Famous Asian Painters: 17 Masters You Should Know

Who Are the Most Famous Asian Painters? The most famous Asian painters include Katsushika Hokusai, whose woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa is one of the world’s most recognised images, and Qi Baishi, often nicknamed ‘China’s Picasso’. Other essential names are Gu Kaizhi (4th century China), Fan Kuan (Song dynasty), Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, and Ai Weiwei. This list covers 17 painters from China, Japan, India and Korea, placed in chronological order from the oldest to the most contemporary. If you’re interested in art, then you should definitely know about some of the most famous Asian painters. This list includes painters from all over Asia, including countries like China, India, and Japan. Each of these painters has their own unique style and approach to painting that has earned them a place in history. If you’re looking to learn more about Asian art, or if you’re just looking for some inspiration, then be sure to check out this list! Introduction to Asian Art Asian art has a long history, with some of the earliest known examples dating back to around 8,000 BCE. Asian cultures have long been celebrated for their intricate paintings, detailed mosaics, and delicate carvings. In recent years, Asian art has become increasingly popular outside of Asia, with many museums and galleries now featuring dedicated Asian art collections. Asian art encompasses a wide range of artistic styles and influences from various cultures. For example, Japanese art is heavily influenced by the country’s long history of Buddhism. Modern and contemporary Asian art often includes interactive elements and multimedia displays. The Asian Art Scene The Asian art scene is vibrant, diverse, and rapidly gaining prominence on the global stage. The buying power for Asian art has expanded exponentially, with Hong Kong emerging as a hub and Asia’s affluent new collectors driving up sales at auction houses worldwide. Asia’s fine art auction market generated approximately $2.2 billion in total sales for 2025, according to data compiled by Artnet News. Ambitious contemporary art festivals like the Singapore Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, and Gwangju Biennale in South Korea command large audiences and provide exposure for new talent across Asia and beyond. Major museums devoted to modern and contemporary Asian art have sprouted up, especially in China, Japan and Taiwan. A couple of examples are the Long Museum in Shanghai and the iconic National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. Famous Asian Painters Many Asian artists seek to create a sense of harmony between their work and the natural world. This focus on balance and harmony is one of the things that makes Asian art so unique and beautiful. So, without further ado, here are some of the most famous Asian painters that you should know about! We’ve placed them in rough chronological order with the oldest painters first. 1. Gu Kaizhi Gu Kaizhi lived in China during the fourth century AD, and is considered by many to be the founder of traditional Chinese painting. He is renowned for his portrait paintings, with a particular focus on the eyes of his subjects. Gu Kaizhi was also a skilled calligrapher, poet and author of books about painting theory. His work was characterized by its rich colors and intricate details. It was highly prized by the Emperors of his day. Today, Gu’s work is considered to be some of the finest examples of Six Dynasties art, and his legacy continues to inspire artists around the world. One of his most famous artworks, The Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies, is on display at the British Museum, minus three missing scenes. 2. Fan Kuan One of the most famous Asian painters of the Song dynasty, Fan Kuan was known for his large-scale landscapes. Born in 960 in Shaanxi Province, China, Fan Kuan was something of an eccentric and drinker. His original name was Fan Zhongzheng. In the Shaanxi dialect, kuan meant down-and-out. Rather than being offended, Fan adopted this new name! His most famous painting, Travelers among Mountains and Streams, is a massive artwork based on the idea of becoming at one with nature. The painting depicts a group of travelers on horseback making their way through a mountainous landscape. 3. Zhao Mengfu One of the most famous Chinese artists was Zhao Mengfu. He was highly influential in the development of Chinese landscape painting. Zhao Mengfu lived during the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century. He was born into a wealthy and aristocratic family, and he had access to the best education and artistic training available at the time. Known for his horse paintings, Zhao’s work is characterized by its graceful lines and intricate details. His paintings are highly prized by collectors and are displayed in some of the world’s most prestigious museums. 