100 Great Paintings


100 Great Paintings is a British television series broadcast in 1980 on BBC Two, devised by Edwin Mullins. He chose 20 thematic groups, such as war, the Adoration, the language of colour, the hunt, and bathing, picking five paintings from each. The selection ranges from 12th-century China through the 1950s, with an emphasis on European paintings. He deliberately avoided especially famous paintings, such as Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa or John Constable's The Hay Wain. The series is available on VHS and DVD.
On the basis of the series, Mullins published the book Great Paintings: Fifty Masterpieces, Explored, Explained and Appreciated, which contained about half of the theme groups. A German translation of Mullins' book appeared as 100 Meisterwerke in 1983. In 1985, a second volume came out, only in Germany, which discussed the remaining 50 paintings.
Although the TV series is titled “100 Great Paintings,” the actual number of paintings introduced is 220. This can be confirmed in the list below.
From 1980 through 1994, the West German broadcaster WDR produced a television series called 1000 Meisterwerke, which was broadcast by ARD, ORF and BR. In each of the 10-minute broadcasts, a single painting was presented and analyzed by an art historian. The Sunday evening broadcasts had five million viewers.

Selection of works presented

The following is a complete list of the 100 Great Paintings.
  1. Josef Albers: Homage to the Square: Against Deep Blue
  2. Albrecht Altdorfer: The Battle of Alexander at Issus
  3. Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Fire
  4. Hendrick Avercamp: Winter Scene on a Canal
  5. Francis Bacon: Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion
  6. Hans Baldung Grien: Death and the Maiden
  7. Giacomo Balla: Abstract Speed + Sound
  8. Georg Baselitz: Allegory of Art
  9. Georg Baselitz: The Great Friends
  10. Max Beckmann: Actors – Triptych
  11. Giovanni Bellini: Prayer of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane
  12. Frits Van den Berghe: Sunday
  13. Umberto Boccioni: The Farewells
  14. Arnold Böcklin: Spring Awakening
  15. Pierre Bonnard: Backlit Nude
  16. Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights
  17. Sandro Botticelli: The Birth of Venus
  18. François Boucher: The Blonde Odalisque
  19. Georges Braque: The Female Musician
  20. Pieter Brueghel the Elder: Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
  21. Pieter Brueghel the Elder: The Triumph of Death
  22. Pieter Brueghel the Elder: The Hunters in the Snow
  23. Gustave Caillebotte: Parisian Street, Rainy Day
  24. Antonio Canaletto: Return of the Bucintoro to the Molo on Ascension Day
  25. Caravaggio: Supper at Emmaus
  26. Caravaggio: The Lute Player
  27. Vittore Carpaccio: Miracle of the Relic of the Cross at the Ponte di Rialto
  28. Annibale Carracci: River Landscape
  29. Mary Cassatt: The Child's Bath
  30. Paul Cézanne: Mont Sainte-Victoire
  31. Paul Cézanne: Bathers
  32. Marc Chagall: I and the Village
  33. Jean Siméon Chardin: The Young Schoolmistress
  34. Chinese: Clear Weather in the Valley
  35. John Constable: Salisbury Cathedral
  36. Lovis Corinth: Self-portrait in Front of the Easel
  37. Antonio da Correggio: Leda and the Swan
  38. Gustave Courbet: Breakfast at the Hunt
  39. Lucas Cranach the Elder: Adam and Eve in Paradise
  40. Salvador Dalí: The Burning Giraffe
  41. Honoré Daumier: Ecce Homo
  42. Jacques-Louis David: The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons
  43. Edgar Degas: Woman in a Tub
  44. Eugène Delacroix: The Massacre at Chios
