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Kara Walker Photo sourced from

15 Most Famous Black Painters 

Black people have always been part of the history of art and the art itself which has been created by Black artists is incredibly diverse. It often serves as a form of expression that depicts the social, political, and economic realities of these artists’ experiences

This kind of art also acts as a form of powerful cultural protest and the suffering of black people, though over the years the status of the black race has changed and the world at large has come to realize and recognize the work of this great artist. Let’s take a look at some of the most famous black artists;

1. Joshua Johnson (1763-1824)

A portrait of Joshua Johnson Photo sourced from

Joshua Johnson born around 1763 and died around 1824, was an American painter from the Baltimore area of African and European ancestry. Johnson is known for his naïve paintings of prominent Maryland residents.

Johnson described his portraiture as the work of “a self-taught genius, deriving from nature and industry his knowledge of the Art.” His work, however, is more similar to lesser-known-limners who worked during the same time in the mid-Atlantic region such as John Drinker.

2. Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988)

Jean-Michel Basquiat born on December 22, 1960, and died on August 12, 1988, was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat’s art focused on dichotomies such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience.

Jean-Michel Basquiat started his meteoric rise to fame as a graffiti artist. He ended up as a figurehead of the Neo-Expressionist art movement of the 1980s and one of the most famous black artists. He impacted the art world with fellow street artist Al Diaz.

Read more about him in Top 10 Fascinating Facts about Jean-Michel Basquiat

3. Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937)

Henry Ossawa Tanner Photo sourced from

Henry Ossawa Tanner born on June 21, 1859, and died on May 25, 1937, was an American artist and the first African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Â鶹APP, France, in 1891 to study at the Académie Julian and gained acclaim in French artistic circles.

Ossawa Tanner achieved an international reputation largely through his religious paintings. Their deep spirituality reflects Tanner’s upbringing as a minister’s son as well as the influence of his visits to the Holy Land after 1897.

4. Kehinde Wiley (1977)

Kehinde Wiley born on February 28, 1977, is an American portrait painter based in New York City, who is known for his highly naturalistic paintings of Black people, frequently referencing the work of Old Master paintings.

He gained worldwide recognition when he was commissioned in 2017 to paint a portrait of former President Barack Obama for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, which has portraits of all previous American presidents.

5. Kara Walker (1969)

Kara Walker Photo sourced from

Kara Elizabeth Walker born on November 26, 1969, is an American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, filmmaker, and professor who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work.

Walker has also used drawing, painting, text, shadow puppetry, film, and sculpture to expose the ongoing psychological injury caused by the tragic legacy of slavery. Her work leads viewers to a critical understanding of the past.

Read more about her in 15 Most Talented Black Artists of All Times

6. Prince Demah (1745-1778)

Prince Demah born in 1745 and died in March 1778 was an American painter of African ancestry who was formerly enslaved and active in Boston in the late 1700s. He is one of the top artists on our list today.

He is known as the only known enslaved artist working in colonial America whose paintings have survived. Though only three of his paintings remain or are recognized in the art world.

7. Wangechi Mutu (1972)

A sculpture by Wangechi Mutu Photo sourced from

Wangechi Mutu born in 1972 is a Kenyan-born American visual artist, known primarily for her painting, sculpture, film, and performance work. Born in Kenya, she has lived and established her career in New York City for more than twenty years.

Mutu’s work has directed the female body as a subject through collage painting, immersive installation, and live and video performances. She has established herself as one of the top painters and brings a lot of promise and talent to the art world.

8. Kerry James Marshall (1955)

Kerry James Marshall born on October 17, 1955, is an American artist and professor, known for his paintings of Black figures. He previously taught painting at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago

Kerry James Marshall uses his work to confront racial stereotypes, making him one of many black artists to focus on race and its effect on people’s experiences in the world. Often painting his African American subjects in dark shades of black with brilliant white eyes and teeth.

9. Gwendolyn  Knight

Gwendolyn Clarine Knight born on May 26, 1913, and died on February 18, 2005, was an American artist who was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, in the West Indies. She remains one of the most important figures when it comes to black artists.

Knight painted artwork that showed African American culture, history, and day-to-day life. While she largely worked with oil on canvas, as she got older, she began painting animals more than people olives lives. She also worked more and more with watercolors.

10. Peju Alatise (1975)

Peju Alatise born in 1975 is a Nigerian artist, poet, writer, and fellow at the National Museum of African Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution. She first trained as a painter, focusing on capturing societal issues as she observed them.

Alatise was inspired to paint on women’s rights by the patriarchal Nigerian society in which she was raised since she believes that artists should depict their surroundings. She began mixing several materials into her artwork, like beads and linen, before deciding to use sculpture

11. Chéri Samba (1965)

Chéri Samba or Samba wa Mbimba N’zingo Nuni Masi Ndo Mbasi born on 30 December 1956 is a Congolese painter from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is one of the best-known contemporary African artists.

His paintings almost always include text in French and Lingala, commenting on life in Africa and the modern world. Samba lives in Kinshasa and Â鶹APP. He has become one of the top influences on African art and most upcoming artists look up to him.

12. Amy Sherald (1973)

Amy Sherald born on August 30, 1973, is an American painter. She works mostly as a portraitist depicting African Americans in everyday settings. Her style is simplified realism, involving staged photographs of her subjects.

She earned global recognition when she was selected to paint the official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama when Kehinde Wiley was chosen to do the same for President Barack Obama. Sherald mostly focuses on the cultural experiences of African Americans in contemporary culture.

13. Iona Rozeal Brown (1966)

Another famous painter on our list today is Iona Rozeal Brown. Rozeal is a contemporary American artist known for her colorful and complex cross-cultural painting technique. She is best known for her narrative canvases commenting on cultural, racial, and sexual identity.

A large part of her work touches on the differences between appropriation and appreciation. Brown’s narrative canvases demonstrate her comments on cultural identity. She takes a lot of inspiration from contemporary hip-hop and the Japanese ukiyo-e genre of printmaking. 

14. Chris Ofili (1968)

Christopher Ofili, CBE born on 10 October 1968 is a British Turner Prize-winning painter who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists. 

Ofili has utilized resin, beads, oil paint, glitter, lumps of elephant dung, and cut-outs from pornographic magazines as painting elements. His work has been classified as “punk art.”

15. Faith Ringgold (1930)

American artist Faith Ringgold Photo sourced from

Faith Ringgold born on October 8, 1930, in Harlem, New York City is an American painter, writer, mixed media sculptor, and performance artist, best known for her narrative quilts. Her paintings highlighted the casual and intrinsic racism in many daily occurrences in the US.

She also sought to depict how these experiences look through the eyes of an African American woman. With discrimination and racial unrest all around her, she stopped painting and switched to quilting.

Read more about her here