This is the fourth and final bracket of our Art History tournament. I’ve posted the other three brackets and starting next week I’ll post the match ups. Then we’ll vote and select the greatest Western artist. The Modern bracket is the hardest to winnow to 16, so to make it somewhat easier on myself I’ve cut it off around 1965 with pop art. It’s still tough. Onward!

1, Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973)

In a tough bracket to seed, Picasso is the obvious No. 1. Probably the clearest No. 1 in the tournament.

2, Jackson Pollock (1912 – 1956)

This might be my wife’s influence but I think Pollock belongs here.

3, Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954)

4, Wassily Kandinsky (1866 – 1944)

First true abstract artist.

5, Marcel Duchamp (1887 – 1968)

Invented cubism, dadaism and conceptual art, then quit to play chess.

6, Mark Rothko (1903 – 1970)

7, Piet Mondrian (1872 – 1944)

The Mariano Rivera of painters. Did one thing, but did it very well.

8, Robert Rauschenberg (1925 – 2008)

Father of pop art

9, Ellsworth Kelly (1923- )

The first living artist in the tournament, he liberated painting from the rectangle.

10, Alexander Calder (1898 – 1976)

His mobiles are just the beginning.

11, Georgia O’Keeffe  (1887 – 1986)

Two things I didn’t know about O’Keeffe: she lived to be 99, and her middle name was Totto. Also, unfortunately, the only woman in the tournament.

12, Amadeo Modigliani (1884 – 1920)

This is the part of the bracket where it’s almost impossible to separate the last four from another dozen or so who could be here.

13, Diego Rivera (1886 – 1957)

Massive murals don’t look great as jpegs.

14, Kasimir Malevich (1879 – 1935)

15, Salvador Dali (1904 – 1989)

Dali would be the No. 1 seed if I was judging self promotion and presence on dorm room walls, but still, it’s hard to dispute his influence.

16, Henry Moore  (1898 – 1986)

On the bubble: Braque, Johns, Warhol, Bourgeois, Lichtenstein, Hopper, DeKooning, Magritte, Cornell, Freud, Bellows, Klee, Chagall, Martin, Giacometti, DeMuth