  45. Robert Delaunay: Eiffel Tower, Champs de Mars
  46. Sonia Delaunay-Terk: Electric Prisms
  47. Niklaus Manuel Deutsch: Pyramus and Thisbe
  48. Otto Dix: Flanders
  49. Jean Dubuffet: Prosperous country
  50. Duccio: Christ Healing a Blind Man
  51. Marcel Duchamp: Sad Young Man in a Train
  52. Albrecht Dürer: Picture of a Young Venetian Woman
  53. Albrecht Dürer: Self-portrait
  54. Anthony van Dyck: Samson and Delilah
  55. Thomas Eakins: Max Schmitt in a Single Scull
  56. James Ensor: Self-portrait with Masks
  57. Max Ernst: The Attirement of the Bride
  58. Jan van Eyck: The Madonna of the Chancellor Rolin
  59. Lyonel Feininger: Bird Cloud
  60. Lucio Fontana: Concetto Spaziale
  61. Piero della Francesca: Resurrection of Christ
  62. Piero della Francesca: The Nativity
  63. Helen Frankenthaler: Mountains and Sea
  64. Caspar David Friedrich: The Sea of Ice
  65. Henry Fuseli: Titania Caressing Bottom with a Donkey's Head
  66. Thomas Gainsborough: Mr and Mrs Andrews
  67. Paul Gauguin: Mahana no atua (Day of the God)
  68. Théodore Géricault: The Raft of the Medusa
  69. Alberto Giacometti: Portrait of Jean Genet
  70. Giorgione: Sleeping Venus
  71. Giorgione or Titian: Pastoral Concert
  72. Giotto: The Mourning of Christ
  73. Hugo van der Goes: Adoration of the Kings
  74. Vincent van Gogh: Self-portrait
  75. Vincent van Gogh: Café Terrace at Night
  76. Arshile Gorky: One Year the Milkweed
  77. Francisco de Goya: The Colossus
  78. Francisco de Goya: The Naked Maja
  79. Francisco de Goya: Carnival Scene
  80. Benozzo Gozzoli: The Procession of the Magi
  81. Gotthard Graubner: Black Skin
  82. El Greco: The Burial of the Count of Orgaz
  83. El Greco: View of Toledo
  84. Juan Gris: The Breakfast Table
  85. George Grosz: Untitled
  86. Matthias Grünewald: Crucifixion from the Isenheim Altarpiece
  87. Erich Heckel: Convalescing Woman
  88. Hannah Höch: Cut with the Kitchen Knife
  89. Ferdinand Hodler: Youth Admired by the Woman
  90. Hans Holbein the Younger: Portrait of the Artist's Family (Holbein)
  91. Winslow Homer: The Fox Hunt
  92. Edward Hopper: Nighthawks
  93. William Holman Hunt: The Hireling Shepherd
  94. Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres: The Turkish Bath
  95. Johannes Itten: The Encounter
  96. Geertgen tot Sint Jans: John the Baptist in the Wilderness
  97. Alexej von Jawlensky: Meditation
  98. Jasper Johns: Flag
  99. Wassily Kandinsky: Improvisation 6
  100. Kangra School: Radha and Krishna in the Garden
  101. Wilhelm von Kaulbach: Titus Destroying Jerusalem
  102. Fernand Khnopff: Caress of the Sphinx
  103. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Five Women on the Street
  104. Konrad Klapheck: The War
  105. Paul Klee: Bird Garden
  106. Franz Kline: C & O
  107. Wilhelm von Kobell: The Siege of Kosel
  108. Oskar Kokoschka: The Bride of the Wind
  109. Jan Kupecky: Portrait of the Miniaturist Karl Bruni
  110. Fernand Léger: The Wedding
  111. Wilhelm Leibl: Three Women in Church
  112. Franz von Lenbach: Franz von Lenbach with Wife and Daughters
  113. Roy Lichtenstein: Girl with Hair Band
  114. Max Liebermann: Women Mending Nets
  115. Richard Lindner: The Meeting
  116. Stefan Lochner: Madonna of the Rose Bower
  117. Lorenzo Lotto: The Sleeping Child Jesus with the Madonna, Saint Joseph and Saint Catherine of Alexandria
  118. Morris Louis: Beta-Kappa
  119. August Macke: Woman with Umbrella in Front of a Hat Shop
  120. René Magritte: The Empire of Light
  121. Kazimir Malevich: An Englishman in Moscow
  122. Édouard Manet: Olympia
  123. Andrea Mantegna: The Crucifixion
