
    Photo left: Agata and Lucas Piskunowicz, photo right: Gareth Bate, 2012.
     
    Jewel Net of Indra 
    Artist Statement and Names List
    
    Gareth Bate
    
    View Installation
    Return to Writing Menu    
    View List of Names
    
 
  "Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology! - I know of no reading of another 's experience so startling and informing as this would be."   Henry David Thoreau in Walden.
 
My Jewel Net of Indra is an ongoing painting-based installation that will take at least 5 years to complete. It is a cosmology representing the interconnectedness of humanity. The starting point is a Mahayana Buddhist metaphor of an infinite net of jewels, each representing an individual. Every jewel contains a reflection of all others. The installation attempts to represent the totality of lives lived. It is "everyone." I am interpreting the metaphor as a meditation on the possibilities of life, and our relationships to the individuals who shape history. It is about self-reflection. The installation is an image of an idea of the self. Do we construct our self-image out of the stories of these people? Are we the accumulation of them? Who are they? What lives did they live? What choices did they make? How do they interconnect and influence each other? What aspects of them are within us? 
    Phase 1 of Jewel Net of Indra began as a small wall installation with over one thousand acrylic mirrored discs laser cut to the size of my palm. The images featured on the website represent the 325 people of Phase 1 which were exhibited at Toronto's Gladstone Hotel. For phase 2 I have  now completed around 1900 people with the ultimate goal being 6765. The latest version won't be exhibited for years. Because they now fill an entire room you can see the infinite reflection aspect that didn't happen in the original installation.    The mirrors contain hand-painted miniature portraits of iconic individuals of history. The accumulation of discs fragments the viewers as they move through the empty room. The negative space creates the net. The installation contains three perspectives; atomic, personal and cosmic. Each person is a tiny atom in the whole, yet they are all individually painted in a very humanistic way. The overall accumulation creates a cosmos. In an era defined by apocalyptic thinking, this room is a place to stop and take stock of where we’ve been, and how we got here. Gareth can usually complete 5 to 8 portraits a day while painting on average 7 to 8 hours. In time the piece will grow into an enormous immersive room installation where the mirrors all reflect each other. In Phase 1 the portraits were arranged randomly, in Phase 2 they will be arranged in chronological thematic layers where every person is connected to the people around them. 
Gareth chose to paint iconic individuals who all have well-known stories. This highly idiosyncratic mix of people were chosen to represent a cross-section of humanity throughout time. Each person has either had an influence on human history or ideas, or led a compelling or tragic life. Each face acts as a trigger for a story. These relationships form an elaborate puzzle for the viewer to decipher. The portraits are drawn from photographs, sculptures and paintings throughout history. It is not essential to recognize all the faces, that is impossible. It is enough to know these people are present in the work. The piece attempts to collect and catalogue them all, to reveal all the major figures that shaped the world as we know it. 
    The piece is feminist. There are an equal amount of men and women. Considerable effort was made to find people of a wide range of backgrounds from all over the world. Every person has been chosen for a reason. There are also deliberate omissions! There are philosophers, artists, writers, musicians, singers, poets, politicians, rebels, kings and queens, tyrants, scientists, activists, journalists, doctors and nurses, soldiers, popes and cult leaders, celebrities, athletes, heroes, terrorists and freedom fighters, freaks, slaves, mobsters, thieves, murderers and victims, or even iconic muses from a works of art. Although a list of names is included, the faces are not identified. The piece depends on an individual’s engagement with history, and the preservation of knowledge. Otherwise these people simply become anonymous. The more the portraits accumulate, the more insignificant each person becomes. The presence of serial killers and horrible tyrants is crucial to the piece. This is not about heroes it is about humans.
     The act of painting is essential to the piece. It becomes a ritual, a repetitive action. In a sense Gareth has become like a monk transcribing a Bible day after day in his monastery. It is labour intensive, but never boring. Each portrait is different, and a unique challenge. The work involves spending time with each person in an intimate way. Each one requires its own approach. Gareth hopes to capture their essence, so that they feel alive. While painting, his eyes constantly shift between the person being depicted and his own reflection. Gareth found that painting their portraits made these people feel less inaccessible. The act of painting transforms him into them. There is something special about the moment when a portrait is completed and he can metaphorically place them into the whole. 
    The installation would be impossible to create without the Internet. Interestingly, the metaphor of Indra’s Net has been applied to the interconnectedness of the web. Gareth has spent hundreds of hours researching online for portraits and stories as well as visiting museums, scouring bookstores and reading biographies and travel books. Especially useful, are websites devoted to extensive lists of famous people and events. The process involves sitting at his studio desk painting from an image on a laptop, while simultaneously listening to lectures from the Learning Company. This remarkable series of university lectures called “The Great Courses” covers a wide range of topics. Thus, the process is about engaging with history, philosophy, science and art.
    Life has so many possibilities and choices. Why does someone in one time act in the most evil way, while another rises to a heroic position? Are we free to choose? Despite their relative fame or infamy, power or powerlessness, there is an essential equality to all of these people. Each represents just one brief human life. 
"You use a glass mirror to see your face, you use works of art to see your soul."  George Bernard Shaw.
 
