The top 10 most famous photographers in the world - the best photo artists of all time
The 10 most famous photographers in the world are a group of brilliant photo artists who have made a significant contribution to the development of contemporary art. These top photographers represent a diverse group of people, but they share a love for their profession and a desire to make our world better. Among them are masters of all popular genres and styles of photography, who have gone through a challenging path to recognition and fame.
The photographers discussed in this article were very different people, but they all shared a common quality - the ability to create masterpieces using a camera. Moreover, to a true master, it is not necessary to have the latest cutting-edge camera purchased for a substantial amount.
The 10 most famous photographers in the world are:
- Helmut Newton (Germany, 1920-2004).
- Andreas Gursky (Germany, b. 1955).
- Richard Avedon (USA, 1923-2004).
- Irving Penn (USA, 1917-2009).
- Henri Cartier-Bresson (France, 1908-2004).
- Nick Knight (UK, b. 1958).
- Mick Rock (UK, b. 1949).
- Marc Riboud (France, 1923-2016).
- Sebastião Salgado (Brazil, b. 1944).
- Frank Horvat (Italy, 1928-2020).
Helmut Newton
Helmut was born into a Jewish family in Berlin and purchased his first camera at the age of 12. Unfortunately, the Nazis came to power in Germany shortly thereafter, and the future artist miraculously escaped death in a concentration camp and fled abroad in 1938. He settled in Australia, changed his surname from Newstead to Newton, and began working in fashion, theater, and industrial photography.
His life took a dramatic turn in the early 1950s when the famous British magazine Vogue offered the master a professional contract. It was in this publication that Newton made a name for himself in the genre of nude photography, publishing provocative photos with sadomasochistic and fetishistic undertones.
Andreas Gursky
Andreas was born in East Germany ten years after the end of World War II, but as an infant, he ended up in West Germany, where his parents fled. After graduating from the Düsseldorf Academy of Art, he was one of the first in the world to start using electronic image processing on a computer.
Gursky is rightfully considered a recognized master of large-format photography, and his masterpieces are sold at art auctions for enormous sums. The record-breaking work in terms of price among his pieces is the photograph "Rhein II" (1999), for which an unidentified buyer paid $4.3 million at an auction in November 2011.
Richard Avedon
Descendant of Jewish immigrants from Russia, he was born and spent most of his life in New York. At the age of 23, he founded his own photography studio and quickly gained recognition in the genre of fashion photography. In his youth, the artist was interested in politics and often photographed participants in large-scale protest rallies.
However, Avedon gained international fame thanks to his unique skill in portrait photography, where the subjects of his works were the most prominent figures in the political, business, and cultural elite of the United States. Although presidents and global celebrities gladly posed for the artist, he also enjoyed capturing ordinary Americans: miners, farmers, the unemployed, and simply crowds of people.
Irving Penn
Another American artist with Jewish roots, born in New York. Unlike Avedon, Penn became interested in photography as an independent adult. Working as an assistant editor at Vogue magazine, he first picked up a camera at the age of 26 and quickly established a career as a fashion photographer.
Penn was a brilliant self-taught photographer and invented many of his own photographic techniques. Among the master's masterpieces, one can especially highlight the photographic portraits of recognized geniuses of the art world, such as Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Salvador Dalí, and Marcel Duchamp.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Hailing from an affluent family of French manufacturers, he was passionate about drawing from childhood and dreamed of becoming a painter. However, at the age of 24, he discovered photography and fell in love with it. Henri bought a small camera and engaged in street photography, using his artist's intuition to find interesting subjects for his photographs.
Henri Cartier-Bresson's photographs represent the pinnacle of realism in 20th-century photography. He is rightfully considered the father of documentary photojournalism because he had an incredible ability to capture any scene at the moment of its highest emotional intensity.
Nick Knight
One of the most original contemporary photographers, he was born in London to a family of doctors. Unlike his parents, he was not interested in exact sciences from an early age but in art. He loved walking around the city with a camera in his hands. After college, Nick got a job as a photographer at a fashion magazine, and his career quickly took off.
Nick Knight gained worldwide recognition thanks to his unique approach to photography. His works often feature people with disabilities and unconventional facial features. The artist also specializes in shooting music videos and photo albums for global celebrities.
Mick Rock
Remarkably, the surname of this photographer perfectly matches the favorite theme of his work. Mick Rock has been successfully photographing the world's top rock musicians and creating album covers for them throughout his professional career.
The artist became passionate about capturing rock stars in the early 1970s and has been involved in this endeavor for over 50 years. He is still in demand among top musicians and maintains warm friendships with many of them.
Marc Riboud
Marc had an interest in photography from childhood but only professionally pursued photography at the age of 28. Over several decades, he traveled the world and gained wide recognition through numerous documentary photographs from hotspots around the globe.
Riboud had a particular fondness for the Far East, frequently visited Vietnam and China, and bore witness to the harsh realities of war, publishing shocking images in major international magazines. His black-and-white photos have circled the globe and are rightfully considered masterpieces of documentary photography.
Sebastião Salgado
The only Brazilian in our top list was born into a well-off family, received a degree in economics at university, and initially worked in that field. However, while frequently on business trips to Africa, Sebastião began capturing events as they unfolded and became captivated by this pursuit.
The main theme of his work has always been human suffering: refugees, starving children, or miners working in horrendous conditions. Salgado is also actively involved in preserving the Earth's ecosystem and participates in reforestation efforts in Brazil's tropical forests.
Frank Horvat
The most versatile photographer on our list was born into a Jewish family in Croatia, spent his childhood in Switzerland, his youth in Italy, and then the majority of his life in France. Initially, he was drawn to landscape photography and later turned to photodocumentary work. He gained worldwide recognition through his fashion magazine photographs.
Horvat was an active experimenter and boldly embraced revolutionary technologies in his work. He was one of the first among the world's leading photographers to transition to digital photography and use computer-based post-processing for his images.
The 10 most famous photographers in the world have achieved recognition through immense dedication and bright talent. They have created numerous masterpieces in various genres of photography and deserve to be remembered by future generations.