When we talk about modern art, we often talk about the period 1860-1950. From that time we can make a list of the most prominent painters ranked by Artprice's ranking.

1. Van Gogh (1853-1890)

Who doesn't know Van Gogh? We enjoyed Jeroen Krabbe's series about him and the visits to Kroller Moller, Musee D'Orsay and the Van Gogh Museum. Reviled during his too-short productive life and now more famous than Johan Cruyff. He played with light, colors and really attacked the canvas, but with Rembrandt's finishing touch. A genius. See our recipe for poor men's caviar with boiled potato, which we made based on a painting from the period when he was still influenced by the Hague School and had not yet discovered the freedom of painting of the impressionists and neo-impressionists like his inspiration, friend and madman Gauguin.

2. Willem de Kooning 

Willem de Kooning is famous for his compelling series of paintings of women, which he produced in the early 1950s. Another main theme in De Kooning's work is the landscape. After 1955 he renounced all figurative elements. In the 1980s he painted wavy lines and transparent surfaces with lots of light and white surfaces. De Kooning, together with Jackson Pollock, is considered the most important painter of abstract expressionism and 'action painting'.

3. Piet Mondriaan: 

Piet Mondriaan was born in Amersfoort and spent part of his youth in Winterswijk. See our blog about Mondriaan's villa about this part of his life. Everyone in the world knows him because of the color areas in primary colors that represent a feeling and emotion that had never happened before. Groundbreaking, innovative and therefore maligned in the beginning. Victorie Boogie Woogie and other works with only black stripes and careful surfaces tell the story. Go and see for yourself, just like us, in the Hague Museum, Rijksmuseum or, for example, the Gugenheim or the Moma.

4. Kees van Dongen 

5. Karel Appel 

See our blog about Karel Appel and our chicken nuggets dish inspired by his Cobra work.

6. Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931)

Van Doesburg was born as Christian Küpper in Utrecht. He had his first exhibition in 1908 in The Hague. After serving until 1916, he founded the magazine De Stijl in 1917 with artists and architects. The magazine was a means to share artistic ideas with a larger audience. The abstract paintings that he and Mondriaan made show how much both artists influenced each other. A limited color palette and only quadrangular horizontal and vertical surfaces were painted. From 1922, Van Doesburg taught at the progressive Bauhaus academy in Weimar and he had contact with painters who we now classify as Dadaism.

7. Gerrit Rietveld

Rietveld was also a member of De Stijl. Good art is straight and angular, according to the internationally influential artist group De Stijl. An artist had to portray the harmony of the universe with primary colors, white, black and gray and with the use of straight lines. Rietveld still has influence in architecture, furniture design and art. The Central Museum and the Rietveld Schroder House in Utrecht are recommended. Or rather a Must.

8. M.C. Escher

Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) is one of the world's most famous graphic artists. During the time that he lives and works in Italy, he already creates realistic works such as the lithograph Castrovalva in which the fascination with perspective can be seen. He is most famous for his so-called impossible drawings, such as Ascending and Descending and Relativity. Although Escher always denies that he understands anything about mathematics, in his work he plays with the concepts of gravity and perspective that impress mathematicians. In his lifetime Escher made 448 lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings and more than 2000 drawings and sketches. M.C. Escher is fascinated by the regular geometric figures of the wall and floor mosaics in the Alhambra, a fourteenth-century castle in Granada, Spain, which he visits in 1922 and 1936. He plays with architecture, perspective and impossible spaces. M.C. Escher shows us that reality is wonderful, understandable and fascinating. He is therefore (also) an exponent of magical realism.

9. Corneille (1922-2010)

We once sold this lithograph from Corneille and now we have another one in our offer. For every work we offer, we write a short biography about the artist. So please read on here.

10. Pyke Koch

Pyke Koch (Beek 1901 - Wassenaar 1991) only made 120 paintings (source RKD) but enjoys the greatest fame as a neo-realist, despite his wrong sympathies and friends during the Second World War. He only started painting later in life. A big surprise for those around him because he was a gentleman of rank who thundered into the art world. Koch was inspired by slums and cinema for his work. He painted scenes that caused a stir at the time, such as a urinal in Amsterdam, a meeting place for homosexuals. In 1930, homosexuality was still often taboo and his gender-neutral works were very far ahead of the time. After the war, no trace of fascist ideas can be discovered anywhere in his paintings. His works become lighter and more cheerful. Koch was a perfectionist. He sometimes destroyed his own works or painted over existing canvases. And despite his dubious past, Koch can be counted as one of the most important Dutch painters of the 20th century.

11. Isaac Israels

12. Jan Sluijters (1881-1957) 

See our blog about this impressionist and a fantastic exhibition at Singer Laren.

13. Mesdag (1831-1915)

Hendrik Willem Mesdag is especially famous for the gigantic Panorama Mesdag measuring 120 cm x 14 meters. Mesdag painted it with the help of several other artists of the Hague School, including George Hendrik Breitner, Théophile de Bock, Bernard Blommers and his wife Sientje Mesdag-van Houten. Mesdag is to The Hague what Rembrandt is to Amsterdam and Vermeer to Delft.

14. Lucebert

15. Breitner (1857-1923)

George Hendrik Breitner (1857-1923) was the painter of Amsterdam City Life. He was an impressionist who put paint on the canvas with broad and large gestures. He also made beautiful watercolors and etchings. In addition to cityscapes, he made nudes, military scenes and many paintings with horses and their riders. This painting is one of a series of 16 made from a photo series by Guusje Kwak. The Japanese Kimono was completely en voque at the beginning of the 20th century, just like Japanese art.