painter

/ˈpeɪntər/

/ˈpeɪntə/

Other forms: painters

A painter is an artist who uses a brush to daub colors onto paper or canvas. The person who tints your bedroom walls pink at your request is also a painter.

The main thing painters have in common is that they use paint — whether it's watercolor, house paint, or finger paint. If you hire a painter to paint your portrait, you'll end up with a work of art suitable for framing. And if you hire a painter to paint your house green, you'll end up with a green house. If a sailboat captain mentions a painter, they're probably referring to the special rope used for towing or tying up a boat.

Definitions of painter

1. noun

   an artist who paints
   examples:

   Leon Battista Alberti

   Italian architect and painter; pioneering theoretician of Renaissance architecture (1404-1472)

   Vanessa Stephen

   English painter; sister of Virginia Woolf; prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group (1879-1961)

   Thomas Hart Benton

   United States artist whose paintings portrayed life in the Midwest and South (1889-1975)

   William Blake

   visionary British poet and painter (1757-1827)

   Georges Braque

   French painter who led the cubist movement (1882-1963)

   Paul Cezanne

   French Post-impressionist painter who influenced modern art (especially cubism) by stressing the structural components latent in nature (1839-1906)

   Marc Chagall

   French painter (born in Russia) noted for his imagery and brilliant colors (1887-1985)

   Giorgio de Chirico

   Italian painter (born in Greece) whose deep shadows and barren landscapes strongly influenced the surrealists (1888-1978)

   John Constable

   English landscape painter (1776-1837)

   John Singleton Copley

   American painter who did portraits of Paul Revere and John Hancock before fleeing to England to avoid the American Revolution (1738-1815)

   Jean Baptiste Camille Corot

   French painter of Italian landscapes (1796-1875)

   Gustave Courbet

   French painter noted for his realistic depiction of everyday scenes (1819-1877)

   Salvador Dali

   surrealist Spanish painter (1904-1989)

   Honore Daumier

   French painter best known for his satirical lithographs of bourgeois society (1808-1879)

   Jacques Louis David

   French neoclassical painter who actively supported the French Revolution (1748-1825)

   Stuart Davis

   United States painter who developed an American version of cubism (1894-1964)

   Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas

   French impressionist painter (1834-1917)

   Willem de Kooning

   United States painter (born in the Netherlands) who was a leading American exponent of abstract expressionism (1904-1997)

   Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix

   French romantic painter (1798-1863)

   Andre Derain

   French painter and exponent of fauvism (1880-1954)

   Raoul Dufy

   French painter noted for brightly colored scenes (1877-1953)

   Max Ernst

   painter (born in Germany, resident of France and the United States) who was a cofounder of dadaism; developed the technique of collage (1891-1976)

   Jean Honore Fragonard

   French artist whose rococo paintings typified the frivolity of life in the royal court of France in the 18th century (1732-1806)

   Roger Eliot Fry

   English painter and art critic (1866-1934)

   Thomas Gainsborough

   English portrait and landscape painter (1727-1788)

   Paul Gauguin

   French Post-impressionist painter who worked in the South Pacific (1848-1903)

   Alberto Giacometti

   Swiss sculptor and painter known for his bronze sculptures of elongated figures (1901-1966)

   Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes

   Spanish painter well known for his portraits and for his satires (1746-1828)

   Duncan James Corrow Grant

   Scottish painter; cousin of Lytton Strachey and member of the Bloomsbury Group (1885-1978)

   Jaun Gris

   Spanish cubist painter (1887-1927)

   Frederick Childe Hassam

   United States painter noted for brilliant colors and bold brushwork (1859-1935)

   Katsushika Hokusai

   Japanese painter whose work influenced the impressionists (1760-1849)

   Winslow Homer

   United States painter best known for his seascapes (1836-1910)

   Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

   French classical painter (1780-1867)

   Wassily Kandinski

   Russian painter who was a pioneer of abstract art (1866-1944)

   Rockwell Kent

   United States painter noted for his woodcuts (1882-1971)

   Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

   German expressionist painter (1880-1938)

   Paul Klee

   Swiss painter influenced by Kandinsky (1879-1940)

   Gustav Klimt

   Austrian painter influenced by art nouveau (1862-1918)

   Franz Joseph Kline

   United States abstract expressionist painter (1910-1962)

   Lee Krasner

   United States artist remembered for her spontaneous approach to painting; she was a founder of the New York school of abstract expressionism (1908-1984)

   Sir Thomas Lawrence

   English portrait painter remembered for the series of portraits of the leaders of the alliance against Napoleon (1769-1830)

   Fernand Leger

   French painter who was an early cubist (1881-1955)

   Roy Lichtenstein

   United States painter who was a leading exponent of pop art (1923-1997)

   Laurence Stephen Lowry

   English painter (1887-1976)

   Rene Magritte

   Belgian surrealist painter (1898-1967)

   Kazimir Severinovich Malevich

   Russian abstract painter (1878-1935)

   Edouard Manet

   French painter whose work influenced the impressionists (1832-1883)

   Andrea Mantegna

   Italian painter and engraver noted for his frescoes (1431-1506)

   Reginald Marsh

   United States painter (1898-1954)

   Henri Emile Benoit Matisse

   French painter and sculptor; leading figure of fauvism (1869-1954)

   Jean Francois Millet

   French painter of rural scenes (1814-1875)

   Joan Miro

   Spanish surrealist painter (1893-1983)

   Amedeo Modigliano

   Italian painter and sculptor (1884-1920)