4. Wang Meng Wang Meng was a famous Chinese painter during the Yuan Dynasty. He was born in 1308 in Zhejiang Province. His style of painting is considered to be part of the Literati tradition. Wang Meng’s work is known for its use of dense brushstrokes to create a mass of texture. He favored painting on paper rather than silk, and focused on landscapes. 5. Shen Zhou Shen Zhou (1427-1509) was a Chinese painter during the Ming Dynasty. He was born in Jiangsu Province. Shen was known for his landscapes and his use of ink and color. He was also a poet and calligrapher. A specialist of Chinese ink painting, his works are characterized by their naturalistic style and their focus on the beauty of the countryside. 6. Tang Yin Tang Yin was a Chinese painter of the Ming Dynasty. He was born in 1470 in Jiangsu Province. Tang Yin studied under Shen Zhou and was known for his meticulous painting style. One of Tang Yin’s early works is Clearing After Snow on a Mountain Pass, an intricate ink and wash painting. 7. Katsushika Hokusai Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai lived during the Edo period. He is best known for his woodblock prints, which were very popular in Japan. His famous series, the “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji”, includes the iconic “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” print. Hokusai was born in Edo (now Tokyo) in 1760, and he began working as an artist when he was just a child. He studied under a number of different painters, and eventually developed his own unique style. Hokusai’s art is characterized by its depiction of everyday people and striking landscapes. His use of light and darkness helped to create a sense of movement and action in his paintings. Hokusai’s work has inspired many famous artists, including Vincent van Gogh and the French Impressionist Claude Monet. 8. Utagawa Hiroshige Another famous Asian painter is Hiroshige, a 19th century Japanese artist who is considered one of the masters of ukiyo-e, a type of woodblock printing. Hiroshige’s work often depicted landscapes and scenes from daily life, and his use of bold lines and bright colors made him one of the most distinctive artists of his time. Hiroshige was born in Tokyo in 1797, and began his career as a apprentice to the artist Toyohiro. Hiroshige quickly gained recognition for his own work, and soon became one of the most sought-after painters in Japan. His work frequently featured scenes of famous places in Japan, such as Mount Fuji and the The Tōkaidō road. Hiroshige produced over 8,000 works in all. 9. Zhang Daqian One of the most famous Asian painters is Zhang Daqian, also known as Chang Dai-chien. Born in 1899 in Sichuan Province, China, Zhang is considered one of the greatest Chinese painters of the 20th century. He was known for his “splashed-ink” or pocai painting style, in which he would fling or drip ink onto the canvas to create dramatic images. Zhang Daqian was one of the most prolific and successful artists of the 20th century. He was particularly well-known for his landscape paintings, which captured the beauty of the Chinese countryside. Zhang’s artwork inspired artists like Pablo Picasso, who met and exchanged paintings with him. As well as his own original artworks, Zhang was a master forger, imitating famous Chinese paintings with aplomb. 10. Qi Baishi Qi Baishi was a Chinese painter born in 1864 in Hunan Province, China. He started life as a carpenter and taught himself to paint, inspired by a well known painting manual he came across as a young man. Qi is known for his whimsical, playful style, often depicting everyday subjects like shrimp, insects, flowers and small animals rather than grand landscapes. He didn’t settle in Beijing and find wider recognition until after the age of 40. He was also a skilled seal carver and calligrapher. In 1953 he was elected president of the China Artists Association, and today he’s often nicknamed “China’s Picasso” for his enduring influence on modern Chinese art. Qi Baishi’s most expensive painting at auction is Twelve Landscape Screens (1925), which sold for 931.5 million yuan ($141 million to $144 million) in December 2017. 11. Raja Ravi Varma Sometimes referred to as the Father of modern Indian art, Raja Ravi Varma was born in 1848 in Kilimanoor, India. He is best known for his realistic and dramatic style, as well as his ability to capture the essence of Indian culture in his work. Varma was exposed to a wide variety of art styles from an early age. He soon gained recognition for his paintings of Hindu deities and famous moments from Indian history. Varma’s work can be found in many major museums across India, such as The Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum, located within the Lakshmi Vilas Palace in Vadodara. 