List of mathematical artists
This is a list of artists who actively explored mathematics in their artworks. Art forms practised by these artists include painting, sculpture, architecture, textiles and origami.
Some artists such as Piero della Francesca and Luca Pacioli went so far as to write books on mathematics in art. Della Francesca wrote books on solid geometry and the emerging field of perspective, including De Prospectiva Pingendi , Trattato d’Abaco , and De corporibus regularibus , while Pacioli wrote De divina proportione , with illustrations by Leonardo da Vinci, at the end of the fifteenth century.
Merely making accepted use of some aspect of mathematics such as perspective does not qualify an artist for admission to this list.
The term "fine art" is used conventionally to cover the output of artists who produce a combination of paintings, drawings and sculptures.
List
Artist | Dates | Artform | Contribution to mathematical art |
Calatrava, Santiago | 1951– | Architecture | Mathematically-based architecture |
Da Vinci, Leonardo | 1452–1519 | Fine art | Mathematically-inspired proportion, including golden ratio |
Della Francesca, Piero | 1420–1492 | Fine art | Mathematical principles of perspective in art; his books include De prospectiva pingendi, Trattato d’Abaco, and De corporibus regularibus |
Demaine, Erik and Martin | 1981– | Origami | "Computational origami": mathematical curved surfaces in self-folding paper sculptures |
Dietz, Ada | 1882–1950 | Textiles | Weaving patterns based on the expansion of multivariate polynomials |
Draves, Scott | 1968– | Digital art | Video art, VJing |
Dürer, Albrecht | 1471–1528 | Fine art | Mathematical theory of proportion |
Ernest, John | 1922–1994 | Fine art | Use of group theory, self-replicating shapes in art |
Escher, M. C. | 1898–1972 | Fine art | Exploration of tessellations, hyperbolic geometry, assisted by the geometer H. S. M. Coxeter |
Farmanfarmaian, Monir | 1924– | Fine art | Geometric constructions exploring the infinite, especially mirror mosaics |
Ferguson, Helaman | 1940– | Digital art | Algorist, Digital artist |
Forakis, Peter | 1927–2009 | Sculpture | Pioneer of geometric forms in sculpture |
Grossman, Bathsheba | 1966– | Sculpture | Sculpture based on mathematical structures |
Hart, George W. | 1955– | Sculpture | Sculptures of 3-dimensional tessellations |
Hill, Anthony | 1930– | Fine art | Geometric abstraction in Constructivist art |
Longhurst, Robert | 1949– | Sculpture | Sculptures of minimal surfaces, saddle surfaces, and other mathematical concepts |
Man Ray | 1890–1976 | Fine art | Photographs and paintings of mathematical models in Dada and Surrealist art |
Naderi Yeganeh, Hamid | 1990– | Fine art | Exploration of tessellations |
Pacioli, Luca | 1447–1517 | Fine art | Polyhedra in Renaissance art; proportion, in his book De divina proportione |
Perry, Charles O. | 1929–2011 | Sculpture | Mathematically-inspired sculpture |
Robbin, Tony | 1943– | Fine art | Painting, sculpture and computer visualizations of four-dimensional geometry |
Sugimoto, Hiroshi | 1948– | Photography, sculpture | Photography and sculptures of mathematical models, inspired by the work of Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp |
Taimina, Daina | 1954– | Textiles | Crochets of hyperbolic space |
Uccello, Paolo | 1397–1475 | Fine art | Innovative use of perspective grid, objects as mathematical solids |
Verhoeff, Jacobus | 1927– | Sculpture | Escher-inspired mathematical sculptures such as lattice configurations and fractal formations |