chares of Lindos is the 9th most famous Greek Sculptor.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Chares of Lindos (; Greek: Χάρης ὁ Λίνδιος, gen.: Χάρητος; before 305 BC – c.280 BC) was a Greek sculptor born on the island of Rhodes. He was a pupil of Lysippos. Chares constructed the Colossus of Rhodes in 282 BC, an enormous bronze statue of the sun god Helios and the patron god of Rhodes. The statue was built to commemorate Rhodes' victory over the invading Macedonians in 305 BC, led by Demetrius I, son of Antigonus, a general under Alexander the Great. Also attributed to Chares was a colossal head which was brought to Rome and dedicated by P. Lentulus Spinther on the Capitoline Hill, in 57 BC (Pliny, Natural History XXXIV.18).The Colossus of Rhodes is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and was considered Chares's greatest accomplishment, until its destruction in an earthquake in 226 BC.It is believed that Chares did not live to see his project finished. There are several legends stating that he committed suicide. In one tale he had almost finished the statue when someone pointed out a small flaw in the construction. The sculptor was so ashamed of it he killed himself. In another version, the Rhodians asked Chares how much he would charge for a statue fifty feet high, and when he answered, asked him how much for a statue twice as big; he answered twice as much – and they awarded the contract; he had overlooked that doubling the height would mean an eightfold increase in the amount of materials needed. This drove him to bankruptcy and eventually suicide. The work may have been completed by Laches, also an inhabitant of Lindos.

10. Ageladas (-600 - -500)

With an HPI of 58.73, Ageladas is the 10th most famous Greek Sculptor.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Ageladas (Greek: Ἀγελάδας Agelā́dās) or Hagelaedas (Greek: Ἁγελᾴδας Hagelā́idās) was a celebrated Greek (Argive) sculptor, who flourished in the latter part of the 6th and the early part of the 5th century BC.Ageladas' fame is enhanced by his having been the instructor of the three great masters, Phidias, Myron, and Polykleitos. The determination of the period when Ageladas flourished has given rise to a great deal of discussion, owing to the apparently contradictory statements of the writers who mention his name. Pausanias states that Ageladas cast a statue of Cleosthenes (who gained a victory in the chariot-race in the 66th Olympiad) with the chariot, horses, and charioteer placed at Olympia.Also at Olympia, there were statues by Ageladas of Timasitheus of Delphi and Anochus of Tarentum. Timasitheus was put to death by the Athenians for his participation in the attempt to overthrow the tyrant Isagoras during the 68th Olympiad in 507. According to Eusebius, Anochus was a victor in the games of the 65th Olympiad. Therefore, if Ageladas was born about 540, he may very well have been the instructor of Phidias. On the other hand, Pliny says that Ageladas, with Polykleitos, Phradmon, and Myron, flourished in the 87th Olympiad. This agrees with the statement of the scholiast on Aristophanes, that at Melite there was a statue of Heracles (Ἡρακλῆς ἀλεξίκακος), the work of Ageladas the Argive, which was set up during the great pestilence at the 87th Olympiad. To these authorities must be added a passage of Pausanias, where he speaks of a statue of Zeus made by Ageladas for the Messenians of Naupactus. This must have been after the year 455, when the Messenians were allowed by the Athenians to settle at Naupactus. In order to reconcile these conflicting statements, it has been argued that Pliny's date is wrong and that the statue of Heracles had been made by Ageladas long before it was set up at Melite. Other scholars think that Pliny's date is correct, but that Ageladas did not make the statues of the Olympic victors mentioned by Pausanias until many years after their victories. Given that the dates of those individuals' victories are so nearly the same, this could be argued as being a very extraordinary coincidence. The most probable solution of the difficulty is that proposed by Friedrich Thiersch, who thinks that there were two artists of this name: one an Argive, the instructor of Phidias, born about 540; the other a native of Sicyon, who flourished at the date assigned by Pliny and was confused by the scholiast on Aristophanes with his more illustrious Argive namesake. Thiersch supports this hypothesis by an able criticism of a passage of Pausanias.Other scholars assume that there were two artists with the name of Ageladas, but both were Argives. Ageladas the Argive executed one of a group of three Muses, representing respectively the presiding geniuses of the diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic styles of Greek music. Canachus and Aristocles of Sicyon made the other two.