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20th Century Art Quizzes, Trivia and Puzzles
20th Century Art Quizzes, Trivia

20th Century Art Trivia

20th Century Art Trivia Quizzes

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In 500 years, perhaps the 20th century will be known as the second renaissance. The art movements of the 20th century have changed the face of art forever...which of these movements do you find the most profound? Enjoy some of these quizzes while you contemplate this.
22 quizzes and 210 trivia questions.
1.
The Real the Surreal and the Fantastic
  The Real, the Surreal, and the Fantastic   best quiz  
Photo Match
 10 Qns
A 20th-Century Assortment of Art
The 20th century was a time of experimentation and innovation in art. Pictured is "The Blue Rider" (1903) by Wassily Kadinsky. Can you identify the creators of ten other 20th-century works of art?
Easier, 10 Qns, gracious1, May 27 24
Easier
gracious1 gold member
May 27 24
246 plays
2.
From Nouveau to Deco Three Amazing Decades of Art The social and political turmoil of the first 30 years of the 20th century did not prevent the flourishing of artistic movements such as Art Nouveau and Art Deco, which left their mark on those troubled times.
Easier, 10 Qns, LadyNym, Sep 03 21
Easier
LadyNym gold member
Sep 03 21
1578 plays
3.
  Who Painted That?   top quiz  
Match Quiz
 10 Qns
Art in the 20th century covered a multitude of styles and genres. We've selected ten famous 20th century paintings, but can you match the work to the person that produced it?
Easier, 10 Qns, Red_John, Mar 20 23
Easier
Red_John
Mar 20 23
440 plays
4.
  Modern Art Enthusiast   popular trivia quiz  
Multiple Choice
 15 Qns
A compilation of modern art questions. This is an adopted quiz of an original by author artquiz77. I made it shorter and added the missing interesting information.
Average, 15 Qns, tiye, Aug 22 23
Average
tiye gold member
Aug 22 23
247 plays
5.
  "Ceci n'est pas une pipe"   top quiz  
Match Quiz
 10 Qns
The painting of a pipe on which René Magritte inscribed this iconic statement is one of ten 20th century works waiting here for you to identify the artist who painted them.
Easier, 10 Qns, looney_tunes, Jan 02 24
Easier
looney_tunes editor
Jan 02 24
614 plays
6.
  Square, Circle, Triangle   best quiz  
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
To some people, modern art explores the human condition in novel ways. To others, like me, it's just a bunch of squares, circles, and triangles. Oh well. This quiz is about some of the more prominent "artists" of the 20th century.
Easier, 10 Qns, adams627, Oct 17 11
Easier
adams627
1377 plays
7.
  The Fascinating World of Modern Art   popular trivia quiz  
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
These questions have been randomly selected to tantalize the tastebuds of all and sundry fans of modern art. Please have a look if this sounds intriguing...
Tough, 10 Qns, thejazzkickazz, Aug 28 24
Tough
thejazzkickazz gold member
Aug 28 24
1733 plays
8.
  20th Century British Female Artists    
Match Quiz
 10 Qns
The challenge - match ten British female artists who were active in the twentieth century with their descriptions.
Average, 10 Qns, Upstart3, Dec 16 18
Average
Upstart3 gold member
Dec 16 18
214 plays
9.
  Modern Art - Painting to Painter    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Pretty basic game. I'll give you the title of the painting and the movement of the artist - you name the artist.
Average, 10 Qns, DesertFox, Oct 21 01
Average
DesertFox
4873 plays
10.
  Performance, Art, and the Body    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Each question is written as if the artist were telling you of their work. Also, the possible answers for each question are names of famous modern artists - Research is fun, check them out! Enjoy!
Tough, 10 Qns, KatieK54, Sep 21 08
Tough
KatieK54 gold member
722 plays
trivia question Quick Question
With what name did Marcel Duchamp sign his 'Fountain'?

From Quiz "Gaga on Dada"