   Claude Monet

   French impressionist painter (1840-1926)

   Samuel Finley Breese Morse

   United States portrait painter who patented the telegraph and developed the Morse code (1791-1872)

   Anna Mary Robertson Moses

   United States painter of colorful and primitive rural scenes (1860-1961)

   Robert Motherwell

   United States abstract expressionist painter (1915-1991)

   Edvard Munch

   Norwegian painter (1863-1944)

   Bartolome Esteban Murillo

   Spanish painter (1617-1682)

   Georgia Okeeffe

   United States painter (1887-1986)

   Maxfield Frederick Parrish

   United States painter (1870-1966)

   Pablo Picasso

   prolific and influential Spanish artist who lived in France (1881-1973)

   Jackson Pollock

   United States artist famous for painting with a drip technique; a leader of abstract expressionism in America (1912-1956)

   Sir Joshua Reynolds

   English portrait painter and first president of the Royal Academy (1723-1792)

   Mark Rothko

   United States abstract painter (born in Russia) whose paintings are characterized by horizontal bands of color with indistinct boundaries (1903-1970)

   Le Douanier Rousseau

   French primitive painter (1844-1910)

   John Singer Sargent

   United States painter (born in Italy) known for his society portraits (1856-1925)

   Georges Pierre Seurat

   French painter who developed pointillism (1859-1891)

   Benjamin Shahn

   United States artist whose work reflected social and political themes (1898-1969)

   David Alfaro Siqueiros

   Mexican painter of murals depicting protest and revolution (1896-1974)

   Chaim Soutine

   French expressionist painter (born in Lithuania) (1893-1943)

   Frank Philip Stella

   United States minimalist painter (born in 1936)

   Gilbert Charles Stuart

   United States painter best known for his portraits of George Washington (1755-1828)

   Thomas Sully

   United States painter (born in England) of portraits and historical scenes (1783-1872)

   Yves Tanguy

   United States surrealist painter (born in France) (1900-1955)

   Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

   Italian painter (1696-1770)

   Mark Tobey

   United States abstract painter influenced by oriental calligraphy (1890-1976)

   Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

   French painter who portrayed life in the cafes and music halls of Montmartre (1864-1901)

   John Trumbull

   American painter of historical scenes (1756-1843)

   Joseph Mallord William Turner

   English landscape painter whose treatment of light and color influenced the French impressionists (1775-1851)

   Maurice Utrillo

   French painter noted for his paintings of Parisian street scenes (1883-1955)

   Vincent van Gogh

   Dutch Post-impressionist painter noted for his use of color (1853-1890)

   Viktor Vasarely

   French painter (born in Hungary) who was a pioneer of op art (1908-1997)

   Giorgio Vasari

   Italian painter and art historian (1511-1574)

   Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun

   French painter noted for her portraits (1755-1842)

   Maurice de Vlaminck

   French painter and exponent of fauvism (1876-1958)

   Jean Edouard Vuillard

   French painter (1868-1940)

   Andy Warhol

   United States artist who was a leader of the Pop Art movement (1930-1987)

   Max Weber

   United States abstract painter (born in Russia) (1881-1961)

   Benjamin West

   English painter (born in America) who became the second president of the Royal Academy (1738-1820)

   James Abbott McNeill Whistler

   United States painter (1834-1903)

   Grant Wood

   United States painter noted for works based on life in the Midwest (1892-1942)

   Andrew Wyeth

   United States painter (born in 1917)

   types:

   abstract artist, abstractionist

   a painter of abstract pictures

   colorist

   a painter able to achieve special effects with color

   cubist

   an artist who adheres to the principles of cubism

   dauber

   an unskilled painter

   distortionist

   a painter who introduces distortions

   Fauve, fauvist

   a member of a group of French painters who followed fauvism

   genre painter

   a painter of scenes from everyday life

   impressionist

   a painter who follows the theories of Impressionism

   landscapist

   someone who paints landscapes

   miniaturist

   someone who paints tiny pictures in great detail

   muralist

   a painter of murals

   oil painter

   a painter who uses oil paints

   old master

   a great European painter prior to 19th century

   pointillist

   a painter who uses the technique of pointillism

   limner, portrait painter, portraitist, portrayer

   a painter or drawer of portraits

   Post-impressionist, Postimpressionist

   an artist of the Postimpressionist school who revolted against Impressionism

   objectivist, realist

   a painter who represents the world realistically and not in an idealized or romantic style

   scene painter, scenic artist

   an artist specializing in scenic subjects

   watercolorist, watercolourist

   a painter who paints with watercolors

   suprematist

   an artist of the school of suprematism

   type of:

   artist, creative person

   a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination
2. noun

   a worker who is employed to cover objects with paint
   types:

   finisher

   a painter who applies a finishing coat

   house painter

   a painter of houses a similar buildings

   letterer

   a painter of letters

   scene painter

   a painter of theatrical scenery

   sign painter

   someone who paints signs and billboards etc.

   stippler

   a painter who stipples (creates a stippled effect)

   varnisher

   someone who applies a finishing coat of varnish

   type of:

   skilled worker, skilled workman, trained worker

   a worker who has acquired special skills
3. noun

   a line that is attached to the bow of a boat and used for tying up (as when docking or towing)
   type of:

   line

   something (as a cord or rope) that is long and thin and flexible
4. noun

   large American feline resembling a lion
   synonyms: Felis concolor, catamount, cougar, mountain lion, panther, puma

   type of:

   wildcat

   any small or medium-sized cat resembling the domestic cat and living in the wild