25 Artists You Didn't Learn About in Art History Class (But Should Know)

They say history is the history of domination, meaning that accounts of the past are determined by those who control the narrative. Perhaps this is why so many amazing artists have gone forgotten in art history, particularly women, people of color, and those whose works weren’t financially solvent at the time of their exhibitions. Many times, artists have been overshadowed by the fame of their more talented family members or friends. But art can also be the history of freedom, reflected visually in the marginalized work of many artists throughout centuries, even if at one time it was oppressed by the ruling classes. We’ve put a short list together of 25 Artists You Didn't Learn About in Art History Class (But Should Know). Check out what you’ve been missing.

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Age: Died in 1943 at age 66

Born in Maine, Marsden Hartley is a lesser-known contemporary of Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. He met the pair in Berlin later in life after attending the Cleveland School of Art, the New York School of Art, and the National Academy of Design. His never reached the same level of fame as his friends however, perhaps owing to his use of color in his abstract works, which were quite aggressive for a prewar American. Hartley's journey is significant in his quest for spirituality in his work that he would all but abandon for a more political zeal. Another reason he might be unknown is association with Nazism. On his second trip to Germany, he absorbed the dominating ideology of the time and wrote letters much to that effect.

Age: Died in 1849 at age 71

This French artist devoted her life to painting, abandoning a successful career in the Academy in order to paint portraits of noblemen. The daughter of painter Ferdinande Joseph Godefroid, her work has hung in the Louvre since the early 19th century. While quite respected by the elite aristocracy that was her artistic circle, she was largely forgotten following her death. Her overshadowing in the canon is likely owing to her spotty biography, mostly composed of anecdotal accounts by acquaintances—and, of course, her gender. Her remarkable portraits include a true sense of character.

Age: Died in 1927 at age 40

Gris was a Spanish painter in the Cubist style, one largely forgotten despite his idiosyncratic take on the form—perhaps that's why he goes ignored at times. His approach is denser and more textural than his contemporaries, while also maintaining a grid style. Though he and Picasso became great friends in Paris, the work of the latter is far more renowned.

Age: 63

One of the most dynamic figures in Southern post-war American art, Lonnie Holley's mere presence has been aggravating to the establishment. His house in Birmingham, Alabama was encroached upon by the expansion of the airport in 1996. The airport offered a measly $16,000 for the property, but Holley had worked for decades by then to turn his property into a repository for sculptures he created from found materials. He demanded $250,00 for its material and personal significance. The issue went to court, and the airport authority paid $165,700 to move all the contents of the property and his family to a larger space in Harpersville, Alabama. Considered an outsider artist, Holley still creates in many mediums, including paint, performance, sculpture, and music. His music has generated increasing interest of late. The label Dust to Digital has been releasing his records.

Holley's artistic legacy is marked by trauma from the outset. His first creations were in the carving of tombstones for his two nieces, who perished in a house fire in 1979. He's also credited with helping noted curator and collector Bill Arnett promote African American outsider artists, notably Thornton Dial. Holley is inexhaustible.

Age: Died in 1807 at age 66

A prodigy of the arts, Angelica Kauffman was also the daughter of a prominent painter, Johann Joseph Kauffman, and she worked as his assistant. Because her father led a mobile life as a commissioned portrait artist, this afforded the young woman the opportunity to see and replicate the works of the Renaissance masters. During a three-year sojourn in Italy, her work was noticed by other painters of what was becoming known as the Neoclassical movement (in the late 1700s). Kauffmann was also a founding member of the Royal Academy of Arts and, by the time she died in 1807, was so well regarded a painter that sculptor Antonio Canova coordinated her funeral, which was based on that of Raphael.

Age: Charles: Died 1948 at age 84; Maurice: Died 1924 at age 65

These post-Impressionist brothers are significant in the school that is overshadowed by its European painters of the same style, including Monet, Cezanne, and so on. Their association with art came from Charles' early work for the Doll & Richards Gallery in Boston, at the age of 14—he was simply an errand boy. He later became a salesman for a fine arts shop while Maurice pursued his studies in the arts. They became closely connected, rarely leaving one another's sides, influencing and inspiring one another to the point that Charles would eventually take up painting. Though Maurice was the far more successful of the two, their bond and influence on each other warrants their partnership in this list.

Age: Died in 1930 at age 45

One of the better-known artists on our list, Pascin had no shortage of pedigree—even if it was false. Known as "the Prince of Montparnasse," the Bulgarian-born painter was actually the son of grain merchants. Yet his personality was so magnetic that Ernest Hemingway penned a chapter in A Moveable Feast about the artist, "With Pascin At the Dôme." Like Hemingway, Pascin suffered from severe alcoholism and depression and committed suicide at the age of 45. These problems and his vast social life did not distract from his massive output as a painter and portraitist. He consistently sold work throughout his life, even as frivolous as he was with his earnings. Though his work is most closely associated with French modernism, he earned a reputation in the American South as well, spending most of World War I teaching at the Telfair Academy with a close association to the excellent Telfair Art Museum in Savannah, Georgia.

