Born 2 Dec 1859 in Paris, Seurat is known as the founder of pointillism and used this trademark style to great effect. His paintings, Sunday Afternoon at Grand Jatte and Bathers are the best known of his works, but over 200 paintings are known to exist. Seurat took a scientific

Born Nov 21 1898 in Lessines, Belgium, Magritte is well known as a thought-provoking surrealist, and in particular for his pipe that is not a pipe. This 1962 work is appropriate for our modern world and is entitled: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana,

Born Nov 8 1883 in Lancaster PA, Demuth worked with fellow American artists to develop the concept of Precisionism in his mainly watercolour-centric style of painting. His works often show a range of forms in a quasi-Cubist, sharply-defined manner. Frequently occurring scenes include urban and rural landscapes, often consisting of

Born Nov 7 1933 in Newark NJ, Birmelin is best known for his paintings and drawings capturing urban crowds; particularly the drama, movement and tension of close physical involvement in the city environment. Still active, he believes in drawing from life, memory and imagination as he feels it provides a

Born 2 Nov 1902 in Ukraine, Margo was a painter of surrealist imagery. In 1919 he enrolled at the Polytechnik of Art at Odessa, and in 1924 received a grant to study at the Workshop for the Art of the Future in Moscow. He then studied the work of the

Born 31 Oct 1632 in Delft – Vermeer. Girl in the pearl earring, and all those other famous highly-detailed interior studies. But how did he paint them? Were they traced using a camera obscura? Does it matter? Vermeer mainly painted indoors, but he also painted this: View of Delft. For

Born October 31 1760 in Edo, Japan, Katsushika Hokusai, known simply as Hokusai, was a Japanese painter and printmaker. He is best known for the woodblock print series – Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, including the iconic print: The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Undoubtedly one of the greatest artists of

Born 30 October 1839 in Paris, Sisley counts as one of THE great impressionsists. Although he was born and spent most of his life in France, he still retained British citizenship. He was possibly the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape “en plein air”. He

Born Oct 23 1838 in Baltimore, Smith is mainly known as the engineer that built the foundation for the Statue of Liberty. But he was also an accomplished artist producing many fine watercolours, including many of Venice or Istanbul.

Born 18 Oct 1906 in St Louis, Brooks was a contemporary and friend of Jackson Pollock, working as an abstract expressionist after serving in the military as an artist in northern Africa. He was among the first artists to use staining, creating “painterly accidents” with buried personal meanings.

Born Oct 6 1920 in Brooklyn, Krisel drew weather maps for the allied forces in WW2. From there he progressed to architecture and abstract art. A prolific painter and sculptor, he also produced silkscreens and lithographs such as: Prisme

Born Oct 4 1933 in Baltimore, Nesbitt had the great job of being official artist for some of the Apollo missions. But he disliked being classified as a photorealist, indeed some of his last works, in the “impossible series” definitely qualify as surreal.

Born Oct 3, 1910 in Wahington, Hawley specialised in pictures of rural buildings and and aspects of small-town industry in the US. He painted occasionally in gouache but specialised in watercolors, such as this: Pennsylvania Horse Barn.

Born Oct 1, 1860 Wisconsin, Mathews was an American Tonalist painter after initailly training as an architect. Comfortable using oils, watercolours and gouache, he studied in California and Paris and was highly active in fighting for the rights of women to study art in the US.

Born 29 Sep 1920 in Washington DC, Lewis was an abstract painter, a member of the Washington School of Color. Other than abstracts, he also painted cityscapes (and Roosters?) focusing on the mystical and emotional aspects of his subjects.

Born Sep 23 1934, New Haven CT, Bannard was probably best known for color field painting – alongside modernism, minimalism and formalism. Featuring in over 100 exhibitions, he was also a professor at Miami University. East of Eden #2

Born 22 Sep 1918 in NYC, Gray started out as a landscape painter, served as a GI and sketched wartime destruction before meeting Picasso and Jacques Villon. Inspired by Cubism in later life his work tended more towards the abstract. Here’s: Active Void

Born Sep 13 1904 in Knoxville, TN, Delaney was committed to opposing racial discrimination. Known particularly for panoramic crowd scenes, showing concern for the lives of common people, he also painted NYC where he lived. Union Square.

Born Sep 12 1914 in San Diego, Brandt was inspired by the life and geography of the US West Coast. A keen sailor, he painted many pictures of boats as well as Californian landscapes – either as block prints, oil paintings or watercolours like: Cottonwood Mountains.

Born 10 Sep 1897 Kentucky, Wolfe, best known as a sculptor but also produced painttings and lithographs of note. He worked in a local realist style that arose in the 30s as a response to European Modernism.

Born Sep 9, 1899, NYC, Dickinson was an early US adopter of cubist and futurist techniques, focusing on industrial subjects such as factories and granaries. Early works were imaginary but later he shifted to more realistic works. Here’s: Factory

Born 5 Sep 1903 in Japan, Munakata was known for his woodblock prints. A zen buddhist, local folk festivals were a key theme for him. Initially working in b/w he changed to colouring his work using a technique called urazaishiki.

Born 2 Sept 1913, Saccaro was an American abstract expressionist artist from the SF bay area. Think slashing, angular brush work and high contrast colours. @SFMOMA – do you have any of his work?

Born in Illinois, Aug 20 1909, Walton was a journalist and abstract expressionist. Friends with both Hemingway and JFK, he served as a parachutist in WW2, and possibly as a spy in Russia after JFK’s death. Not dull. Here’s his view of wartime London.