Paul Cézanne (January 19, 1839 – October 22, 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter. His best painting are The Card players, Les Grandes Baigneuses, Still Life with a Curtain, Tannhäuser, Jas de Bouffan, Still Life with Apples and Oranges, and his most expensive painting is Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier.

Jasper Johns, Jr. (born May 15, 1930 in Augusta, Georgia) is a contemporary U.S. artist in painting and printmaking. His best paintings are Map 1961, Flag , Encaustic, oil and collage on fabric mounted on plywood(1954-55), Numbers, and his most expensive painting is False Start.

Francis Bacon (28 October 1909 – 28 April 1992) was an Irish-born figurative painter .His artwork is known for its bold, austere, and often grotesque or nightmarish imagery. His best paintings are Man in a Cap, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, MoMA, Head VI, and his most expensive painting is Triptych.

Peter Paul Rubens (June 28, 1577 – May 30, 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. His best painting are Infante Isabella Clara Eugenia,The Raising of the Cross, Prometheus Bound, The Exchange of Princesses, The Fall of Man, Hippopotamus Hunt, and his most expensive painting is The Massacre of the Innocents.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841–December 3, 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. His Best Paintings are The Theater Box, The Swing (La Balançoire) Girls at the Piano, On the Terrace and (Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette) one of the his expensive painting.

Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist.His best paintings are Still-Life, The Hague, The Potato Eaters (1885),Skull with a Burning Cigarette ,Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers, August 1888 Portrait of Dr. Gachet was sold for 82.5 million US dollars.

Pablo Picasso (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was a Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. His best paintings are Igor Stravinsky, Massacre in Korea, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Three Musicians, Nude Woman with a Necklace, and his most expensive paintings are Femme aux Bras Croisés, Dora Maar au Chat.

Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter. His best paintings are Judith I (1901), Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907),and The Kiss (1907 – 1908).In 1911 his painting Death and Life received first prize in the world exhibitions in Rome. Klimt’s paintings have brought some of the highest prices recorded for individual works of art.

Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was an abstract expressionist painter., born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In 1946, too poor to buy artists’ pigments, he turned to black and white household enamels to paint a series of large abstractions; of these works, Light in August (c. 1946) and Black Friday (1948) are essentially black with white elements, whereas Zurich (1947) and Mailbox (1947/48) are white with black. Developing out of these works in the period after his first show were complex, agitated abstractions such as Asheville (1948/49), Attic (1949), and Excavation (1950; Art Institute of Chicago).

Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956) was an influential American painter. He was married to a painter Lee Krasner. Pollock was introduced to the use of liquid paint in 1936, at an experimental workshop operated in New York City by the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. In 1956 Time magazine dubbed Pollock “Jack the Dripper” as a result of his unique painting style.

Femme aux Bras Croisés by Pablo Picasso ($55,000,000)
This work, painted in 1901, was a part of Picasso’s famous Blue Period, a dark, sad time in the artist’s life. The beautiful & various tones of blue are typical. The painting depicts a woman with her arms crossed staring at the endless nothing. Femme aux Bras Croisés was sold for $55,000,000 November 8, 2000, at Christie’s Rockefeller in New York City.

Irises by Van Gogh. Irises by Vincent Van Gogh ($53,900,000)
Vincent van Gogh painted this at Saint Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, France in 1889, only one year before his death. In 1987, it became the most expensive painting to date. It was sold for $ 54,000,000 to Alan Bond and later resold to the Getty Museum.

Massacre of the Innocents by Peter Paul Rubens  ($76,700,000)
This painting by Peter Paul Rubens, painted in 1611, is the only painting in this list which was not painted in the 19th or 20th century. It was sold to Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet for $ 76,700,000 at a 2002 Sotheby’s auction. Bal Au Moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir ($78,000,000)
Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre was painted by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1876. On May 17, 1990, it was sold for $ 78,000,000 at Sotheby’s in New York City to Ryoei Saito, who bought it together with the Portrait of Dr Gachet (see above).

Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh ($82,500,000)
This painting by the Dutch Impressionist master Gogh suddenly became famous when  businessman Ryoei Saito paid $82.5 million for it at auction in Christie’s, New York. Saito was so attached to the painting that he wanted it to be cremated with him when he died. Saito died in 1996 … but the painting was saved. Gogh painted two versions of Dr Gachet’s portrait.

Dora Maar with Cat by Pablo Picasso
when this painting near doubled its presale estimate and fetched a record ($95,200,000) at auction at Sotheby’s on May 3, 2006. Painted in 1941, Picasso’s controversial portrait (one of his last) is sometimes described as an unflattering depiction of his mistress, Dora Maar, who was an artist/photographer and mistress of Picasso whose relationship lasted ten years during the 1930s and 40s.

Garçon a la Pipe by Pablo Picasso ($104,100,000)
Garçon a la Pipe was created during the artist’s famous Rose Period, during which Picasso painted with a cheerful orange and pink palatte. The oil on canvas painting, measuring 100 × 81.3 cm (slightly over 39 × 32 inches), depicts a Parisian boy holding a pipe in his left hand. The record price auction at Sotheby’s New York on May 4, 2004.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt ($135,000,000)The record-breaking sale – which followed a court order by the Austrian government to return the painting to Bloch-Bauer’s heir – was the culmination of a years-long dispute over the painting looted by Nazis during World War II. Painted by the art nouveau master Gustav Klimt in 1907, the portrait was purchased in 2006 by cosmetics heir Ronald S. Lauder.

No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock ($140,000,000)
Unconfirmed rumors now buzzing the art world now place this painting at the top of the list, at least temporarily. If true, the $140 million price tag would be the highest ever for a painting, besting the $135 million paid for the Gustav Klimt painting Portrait of Adele Block Bauer in June 2006.Painted by expressionist Jackson Pollock in his trademark “drip” style, the 4′ x 8′ painting is said to have been purchased by entertainment mogul David Geffen in November 2006. ]]> http://www.einfopedia.com/most-expensive-paintings-of-the-world.php/feed 1