Age: Died in 1956 at age 73

The French painter Jean Metzinger is regarded as the third Cubist painter, but he was the first to write a major treatise on the topic, Du "Cubisme" in 1912. Outside of painting and writing (he was a poet, critic, and theorist as well) it was an early interest in mathematics that led Metzinger to Cubism. Metzinger's work is characterized by a number of phases, including a post-Impressionist phase that barely resembles his later work. Versatile and brilliant, Metzinger relentlessly examined what he did and why throughout his career.

Age: Died in 1696 at age 86

Despite being brought up a strict Calvinist, the French still-life painter Louise Moillon had a thriving career under the Anglican King Charles I. Any discrepancy in their beliefs was surely dismissed by a respect for Moillon's work. She was one of the pioneers of French still-life painting. She worked in France to support herself, mostly during the 1640s, and laid the brush aside following her marriage to a wealthy merchant in 1640. Her body of work is dark, contemplative, moody, and exquisite.

Age: Died in 1630 at age 52

Fede Galizia was a pioneer of still-life painting, a Renaissance master whose style would be emulated stringently by artists across the world for hundreds of years. The popularity of Galizia's perfectly composed paintings would not be seen for decades after her death. Still, her work is largely unsung within the canon. Her father was a painter, and she quickly overtook him in style and technique, having learned from his attention to detail. Her work is vibrant, balanced, and prescient.

Age: Died in 1973 at age 97

A sculptor and animal anatomist so brilliant she was thrown out of school for criticizing a professor's work, Anna Hyatt Huntington was an American modernist sculptor who worked mainly in the formation of horses. She was the first woman artist to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. But her influence extended far beyond the art world. Because of her interest in wildlife (and her husband's incredible wealth), she helped found four wildlife reserves and 14 museums. She gave generously, sculpted vigorously, and contributed public monuments to notable spaces across the world. Whether it is through her work or her philanthropy, Huntington's legacy can still be felt today.

Age: Died in 1963 at age 64

The lover of Yves Tanguy, Sage was a globetrotting American Surrealist painter who fell into the arms of the more-renowned Tanguy after she left her Italian prince husband at home for a life in Paris. Her works are angular and dark, using muted palettes and rigid architectural forms in a way that was rejected by many of her Surrealist counterparts at the time. Her struggle was often removing herself from the immense shadow Tanguy cast once they had met. Though there has been renewed interest in her works as time has gone on, it was Surrealist lynchpin Andre Breton who can be blamed for her rejection from the Parisian circle of artists that identified with the subliminal.

Age: Died in 1980 at age 75

Pollock and de Kooning get all the credit for the Abstract Expressionism movement. Maybe its because they were back in New York, hobnobbing with all the avant garde, while Clyfford Still—an equally important figure in the movement—brought the form to the West Coast. So central was Still in the development of the style that he would later have an entire museum named after him. This was in part because his will was so staunch against collectors and academics that he demanded his entire body of work be sealed until a city would accept all 2,000+ of his works. A premonitory painter in the color field school, Still and his work were accepted by the city of Denver, where the Clyfford Still Museum now sits.

Age: Died in 1932 at age 64

Among the American Modernists, perhaps Alfred H. Maurer gets lost in the canon for his choice of subject matter in his early work: dour faceless portraits of bodies turned away from the viewer. His later works are equally confounding for the period where he abandoned Realism, creating masses of color that at times could have been considered abstract. He once remarked, "My main concern in painting is the beautiful arrangement of color values—that is, harmonized masses of pigment, more or less pure.... The artist must be free to paint his effects. Nature must not bind him." He found little to no success as a painter during his life (he comitted suicide) but has gained some recognition as time has gone on.

Age: Died in 1750 at age 86

Why a painter who became so famous during her lifetime is lost to much of the art history world is a mystery. Ruysch's genius is immediately recognizable. Her focus on flowers is so intricate and delicate that, during her heyday in the height of Baroque style, they were remarkable and to this day nearly unparalleled. It's not just the quality of her painting, either. One imagines she would have to be incredibly deft at the arrangement of flowers to tackle some of these designs. Her relationship with plant life relates to her father's work as a botanist.

Age: Died in 1963 at age 81

Braque is a bold name on this list—it is arguable many know him well. But it's his association with Cubism that lands him here because his work still lives in the shadow of Picasso. His style is unique and rich, more influenced by the work of Cezanne then that of Picasso.

