Artist Members Tell Us About Famous Artists Who Have Inspired Them

We know that throughout art history artists have been inspired by other artists. We thought you might be interested to know which ones inspired our artist members and why. We recently asked them to tell us and the requirement was the artist they chose had to be renowned, so you could learn more about them on en.wikipedia.org. Through this article, as our artist members tell us about famous artists who have inspired them, you may increase your appreciation and understanding about our members and their art. Perhaps you can see the sparks of inspiration in their artwork.

You will also gain more knowledge about art history. We also hope you will discover new correlations between artists across time, as you read, compare, explore, and expand your knowledge. I’m sure the following artists will continue to move the flow of inspiration, serving to inspire us and artists who follow for many years. Please visit the artists’ pages and contact them directly to follow them, learn more about them, and purchase their art.

Sandra Belitza-Vazquez

Marquerite Bourke-White was a woman after my own heart. Intrepid and undaunted in everything she did, she exposed the beauty of industrial forms in the steel mills she photographed, revealed disparities of race and class in her photojournalism work, and was the first female war correspondent during World War II. She was an adventure seeker like myself and seemed able to place herself where she would produce historic and forever memorable work. Photographing atop a Chrysler Building gargoyle with a view camera impressed me, while her image of the survivors of Buchenwald left an indelible mark on my heart.

Beth Sheridan

Ansel Adams inspired me so much. He truly crafted his images. His work introduced me to the idea that photographs are not taken, but rather made. His use of light and dark to focus the eye and tell a story in a landscape was powerful in the world of photography at the time. I began my work in black and white and in the darkroom, and his work was impactful to my learning,My favorite painter is Chang Dai-Chien (1899 -1983) also known as (Zhang Daqian) and the Picasso of Brush Painting. He was an incredible Chinese Brush Painter. His work was impressionistic and expressionistic. So creative and fresh. He broke the mold of traditional Chinese Brush Painting. He was also an incredible forger of Chinese works. His copies of other painters’ work were so masterful that experts could not tell his work from the original copied work. He lived in Carmel for a while in the 1960’s and painted the coastline that I see every day. I feel close to him when I think we lived near one another once.

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