Ansel Adams (1902-1984) was a famous photographer and technical innovator who developed a process of developing film known as "the Zone System" and used the newest photographic technology of his time. The ability of Adams and his technology was seen through his many photographs of National Parks, particularly in the American West. Adams' photographs were most well known for their sharp focus and deep shading in black and white.

Piet Mondrian was a Dutch artist who belonged to the artistic movement known as De Stijl ("The Style" in Dutch.) The principles of De Stijl were to reduce artistic forms to their simplest, most functional forms. Mondrian's specific form, which he developed in Paris between the World Wars and called "Neo-plasticism," featured mostly white canvases, which were bisected at various parts by perpendicular black lines and had fields of color only in the three primary colors.

Wassily Kandinsky was the most influential expressionist of the early twentieth century. Kandinsky's style, which was dominated by abstract forms, expressive lines, and flowing brushstrokes, would prove to be immensely popular among fellow artists, while his theoretical writing, which connected art to music, also proved influential. Kandinsky had to flee both the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Nazis in the 1930s because of his controversial artwork.

Georgia O'Keefe developed a unique, instantly recognizable style that focused on flowers presented in vivid colors in an extreme close-up perspective. This style grew out of Modernism and its use of bright color and different perspective. O'Keefe proved influential in her ability to capture nature and natural images in paintings in a striking manner.

Regionalism was an art movement that sprung up after World War I in America that sought to paint naturalistic scenes of regional America. Foremost among the Regionalists was Thomas Hart Benton, who was inspired by politically conscious muralists like Diego Rivera to make large-scale works about his native Midwest. Benton's work often had political overtones that supported left-wing positions, and he was influential as an art teacher.

Picasso's 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is largely considered one of the first cubist paintings. As such, Picasso broke with traditional forms of representation, but did so by including many different influences, particularly impressionists like Paul Cézanne and trends toward a primitivism in art. Picasso also began creating the piece after seeing an exhibition on tribal art that included African masks like those portrayed in the painting.

Rembrandt van Rijn was one of the great masters of the Dutch Golden Age of painting during the seventeenth century. His style was notable for featuring bold colors and dramatic lighting in "everyday scenes" of commonfolk, as well as portraits and scenes out of the Bible. Almost all of Rembrandt's paintings featured people, and he almost never drew landscapes.

Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) was one of the very first well known American painters. During the Revolutionary Era, Stuart became essentially the "court painter" of the early American government because of his portraits of leading figures. Stuart's work includes the most famous portraits of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and many other of America's Founding Fathers.

During the American Civil War, the medium of photography was still relatively new, having only been invented a few decades before the outbreak of war in 1861. The photographer Matthew Brady was the pioneering figure in developing photography throughout the war. By capturing war in the realistic medium of photography, Brady both helped people see war in a different manner and appreciate the possibilities of photography.

Paul Gauguin was an important Post-Impressionist whose early work experimented with color and symbolism, but Gauguin's work took on a new form after visiting Tahiti in the 1880s. Gauguin began capturing the culture of Polynesia and started using symbols of Polynesia and images of Polynesians themselves in his art. In the 1890s, he permanently moved to the island of Punaauia in French Polynesia, and painted more and more symbolic paintings that played with color and structure.