Famous Black Paintings

Black paintings are often done in an effort to express a sense of darkness or detriment, but painters in the modern era have created them for a variety of different meanings.

European Artists

Cart with Black Ox Vincent van Gogh

Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh was known to have gone through various periods in which his mental and emotional state were said to be distinctly dark, his painting style was almost exclusively bright and vibrantly-colored. Many of his artworks centered around flowers, landscapes which he created ‘en plein air’ and other natural paintings that featured the Impressionist style. This is one of his most notable black painting created in 1884. It is said to have originated from his time spent in the small farming village of Nuenen, which is located in southern France.

Two Old Men Francisco Goya

Spanish Romantic artist Francisco Goya was among the most distinguished painter of the Romanticism era during the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe. Many of his artworks feature a dominating sense of darkness or black coloring, which is often believed to have been intended as a means to represent evil in his paintings. Two Old Men is among his best-known artworks depicting two old men against a black background.

Man Mocked by Two Women Francisco Goya

Spanish Romantic artist Francisco Goya created another famous black painting with many of the same qualities and characteristics that his artwork Two Old Men work was known for.The paintings was also done around the same time period, which was toward the end of Goya’s life and at a phase of his life when many of his artworks were distinctly black. He created this painting in 1823 and it features distorted human faces that many critics point to as somewhat demonic in appearance.

Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber Juan Sánchez Cotán

Spanish artist Juan Sanchez Cotan is known as one of the few avante-garde painters of the Baroque movement in Spain. This artwork is among his most notable created at the height of his career in 1602. It is a still-life painting against a black background.

Dead Toreador Édouard Manet

French Impressionist artist Edouard Maney is best-known as one of the greatest painters of the French Impressionist movement in the 18th century. He created this artwork in 1865 portraying the body of a bullfighter stretched across the ground with his muleta in hand. The bullfighter’s clothes are mostly black, and the painting contains exceptional amounts of realistic detail that represent the mastery of Manet’s ability as an artist.

Zebra Victor Vasarely

Hungarioan-French artist Victor Vasarely was famous for his use of an abstract painting style in which he created optical illusions. Vasarely is known to have used a variety of different methods to create optical illusions, but he often relied on black, definitive features to produce these unique effects on his viewers. This artwork created in 1937 uses black and white colors along with specifical-placement of the two zebras to produce a strange and distinct visual effect.

Black Square Kazimir Malevich

Russian artist Kazimir Malevich created this iconic artwork which is among the most famous black paintings in history. A the height of the Impressionist era the artist would seek to produce a new style of movement of his own in many ways when he began his career in the late 19th century. He created this painting in 1915 at the height of his career. As the name indicates, this work consisted of only a large, black square in which the artist used copious amounts of black paint on the canvas to produce a distinct appearance when it dried.

American Artists

Abstract Painting No. 5 Ad Reinhardt

American artist Ad Reinhardt was among the many abstract painters who lived during the early 20th century in the US. As the Industrial Revolution had brought America and Europe into a new age, the artwork that many painters produced reflected a much more distinct character than those found in previous generations. This is one of his most famous artworks. The iconic black painting was created in 1962 and features a canvas that appears to be solidly-colored with black paint. This, along with almost every other work from Reinhardt, was done exclusively in black paint.

Iberia Robert Motherwell (Pictured above)

American abstract expressionist artisr Robert Motherwell was a popular painter from the mid-2oth century. He is best-known for his many different artworks that include heavy use of black paint and dark tones set against the canvas. He created this artwork in 1958 and it features Motherwell’s distinct manner of employing one solid color in varying degrees of depth to create lighter and darker tones on the same canvas.

Untitled (Black on Gray) Mark Rothko

American abstract artist Mark Rothko was well-known for using solid colors across a large canvas. In fact, this particular style of abstract expressionist painting would later become synonymous with the equally-distinct name, Rothko. This is among his most famous artworks created in 1969.