11.
  Gaga on Dada    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Dada was the 20th-Century 'anti-art' art movement that foreshadowed Surrealism, Pop Art and many other movements.
Average, 10 Qns, tjoebigham, Jun 11 18
Average
tjoebigham
Jun 11 18
1483 plays
12.
  Contemporary Art and Artists    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
From the 1960s to the 2000s, a group of artists challenged the accepted styles of sculpture, installations and multi-media pieces. Try your hand at this quiz about some of the people and works of 'contemporary art.'
Difficult, 10 Qns, neon000, Jun 20 21
Difficult
neon000 gold member
Jun 20 21
1251 plays
13.
  Pop Art and Minimalism    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Welcome to the exciting world of "Pop Art and Minimalism." We will go back to an era where simple and mundane objects worked hand in hand with some complex thoughts from some extraordinary people to produce brilliant works of art.
Tough, 10 Qns, Yankeegirl742, May 04 09
Tough
Yankeegirl742
601 plays
14.
  Semi-Abstract and Purely Abstract    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Abstract art helps wrench our imagination from the literal, material world into another realm or dimension...or else it's simply a collection of odd shapes...it depends on your perspective...
Tough, 10 Qns, thejazzkickazz, May 05 22
Tough
thejazzkickazz gold member
May 05 22
1043 plays
15.
  Bad Modern Art    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
The cartoonist Al Capp once defined abstract art as "a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered." This quiz will examine some of the more bizarre items that qualify "art" in these perplexing times.
Average, 10 Qns, daver852, Jun 16 15
Average
daver852 gold member
261 plays
16.
  Modern Art Questions   popular trivia quiz  
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Here are some random questions on modern artists and their works.
Tough, 10 Qns, thejazzkickazz, Feb 20 21
Tough
thejazzkickazz gold member
Feb 20 21
2055 plays
17.
  More Modern Art Randomness    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Please indulge in these queries if your right brain feels so inclined...
Difficult, 10 Qns, thejazzkickazz, Oct 21 01
Difficult
thejazzkickazz gold member
1265 plays
18.
  20th Century Art    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
A little quiz on 20th century art and artists
Difficult, 10 Qns, dorian, Dec 21 10
Difficult
dorian
2202 plays
19.
  Tough Modern Art Trivia    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Random questions about modern art.
Tough, 10 Qns, artquiz77, Dec 27 08
Tough
artquiz77
1712 plays
20.
  Pin-Up Girls & the Art of Illustration    
Multiple Choice
 5 Qns
The illustrated Pin-up girl was an American institution from 1920 to 1970. How much do you know about these playful girls?
Difficult, 5 Qns, nicnic, Sep 26 13
Difficult
nicnic
529 plays
21.
  Modern Art Potpourri    
Multiple Choice
 5 Qns
More modern art questions for the art lovers out there.
Difficult, 5 Qns, thejazzkickazz, Oct 21 01
Difficult
thejazzkickazz gold member
1181 plays
22.
  Random Modern Art Questions    
Multiple Choice
 5 Qns
Here are some art questions to sooth your artistic desires...
Difficult, 5 Qns, thejazzkickazz, Oct 21 01
Difficult
thejazzkickazz gold member
1191 plays
Related Topics
  Chicago, Judy [Humanities] (3 quizzes)


20th Century Art Trivia Questions

1. What artist created a picture of a muscleman pointing a giant tootsie pop at a semi-nude woman on a couch?

From Quiz
Pop Art and Minimalism

Answer: Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton created "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?" in 1956. There are numerous historical references to be found throughout the picture. Richard Hamilton was an admirer of Marcel Duchamp.

2. This artist worked with fluorescent light bulbs. His first displays resembled picture frames, but he progressed to structures that illuminated entire rooms. Who was he?

From Quiz Contemporary Art and Artists

Answer: Dan Flavin

There is a museum dedicated to him in Bridgehampton, New York.

3. There were three main categories of illustration revolving around pin-up type illustrations, including the pin-up, what were the other two?

From Quiz Pin-Up Girls & the Art of Illustration

Answer: glamour art and pretty girl

The most well known of the three categories, the pin-up was a full length view of the model, generally with a slight narrative tone to it, and of course, the model was dressed in form-revealing clothing, if dressed at all. Glamour art did not require a full-length view of the model, and as the name suggests, the women were generally dressed in eveningwear. A pretty girl was a either glamour art or a pin-up created by a mainstream illustrator as opposed to someone who worked solely in the pin-up genre.

4. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)

From Quiz Cubist!

Answer: Pablo Picasso

Cubism as an art movement is characterised by a radical approach to representation, breaking down objects into geometric shapes and reassembling them into abstract forms. This technique allows multiple perspectives to be depicted simultaneously, challenging traditional notions of perspective. "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and stage designer, is considered a groundbreaking work that marks the beginning of Cubism, although the term was not yet in use. The painting depicts five naked prostitutes from a Barcelona brothel, rendered in a fragmented, angular style. This work is often regarded as the first Cubist painting because of its challenge to conventional representations of space and form. Picasso's radical departure from traditional perspective and use of mask-like faces introduced a new visual language. The development of the painting involved numerous sketches and studies, reflecting Picasso's exploration of different compositional elements and influences. "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" also marks Picasso's break with traditional Western depictions of the female nude, incorporating influences from African and Oceanic art that he encountered in Parisian ethnographic museums. The painting is now part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

5. His most well-known works are paintings of square and rectangular shapes, often colored red, blue or yellow, and bordered with black lines made with tape strips....who is he?

From Quiz Semi-Abstract and Purely Abstract

Answer: Mondrian

Mondrian was a Dutch artist who helped found the De Stijl movement.

