Kurt Schwitters is generally acknowledged as the twentieth century's greatest master of collage. Just as collage is essentially the medium of irony, so Schwitters' life is characterized by paradox and enigma. Born in Hanover, the only child of affluent parents, he was a loner in his youth, plagued by

Dada, Experimental, Layered, Sophisticated

The medium didn't matter, but the object meant everything. Whether he was using his canvas for a Cubist experiment or his camera for an avant-garde digression, Fernand Leger always placed the object at the center of his work. Leger was the only French Cubist to devote himself, throughout his c

Avant-garde film, Clever, Collage, Cubism, Futurism, Illusive, Pioneering, Sophisticated, Subtle

The members of the De Stijl movement were pious, self-effacing artists bent on creating pure and accessible art. Although the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian did not himself organize the groups with which he is associated -- De Stijl, Cercle et Carr' (Circle and Square), and Abstraction-Cr'ation -- his p

Bright, Clean, De stijl, Geometric, Mathematical, Minimal, Sophisticated

One of the early experimenters with the telephoto lens, Penn perceived photography as a distillation of reality, rather than an elaboration upon it. He achieved deliberately structured compositions by borrowing from the natural northern lighting of traditional European painters. His first cover f

Documentary photography, Dramatic, Elegant, Fashion photography, Social realism, Sophisticated