  124. Franz Marc: The Tiger
  125. Hans von Marées: Golden Age
  126. Reginald Marsh: Twenty Cent Movie
  127. Masaccio: The Tribute Money
  128. Jan Matsys: Flora
  129. Henri Matisse: Bather at the River
  130. Henri Matisse: Blue Nude
  131. William McTaggart: The Storm
  132. Hans Memling: Saint John Altarpiece
  133. Adolph von Menzel: The Flute Concert
  134. Jean Metzinger: The Racing Cyclist
  135. John Everett Millais: Ophelia
  136. Joan Miró: Dutch Interior I
  137. László Moholy-Nagy: LIS
  138. Claude Monet: Woman in a Garden
  139. Piet Mondrian: Apple Tree in Bloom
  140. Edvard Munch: Ashes
  141. Edvard Munch: Four Girls on the Bridge
  142. Gabriele Münter: Village Street in Winter
  143. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo: Rest on the Flight into Egypt
  144. Louis or Antoine Le Nain: Peasant Family in an Interior
  145. Paul Nash: Dream Landscape
  146. Ernst Wilhelm Nay: Grauzug
  147. Mikhail Nesterov: The Great Consecration
  148. Emil Nolde: Saint Mary of Egypt
  149. Georgia O'Keeffe: White Calico Flower
  150. Richard Oelze: Daily Stress
  151. Victor Pasmore: Inland Coastal Landscape
  152. Joachim Patinir: The Baptism of Christ
  153. Constant Permeke: The Engaged Couple
  154. Francis Picabia: Very Rare Picture of Earth
  155. Pablo Picasso: Guernica
  156. Pablo Picasso: La Vie
  157. Jackson Pollock: Autumn Rhythm
  158. Nicolas Poussin: The Adoration of the Golden Calf
  159. Nicolas Poussin: Sleeping Venus and Cupid
  160. Henry Raeburn: Rev. Robert Walker Skating
  161. Raphael: Madonna of the Meadow
  162. Arnulf Rainer: Self-portrait Overpainted
  163. Rembrandt: The Jewish Bride
  164. Rembrandt: Self-portrait as Paul
  165. Auguste Renoir: Luncheon of the Boating Party
  166. Ilya Repin: Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of Turkey
  167. Sebastiano Ricci: Bathsheba at her Bath
  168. Hyacinthe Rigaud: Portrait of Louis XIV.
  169. Hubert Robert: Design for the Arrangement of the Great Gallery of the Louvre des Louvre
  170. Giulio Romano: Virgin and Child and the Young John
  171. Mark Rothko: Red, Brown and Black
  172. Carl Rottmann: From the Greek Cycle
  173. Henri Rousseau: The Sleeping Gypsy
  174. Peter Paul Rubens: Château de Steen with Hunter
  175. Peter Paul Rubens: Mercury and Argus
  176. Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael: The Large Forest
  177. Philipp Otto Runge: The Hülsenbeck Children
  178. Pieter Saenredam: Interior of Grote Kerk in Haarlem
  179. Egon Schiele: Mother with Two Children
  180. Karl Friedrich Schinkel: Medieval City on a River
  181. Oskar Schlemmer: Group on the Railings I
  182. Kurt Schwitters: Merzbild 25A, Constellation
  183. Georges Seurat: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
  184. Luca Signorelli: Portrait of a Man
  185. Tawaraya Sōtatsu: Waves at Matsushima
  186. Stanley Spencer: The Resurrection, Cookham
  187. Carl Spitzweg: The Poor Poet
  188. George Stubbs: The Grosvenor Hunt
  189. Franz von Stuck: Salome
  190. Yves Tanguy: About Four o'clock in the Summer, the Hope
  191. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: Virtue and Nobility putting Ignorance to Flight
  192. Jacopo Tintoretto: Bacchus, with Ariadne Crowned by Venus
  193. Titian: Bacchanals
  194. Titian: Diana and Callisto
  195. Georges de La Tour: The Dream of Saint Joseph
  196. Georges de La Tour: The Fortune Teller
  197. William Turner: The Burning of the Houses of Parliament
  198. William Turner: Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute
  199. Paolo Uccello: The Battle of San Romano