6. Which writer is considered the 'daddy of Dada'?

From Quiz Gaga on Dada

Answer: Tristan Tzara

This European poet was the main driving force behind the movement.

7. Which modern artist is famous for their minimalist horses?

From Quiz Modern Art Potpourri

Answer: Susan Rothenberg

Marisol did some hobby horses, but she was certainly not a minimalist.

8. Marc Chagall, the famous painter, was also a master of which other medium?

From Quiz The Fascinating World of Modern Art

Answer: Stained glass

When I think of Chagall's work I imagine people floating above odd looking landscapes, something like a dream. In fact, Chagall's often bizarre paintings were often inspired by dreams. I sometimes consider his work to be even more surreal than the work of the self-named Surrealists...

9. What unusual pair of names have modern British artists Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden taken?

From Quiz Modern Art Questions

Answer: Art and Language

10. Dan Flavin, who was associated with Donald Judd, used what sort of medium?

From Quiz Modern Art

Answer: lights

11. Who is considered the father of modern African American art?

From Quiz Random Modern Art Questions

Answer: Douglas

Aaron Douglas...the father of modern African American art.

12. The Persistence of Memory - Surrealism

From Quiz Modern Art - Painting to Painter

Answer: Salvador Dali

13. Andy Warhol was born in

From Quiz 20th Century Art

Answer: Pittsburgh

His parents were emigrants from the former Austro-Hungarian empire; his father emigrated in 1914 before the dissolution of the dual monarchy, and his mother followed later in 1921.

14. What school of art was created by Paul Jordan-Smith in 1924?

From Quiz Bad Modern Art

Answer: Disumbrationism

Paul Jordan-Smith was a journalist who took offense that some of his artist wife's still life paintings had been panned by critics as "too realistic", so he did what any man would do: grabbing a few tubes of paint and an old brush, he whipped out a painting of a bare-breasted native woman holding something in her hand. According to Jordan-Smith it was supposed to be a starfish, but ended up looking more like a bunch of bananas (here it should be noted that Jordan-Smith had neither artistic training nor natural talent). So he called it "Yes, We Have No Bananas" (after a popular song of the day), and submitted it to the New York Exhibition of the Independents under the name "Pavel Jerdanowitch." The critics raved about the painting (which was terrible beyond description), and soon the world was clamoring for more work by Pavel Jerdanowitch. So Jordan-Smith kept cranking out paintings, each more awful than the one preceding it. He even invented a biography for Jerdanowitch, stating he had been born in Russia and and had studied at the Chicago Art Institute. He called his style "disumbrationism," because he couldn't figure out how to paint shadows ("umbra" is Latin for shadow). He published fictitious interviews with the equally fictitious Jerdanowitch, in which he expounded on the philosophy of "disumbrationism." And he kept this up for four years, without arousing the suspicions of anyone in the artistic community! One of his paintings, "Aspiration", which showed a black woman doing laundry, was even included in a prestigious reference work, "The Golden Book of Modern Art". In a pamphlet prepared for a 1928 exhibition at Boston's famous Vose Galleries, the artist explained that: "The entire painting affords a marvelous illustration of the law of dynamic symmetry; everything directs the eye of the beholder towards the central symbol, so that at first we are like the washer woman (who stares at the cosmic rooster: this is why the painting is called 'Aspiration') and fail to notice the hand of greed reaching for her purse." Eventually Jordan-Smith tired of the joke, and confessed to being a fraud. This created something of a cause célèbre in the art world; the critics eventually decided that they had not been fooled at all, and that Jordan-Smith was a natural genius who had actually created great art while attempting to create bad art. It's hard to argue with reasoning like that.

15. Which artist's 1967 work is a set of rectangular green boxes hanging from a wall?

From Quiz Pop Art and Minimalism

Answer: Donald Judd

Those green boxes are really green lacquer on galvanized iron. Donald Judd was the creator of the work, which was dubbed "Untitled."

16. Violin and Candlestick (1910)

From Quiz Cubist!

Answer: Georges Braque

The name "Cubism" was coined in 1908 by the art critic Louis Vauxcelles, who described George Braque's landscapes as being composed of "cubes". Braque (1882-1963) was a French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His work is known for its monochrome palette and fragmented forms. He painted primarily in Paris, where he was influenced by and contributed to the avant-garde art scene. "Violin and Candlestick" is a classic example of Analytical Cubism, in which objects are broken down into geometric shapes and depicted from multiple perspectives. Braque's meticulous arrangement of intersecting planes and muted colours creates a complex, abstract composition. The subject of the painting, a violin and candlestick, is rendered almost unrecognisable, underlining the Cubist emphasis on form over representation. Braque's process involved extensive preliminary drawings and studies, experimenting with different ways of deconstructing and reassembling the objects. "Violin and Candlestick" is on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the United States.

