Least prolific famous artists

Lucian

According to the internet, Pablo Picasso is the world's most prolific famous artist. Can you tell me which famous artists are among the least prolific ones you know of?

MichaelD

Vermeer with 34 known works and a further 3 questionable. Its probably comparatively low for his time, though maybe there are many more works of his lost.

Abstraction

Ok I'm terrible at responding to original questions as the question often sparks something interesting.

I am nominating a Canadian artist, whose name I don't know, with only a handful of paintings that originally sold for next to nothing. The English art forger Tom Keating, pictured, was so disgusted that the artist died poor whilst the art house establishment was making growing from him, that he flooded the market with this man's "work".

Keating is fascinating. He very effectively made about 2000 forgeries by about 100 well-known artists - but not to make money. He might leave them in a market stall or something anonymously. He was making a political point about treatment of artists and the art industry. To protect true art, every painting had some hidden clue that it was a forgery, eg, a layer of glycerine under paint so that when cleaned it would all dissolve. Or a tiny section in modern acrylics instead of oils.

But he was a master of getting canvas weave and materials from the right part of the world for that artists, the oils, the pigments, aging, cracking patterns, brushstrokes... everything right.

When arrested, he immediately admitted guilt but not for making financial gain (which he avoided.) His rationale along with ill health from smoking and exposure to chemicals related to paint materials meant they never went through with imprisoning him.

I was once loaned a set of videos where he showed the style of different artists across history. Brilliant. My goodness, he knew what he was talking about.

Oddly, one of my heroes.

dencal

Abstraction

Yes. Tom Keating is quite impressive. He has about half a dozen videos on YouTube.
‘Here is an example….

https://youtu.be/6fdprm0QcqU

Denis

Romans611

I concur - Vermeer.

Lucian

Ok. Any others? What about DaVinci? He is said to have been so involved in numerous branches of studies that he didn't paint as much as he could have if he had only focused on being an artist.

MichaelD

@Lucian, perhaps the other things, besides art, that he put his mind to contributed to the greatness of the art that he did produce.

tassieguy

Not sure I can say who the least prolific famous artist is. The least famous prolific artist would be an easier question.