  200. Emilio Vedova: Picture of Time – Barrier
  201. Diego Velázquez: Las Meninas
  202. Diego Velázquez: Prince Balthasar Carlos
  203. Diego Velázquez: The Surrender of Breda
  204. Jan Vermeer: The Artist in his Atelier
  205. Jan Vermeer: View of Delft
  206. Paolo Veronese: The Wedding at Cana
  207. Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun: Self-Portrait with Daughter
  208. Leonardo da Vinci: The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne
  209. Wolf Vostell: Miss America
  210. Andy Warhol: Texan, Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg
  211. Antoine Watteau: Pilgrimage to Cythera
  212. Rogier van der Weyden: Saint John Altarpiece
  213. James McNeill Whistler: Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket
  214. David Wilkie: William Bethune with Wife and Daughter
  215. Fritz Winter: Composition in Blue
  216. Konrad Witz: The Knights Abisai, Sibbechai and Benaja Bring King David Water
  217. Grant Wood: American Gothic
  218. Joseph Wright of Derby: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump
  219. Andrew Wyeth: Christina's World
  220. Francisco de Zurbarán: ''Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose''

Literature

Great Paintings: Fifty Masterpieces, Explored, Explained and Appreciated, Publ. Edwin Mullins, New York, St. Martin's Press, © BBC, Hardcover, 344 pp., 1981,
  • Hundert Meisterwerke aus den großen Museen der Welt, vgs, Cologne, Hardcover
  • * Vol. 1, Publ. Edwin Mullins, translated by Wibke von Bonin, Authors: Anita Brookner, Milton Brown, Hugh Casson, Richard Cork, David Hockney, John R. Hale, John Jacob, Penelope Mason, George Melly, Edwin Mullins, David Piper, Robert Rosenblum, Alistair Smith, 344 pp., 1983,
  • * Vol. 2, Publ. Wibke von Bonin, Authors: Anita Brookner, Milton Brown, Hugh Casson, Richard Cork, John R. Hale, John Jacob, George Melly, Edwin Mullins, David Piper, Philip Rawson, Robert Rosenblum, Alistair Smith, 336 pp., 1985,
  • * Vol. 3, Publ. Wibke von Bonin, Authors: Friedrich Gross, Joachim Heusinger von Waldegg, Gisela Hoßmann, Konrad Klapheck, Helmut R. Leppien, Renate Liebenwein, Reinhart Lohmann, Karin von Maur, Günter Metken, Edwin Mullins, Karlheinz Nowald, Sigrun Paas, Werner Schmalenbach, Wieland Schmied, Marina Schneede, Uwe M. Schneede, Jürgen Schultze, Evelyn Weiss, Hermann Wiesler, Frank Günter Zehnder, 342 pp., 1987,
  • * Vol. 4, Publ. Wibke von Bonin, Authors: Ursula Bode, Barbara Catoir, G. Jula Dech, Gisela Hoßmann, Wenzel Jacob, Thomas Kellein, Renate Liebenwein, Karin von Maur, Edwin Mullins, Karlheinz Nowald, Stefan Oswald, Marina Schneede, Uwe M. Schneede, Jürgen Schultze, Hermann Wiesler, 342 pp., 1988,
  • Hundert Meisterwerke aus den großen Museen der Welt, DuMont creativ Video, Cologne, RM Arts, Munich, 50 minutes each, VHS, 1986
  • * Part 1, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen Düsseldorf, Werner Schmalenbach,
  • * Part 2, Staatliche Museen, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nationalgalerie Berlin, Karlheinz Nowald,
  • * Part 3, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus Munich, Jürgen Schultze,
  • * Part 4, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum and Museum Ludwig Cologne, Frank Günter Zehnder, Evelyn Weiss,
  • * Part 5, Staatliche Museen, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie Berlin-Dahlem, Karlheinz Nowald, Hermann Wiesler,
  • * Part 6, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Sigrun Paas,
  • * Part 7, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Neue Pinakothek München, Hermann Wiesler, Gisela Hossmann,