12. Amrita Sher-Gil Amrita Sher-Gil was a Hungarian-Indian painter, born in Budapest in 1913 to a Sikh aristocrat father and a Hungarian opera singer mother. She’s widely regarded as a pioneer of modern Indian art and one of the greatest avant garde women artists of the early 20th century. Sher-Gil trained in Paris, where her 1932 painting Young Girls won her a gold medal and election to the Grand Salon at just 19 years old. She later returned to India, where her work shifted to depict the everyday lives of Indian women, blending European technique with Indian subject matter and colour. She died in Lahore in 1941 at just 28, but her paintings remain among the most valuable by any Indian artist, and her legacy is often placed alongside the pioneers of the Bengal Renaissance. Her record-breaking 1937 oil-on-canvas painting The Story Teller sold for a record price of ₹61.8 crore (approximately $7.44 million USD). 13. Sesshu Toyo Sesshu Toyo was a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk and painter, born in 1420 in Okayama Prefecture. He’s widely regarded as the greatest master of Japanese ink wash painting, or suiboku-ga. Sesshu trained at Shokoku-ji temple in Kyoto and later travelled to Ming dynasty China, where he studied Chinese ink painting techniques firsthand. He brought what he learned back to Japan and developed a bolder, more expressive style than his predecessors, using stark contrasts and confident brushwork. His most celebrated work, Long Landscape Scroll, stretches over 15 metres and is designated a National Treasure of Japan. His influence on later generations of Japanese painters, including the Kano school, is hard to overstate. 14. Yayoi Kusama Another famous Asian painter is Yayoi Kusama. Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama was a contemporary artist known for her use of repetitive patterns, bold colors and infinity mirror rooms. Her signature style earned her the nickname The Polka Dot Princess. She doesn’t limit herself to painting canvases – her work often spreads all over walls and everyday objects. Kusama’s art is often seen as a commentary on mental illness, as she battled with anxiety and depression throughout her life. In 1977, she even checked herself into a psychiatric hospital, where she lived until her death in August 2026 at age 97. Kusama’s work has been exhibited at solo and group exhibitions at museums and galleries all over the world. She is widely considered to be one of the most important female artists. 15. Takashi Murakami One of the most famous contemporary Japanese artists, Takashi Murakami was born in Tokyo in 1962 and graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts. His work is often categorized as Superflat, a post-modern art movement that is influenced by manga and anime. Murakami uses oil and acrylic paint in his work. Some of his most famous artworks include Flowers and Mr. DOB. In addition to his paintings, Murakami has also designed album covers for famous musicians like Kanye West and produced sculptures for Louis Vuitton. This prolific artist currently lives and works in both Tokyo and New York City. 16. Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei is an influential contemporary Chinese artist and activist. He is known for using a wide range of mediums, from sculpture and installation to photography and social media, to address political and social issues. One of his most famous installations was Sunflower Seeds at the Tate Modern in 2010-2011. It featured millions of porcelain sunflower seeds hand-painted by artisans from China. This artwork addressed mass consumerism and globalized production. Many works, like his Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in 2012 featuring elevated platforms, incorporate unique architecture and design to make political statements. 17. Nam June Paik Nam June Paik was an innovative Korean-American artist known as the “father of video art.” Born in 1932 in Korea, he later immigrated to the US and is considered the first pioneering video artist. He is best known as a video and installation artist who worked extensively with television sets and electronic mediums. However, he did create some traditional paintings and drawings early in his career before transitioning to focus more on video art. One of his early known paintings is called Homage to Hofmann (1958). It captures his abstract, spontaneous style as a tribute to his instructor at the time, abstract expressionist Hans Hofmann. What Makes Asian Art Distinctive? Asian art spans more than 10,000 years and encompasses a vast range of traditions, techniques and philosophies. A few qualities appear across many of its most celebrated traditions. Nature as subject and symbol is central to East Asian painting in particular. Chinese landscape painters of the Song and Yuan dynasties did not aim to reproduce nature faithfully the way European realists did, they sought to capture its spirit, or qi. The result is paintings like Fan Kuan’s Travelers among Mountains and Streams, where mountains dwarf human figures to make a philosophical point about humankind’s place in the world. Calligraphy and painting are inseparable in the Chinese tradition. Artists like Gu Kaizhi, Shen Zhou and Zhao Mengfu were also accomplished calligraphers, and the same brush discipline that produced elegant script produced elegant linework in paint. Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock printing gave Western artists like Van Gogh and Monet an entirely new visual vocabulary: flat planes of colour, bold outlines, and unconventional cropping that later became central to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Contemporary Asian artists such as Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami and Ai Weiwei have taken this rich inheritance and pushed it into installation art, digital media and political commentary, making Asian art one of the most dynamic forces in the global art market today. The Most Famous Asian Paintings If you’re exploring famous Asian art, a handful of individual works appear in virtually every conversation about the canon. ●The Great Wave off Kanagawa (c.1831) by Katsushika Hokusai, arguably the single most recognised image in all of Asian art, from his Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series. ●Travelers among Mountains and Streams (c.1000) by Fan Kuan, a monumental ink painting now held at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, widely considered a masterpiece of Song dynasty landscape art. ●The Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies (attributed 4th century AD) by Gu Kaizhi, one of the oldest surviving Chinese paintings, held at the British Museum in London. ●Long Landscape Scroll (15th century) by Sesshu Toyo, stretching over 15 metres, it is designated a National Treasure of Japan. ●Sunflower Seeds (2010-2011) by Ai Weiwei, a landmark contemporary installation at the Tate Modern, made from 100 million hand-painted porcelain seeds. Key Takeaways ●17 painters covered: China, Japan, India, and Korea. ●Hokusai’s Great Wave is Asian art’s most recognised image. ●Gu Kaizhi (4th century AD) is the oldest painter on this list. ●Qi Baishi is nicknamed ‘China’s Picasso’. ●Yayoi Kusama (born 1929) is the most prominent living artist here. ●Amrita Sher-Gil won a Paris gold medal at age 19. ●Sesshu Toyo’s Long Landscape Scroll is a Japanese National Treasure. In Conclusion: Famous Asian Painters There is no doubt that these famous Asian painters have had a profound impact on the development of Asian art, and their influence can still be seen in contemporary artists. However, there is more to these painters than just their art. They also provide us with a valuable insight into the culture and history of Asia. By taking the time to learn about the Asian art world, we can gain a greater appreciation for the richness and diversity of the world of art. Frequently Asked Questions Who is the most famous Asian painter of all time? Katsushika Hokusai is widely considered the single most recognised Asian painter globally, thanks to his woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa (c.1831), which has become one of the most reproduced images in art history. Among Chinese painters, Qi Baishi and Gu Kaizhi are the names most frequently cited by art historians. Who are the most famous Chinese painters? The most famous Chinese painters include Gu Kaizhi (4th century, considered the founder of traditional Chinese painting), Fan Kuan (Song dynasty landscape master), Zhao Mengfu (Yuan dynasty), Qi Baishi (nicknamed ‘China’s Picasso’), and Zhang Daqian, whose ‘splashed-ink’ style influenced Pablo Picasso directly. Who is the most famous Japanese painter? Katsushika Hokusai is the most internationally recognised Japanese painter, famous for his Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series. Utagawa Hiroshige, who produced over 8,000 works in the ukiyo-e tradition, and Sesshu Toyo, regarded as the greatest master of Japanese ink wash painting, are the other names most cited by scholars. Who is the most famous Indian painter? Raja Ravi Varma is often called the Father of modern Indian art, known for his realistic depictions of Hindu deities and Indian historical scenes. Amrita Sher-Gil is regarded as a pioneer of modern Indian art whose work sold for record prices. Sher-Gil trained in Paris and won a gold medal at the Grand Salon in 1932 at just 19 years old. Is Yayoi Kusama still alive? No, Yayoi Kusama was born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, and passed away in August 2026, at age 97. She voluntarily checked herself into a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo in 1977, where she lived and created work. She is widely considered one of the most important female artists in the world. Read next: