Artists featured in Art history with partial sight and blindness.

The reason for this page is to give a some information about artists known and not so known through history who have had partial sight and may have gone blind for any reason.

Because I am offering tutoring and teaching in painting and techniques, I felt this page would benefit people and understand more about those artists who have handled painting with sight issues.

So I hope the information here will be useful, but all of the below is taken from a select few sources for your convenience, otherwise, please go to well known public sources to find out more.

Throughout history a number of artists who are painters and sculptors have experienced deterioration in their eyesight.

However throughout history many artists have either painted characters that have been blind or blinded, and the artists have experienced blindness in some way, whether partial sight or blindness.

Some of this information is from an article about Thaartists listed in Benezit’s dictionary [BENEZIT 1999] https://www.oxfordartonline.com/benezit , a French reference work containing about 150,000 usable entries.

“Pictorial blindness” - sight had become so reduced, that the painter could not paint any longer. But wasn’t completely blind.

“Legal blindness” - can be the level of vision a painter will have, but who may be able to read and write, though with difficulty.

List of Artists who painted blind people:

• Peter Breugel paintings of Tobias, plus other works.

Artists who painted themselves blind:

• Antonio Verrio (Venetian, Italian)

• English caricaturist, James Gillray.

• Giovanni Lomazzo (1538–1600)

Those artists who had partial sight or blindness in their careers:

• Claude Monet (1840-1926) French Impressionist

• Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606-1669) Dutch artist, considered one of the greatest painters and print makers in European art history.

• Edgar Degas (1834 -1917) French painter, sculptor, and engraver.

• Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) American artist, known primarily for her abstract paintings of flowers, rocks, shells, animal bones, and landscapes.

• Liège, Gérard de Lairesse (1641–1711), Belgian but worked in Amsterdam, nicknamed “The Poussin from the Holland”[ROY 1992].

• Mikail Wrubel (1856-1910), Russian painter [GUERMAN 1986] .

• Hendriks De Smeth (1865 –1940) Belgian painter lost his sight at forty-three and wrote poems from that time onwards.

• Vasari for Piero della Francesca (1420-1492), who became blind at sixty [VASARI 1985].

• Benvenuto Tisio, ‘Garofalo’ (1481-1559), Ferrara painter.

• Giovanni Baglione (1563-1643) Rome painter, at the time of Caravaggio.

• Antonio Verrio (1630–1707) Venetian painter.

• Giuseppe Maria Crespi (1655–1747) Baroque, Bologna painter. who was ninety-two became blind.

• Wilhelm van Mieris (1662–1747), Netherlands.

• Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659–1743), a famous portraitist of Louis XIV

• John Tenniel, (1840–1914),

• Charles Marchal (1822-1877), French painter

• Joseph Soumy(1831-1863)

• Octave Tassaert, (1800–1874)

The information about some well known artists mentioned was from: visionaware.org/everyday-living/recreation-and-leisure/arts-and-crafts/painting/

This list can be added to, so please send in information on artists and reference the source where applicable.