There have been two very different life cycles for great modern artists: some have made their major contributions early in their careers, while others have produced their best work later in their lives. These patterns have been associated with different artistic goals and working methods:...

In recent years, some English critics have claimed that Damien Hirst and his fellow young British artists have made London the new center of the advanced art world. As Hirst reaches the age of 40, this paper uses auction results to measure the importance of the YBAs compared to their American...

The recent history of modern art provides clues as to how important artists can be identified before their work becomes generally known. Advanced art has been dominated by young conceptual innovators since the late 1950s, and theimportance of formal art education in the training of leading...

A quantitative analysis of the illustrations in art history textbooks reveals that the most important modern American painters—including Pollock, de Kooning, and Warhol—failed to produce individual paintings as famous as the masterpieces of some major French modern artists, such as...

Earlier research found that great painters can be categorized either as young geniuses, who make sudden conceptual innovations early in their careers, or as old masters, who work experimentally, by trial and error, and arrive at their greatest contributions late in their lives. This paper...