The most famous contemporary artists worldwide who work mainly as painters - ranked by attention, as measured by the Art Report method. These include, for example, oil paint on canvas or wood, gouache and watercolour, as well as fresco and its contemporary paint art variant the graffiti art.
| ranking | artist's name | country | lives in | birth date | born in | medium | total AR-Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gerhard Richter | DE | Düsseldorf | 1932 | Dresden | painting | 2898 |
| 2 | Sigmar Polke | DE | Düsseldorf | 1941 | Oels | painting | 2078 |
| 3 | Georg Baselitz | DE | Munich | 1938 | Deutschbaselitz | painting | 1737 |
| 4 | Imi Knoebel | DE | Düsseldorf | 1940 | Dessau | painting | 1406 |
| 5 | Cy Twombly | US | Rome | 1928 | Lexington | painting | 1289 |
| 6 | Ed Ruscha | US | Los Angeles | 1937 | Omaha | painting | 1172 |
| 7 | Wilhelm Sasnal | PL | Warsaw | 1972 | Tarnow | painting | 1161 |
| 8 | Thomas Bayrle | DE | Frankfurt | 1937 | Berlin | painting | 1140 |
| 9 | Elizabeth Peyton | US | New York | 1965 | Danbury | painting | 1089 |
| 10 | Richard Prince | PA | New York | 1949 | Panama | painting | 1083 |
| 11 | Luc Tuymans | BE | Antwerp | 1958 | Mortsel | painting | 1074 |
| 12 | Matthew Day Jackson | US | Brooklyn | 1974 | Panorama City | painting | 1073 |
| 13 | Claes Oldenburg | US | New York | 1929 | Stockholm | painting | 1038 |
| 14 | Jasper Johns | US | Stony Point | 1930 | Allendale | painting | 1014 |
| 15 | Anselm Kiefer | DE | Paris | 1945 | Donaueschingen | painting | 1008 |
| 16 | Marlene Dumas | ZA | Amsterdam | 1953 | Kapstadt | painting | 974 |
| 17 | Albert Oehlen | DE | La Palma | 1954 | Krefeld | painting | 944 |
| 18 | Günther Förg | DE | Areuse | 1952 | Füssen | painting | 937 |
| 19 | Per Kirkeby | DK | Copenhagen | 1939 | Kopenhagen | painting | 935 |
| 20 | Antoni Tàpies | ES | Barcelone | 1923 | Barcelona | painting | 877 |
| 21 | Markus Lüpertz | DE | Berlin | 1941 | Libere/ Böhmen | painting | 861 |
| 22 | Josh Smith | US | New York | 1976 | Tennessee | painting | 854 |
| 23 | Daniel Richter | DE | Berlin | 1962 | Lutjenburg | painting | 834 |
| 24 | A. R. Penck | DE | Dublin | 1939 | Dresden | painting | 825 |
| 25 | Maria Lassnig | AT | Vienna | 1919 | Kappel | painting | 825 |
| 26 | Elke Krystufek | AT | Vienna | 1970 | Wien | painting | 799 |
| 27 | Jonathan Meese | DE | Berlin | 1971 | Tokio | painting | 779 |
| 28 | Francis Alÿs | BE | Mexico City | 1959 | Antwerpen | painting | 768 |
| 29 | Robert Longo | US | New York | 1953 | New York | painting | 766 |
| 30 | Sarah Morris | GB | New York | 1967 | Kent | painting | 749 |