Like Metzinger, he practiced in the Fauvist school of art before moving onto to Cubism. His tendency to value color as an emotional response stuck with the artist throughout his later year. It was a balance of his proclivities that would mark his final works.

Age: Died in 1818 at age 73

Anne Vallayer-Coster was a child prodigy, a gifted still-life artist who painted for the royals in Queen Antoinette's court. In fact, Antoinette was such a staunch patron of the artist that Vallayer-Coster escaped the French Revolution by the skin of her teeth. Unfortunately, this also meant she had no recourse after the fall of the monarchy but to go into exile. As a woman seeking a career in painting, she showed resilience that speaks to her character beyond her work as an artist. Two of her paintings, including the one above, are now in the Louvre.

Age: Died in 1963 at age 87

Jacques Villon's career is without a doubt overshadowed by the work of his brother, Marcel Duchamp. Unlike other cubist painters, Villon (a pseudonym used in tribute to Medieval poet Francois Villoin) he moved from the harsher style of his contemporaries into Realism. Not only a member of the Section d'Or, he was the one who suggested the name of the group of artists that included both his brothers, Francis Picabia, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, and himself. His work is held in museum around the globe, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Age: Died in 1946 at age 58

Horace Pippin began his arts career at 10 years old by replying to a magazine advertisement for a box of crayons, paint, and a couple paintbrushes. This would start him on a self-taught path to becoming one of the most important African American artists in history. His subject matter includes the injustice of slavery and segregation but stretches as far as trench warfare.

Pippin wounded his arm during World War I in France and returned home crippled. Despite his disability, he soldiered on to become the first African American painter to express concerns and frustrations with the war. He used his art as a therapeutic device for his time abroad.

Age: Died in 2011 at age 83

A major contributor to the field of post-war American art, the Abstract Expressionist work of Helen Frankenthaler was marked by a strong sense of the artist's hand. "I've explored a variety of directions and themes over the years," she once remarked. "But I think in my painting you can see the signature of one artist, the work of one wrist." Though she painted on massive canvases with oils, her work resembles much smaller Kandinsky paintings. She had a very idiosyncratic technique of lying unprimed, un-stretched canvases on the floor and pooling paint within them.

Age: Died in 1979 at age 94

A masterful practitioner of color theory and Orphism, Sonia Delaunay is one of the most prominent female Jewish artists to lay paint to canvas. She is widely recognized for breaking barriers between the applied arts and the fine arts because she worked as a designer and printmaker.

Born in the Ukraine in 1885, she completed most of her arts education in Paris. Spurred in part by her shared interest in color with her husband Robert Delaunay, she developed an indelible fingerprint in the visual arts, remarkable for its relationship between form and action. Delaunay may also be credited with the first instance of the art car; she painted a Matra M530A at special request of the company's CEO in 1968.

Age: Died in 1530 at age 40

Properzia de' Rossi was an Italian Renaissance sculptor who was innovative in medium. She often sculpted peach pits and other fruit stones into religious iconography. Women sculptors were rare during this period, innovative ones even more so. Her work was misjudged during her lifetime by her male biographers. She was met unduly with pejorative awe at her technique. She is thought to be one of about 30 female artists who graced the Renaissance. Many of her best-known works are engravings of Raphael's paintings.

Age: Died in 2011 at age 94

Leonora Carrington straddles many lines in the art world. Born in 1917, she came late to the Surrealist movement, which she would later fuse with shadows of folk tales. Though born in Britain, she spent her youth in the European mainland and eventually took exile in Spain, then Lisbon, then Mexico City, where she lived until her death in 2011. Her work is dreamlike, fusing the elements of her transient history with the subconscious visions of her dreams. Influenced by Max Ernst—both before and after she spurred him to leave his wife—Carrington was the last surviving member of the Surrealist school.

Age: Died in 1614 at age 61

Fontana is regarded as "the first woman artist" because she existed in the same realm as her male counterparts and held no court or constituency for her work—she was a free agent. It is a crime against her art that many of her portraits were misattributed to Guido Reni before scrutiny brought the truth to light. Her body of work is the largest of any female artist prior to 1700, with 100 documented paintings under her name on record. However, only 32 of these are signed and dated pieces.

Age: Died in 1625 at age 92

Overshadowed too often by her male contemporaries, including her admirer Michelangelo, Italian painter Sofonisba Anguissola was a pioneer for women forging careers in Renaissance art and thereafter. Not only was she a renowned portrait painter, she was a skilled arts teacher, as well, supplying tutelage to the Spanish queen of the time, Elizabeth of Valois, herself an amateur painter. Anguissola is renown for her proclivity for self-portraits and family portraits, yet her talents exceeded any one genre. She is a central figure in the history of women in the Western art world, opening doors for female painters such as Lavinia Fontana, Barbara Longhi, Fede Galizia and Artemisia Gentileschi.