17. Which fellow has made a career out of painting with white monochrome?

From Quiz Semi-Abstract and Purely Abstract

Answer: Ryman

Robert Ryman isn't so philosophical about his paintings, but questions rather 'how to paint'...

18. What other two poets were involved in Dada?

From Quiz Gaga on Dada

Answer: Apollinaire, Breton

Many of their works fall in the Dada-Surrealist mode.

19. On one of French artist Ben Vautier's paintings, what does it say?

From Quiz Modern Art Potpourri

Answer: 'Art is useless, go home.'

'L'art est inutile rentrez chez vous' Somehow, I don't think he really felt this way. Then again, maybe he did!

20. Which modern artist from California expanded the two-dimensional limitations of the canvas by including additional three dimensional objects to accompany her painting in a work called 'Yellow and Black Boats'?

From Quiz Modern Art Questions

Answer: Jennifer Bartlett

21. Who took the most famous photograph of Rodin?

From Quiz Modern Art

Answer: Edward Steichen

22. To what modern American artist was Helen Frankenthaler married?

From Quiz Random Modern Art Questions

Answer: Motherwell

23. Who was a founding member of the Vienna Sezession?

From Quiz More Modern Art Randomness

Answer: Gustav Klimt

24. Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte - Pointillism (Divisionism)

From Quiz Modern Art - Painting to Painter

Answer: Georges Seurat

25. Which artist created a work by erasing a drawing by Willem de Kooning?

From Quiz 20th Century Art

Answer: Robert Rauschenberg

It took him two months.

26. In 2012, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art spent $10 million on artist Michael Heizer's "Levitated Mass". What is it?

From Quiz Bad Modern Art

Answer: A rock

It's just a rock. Or, to be more precise, a 340 ton granite boulder. Now, mind you, while Heizer didn't actually do anything to the rock, he did find it, so that alone should be an adequate testament to his artistic genius. It's not clear how much Heizer pocketed from the deal; most of the costs were involved in transporting the rock some 63 miles from Jurupa Valley to Los Angeles; the rock itself cost "only" $70,000. The rock is mounted on the walls of a 456-foot long concrete trench, and people can walk underneath it. Some of us without the delicate sensibilities to appreciate the magnitude of this achievement can turn to the experts for enlightenment. For example, Michael Govan, the CEO of the museum, went on record as saying: "To me, it's better than the ancient sculptures because it's not about the power of the gods. It's a monument of our time and of our own place." Well, Michelangelo moved a lot of big rocks around, too, so there's not that much difference between him and Heizer, except that Michelangelo had such an inflated ego that he actually thought that he could improve upon what nature had already created.

27. What artist was inspired by comic books?

From Quiz Pop Art and Minimalism

Answer: Roy Lichtenstein

When Roy Lichtenstein passed away in 1997 the art world mourned. Roy loved the comics. So many of his works, while appearing simplistic creations, were really quite difficult to develop. My favorite Lichtenstein is "Torpedo....Los!" which was created in 1963.

28. Charles Dana Gibson was famous for creating "The Gibson Girl" whose popularity surpassed that of every other pin-up, and went on to inspire songs and Broadway shows. In what year was the first Gibson Girl published?

From Quiz Pin-Up Girls & the Art of Illustration

Answer: 1887

1867 marked the birth of Charles Dana Gibson, who died in 1944. In 1900 "Collier's" magazine offered Gibson $100,000 over a period of four years to create one hundred centrefold drawings. Gibson also created the "Gibson Man", the first male pin-up, who often appeared in illustrations with the "Gibson Girl".

29. Harlequin with Guitar (1919)

From Quiz Cubist!

Answer: Juan Gris

Juan Gris (1887-1927) was a Spanish painter and sculptor closely associated with Cubism. Gris's work is known for its clarity, precision and use of vivid colour and texture. He is considered to be one of the most consistent Cubist artists, contributing significantly to the Synthetic phase of the movement. Gris worked primarily in France, where he was influenced by and contributed to the Parisian avant-garde scene. "Harlequin with Guitar" is an example of Gris's mastery of Synthetic Cubism. The painting depicts the harlequin, a popular figure in European art and theatre, deconstructed into geometric shapes and vibrant colours. Gris's structured composition and playful use of pattern reflect his innovative approach to Cubist principles. His process involved assembling cut paper and other materials, which he then translated into his paintings. This technique allowed him to experiment with texture and form, resulting in a harmonious blend of abstraction and representation. This painting is part of the collection of the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, which houses a wide range of modern and contemporary art.

30. What female Dadaist is known for a teacup and saucer covered in fur?

From Quiz Gaga on Dada

Answer: Oppenheim

Meret Oppenheim's 'Luncheon in Fur' was the template for all the art objects to follow.

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