Special Thanks: Graham Jackson, Dawne Rudman, Marina Guglielmi, Carolyn Dinsmore, Stanzie Tooth, Deborah Wang and Britt Welter-Nolan.
    Dates: August 2011 - Present. 
       Medium: Acrylic mirrors with acrylic painted portraits.
      Exhibitions: Jewel Net of Indra (Phase 1), Come Up To My Room, The Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, Jan. 27 - 29, 2012
      Press: Interviewed for the Toronto Standard and featured on the CBC, Radio Canada, Toronto Life, View on Canadian Art, Torontoist, Design Lines, Fashion Magazine, MOCO, and Display Design Magazine. View Press Section
    
     
    1555 Names 
    * Indicates Phase 1 is the 325 people painted from Sept. 2011 to Jan. 2012 for Come Up  To My Room. Phase 2 is the 1229 people painted so far after Jan. 2012 and not yet exhibited. 
    54 names have not yet been added to this list. The total completed so far is 1600.
     
    
      
        |             AAbbas I of Persia
 Esraa Abdel Fattah
 Tarab Abdul Hadi
 Abdul Hamid II
 Marina Abramović
 Ansel Adams
 Maude Adams
 Samuel Adams
 Joy Adamson
 Jane Addams
 Alfred Adler
 Hilma af Klint
 Michel Aflaq
 Agrippina the Elder
 Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
 Anouk Aimée
 Ai Weiwei *
 Akbar the Great
 Anna Akhmatova
 Pharoah Akhenaten *
 Alaric the Goth
 Anwar al-Awlaki
 Bashar al-Assad
 Hafez al-Assad
 Madeleine Albright
 Louisa May Alcott
 Alcibiades
 Alexei Nikolaevich Tsarevich of Russia
 Alexander III of Macedon *
 Pope Alexander VI
 Al-Farabi
 Haj Amin al-Husseini
 Ayaan Hirsi Ali *
 Muhammad Ali *
 Alice
 Soong Ai-ling
 Leon Battista Albderti
 Iman Al-Ghazali
 Imam Ali
 Dante Alighieri
 Rafed al Janabi
 Gregorio Allegri *
 Gracie Allen
 Woody Allen *
 Isabel Allende
 Salvador Allende
 Alvin Alley
 Muhammad Ahmad Al-Mahdi
 Nayirah al-Sabah
 Bindo Altoviti
 B. R. Ambedkar
 Amenhotep
 Amenhotep III
 Idi Amin Dada
 Qasim Amin
 Yigal Amir
 Mata Amritanandamayi
 Hans Christian Andersen
 Anna Anderson
 Laurie Anderson
 Marian Anderson
 Björn Andrésen
 Ursula Andress
 Julie Andrews
 Princess Angeline
 Maya Angelou *
 Kofi Annan *
 Antinous *
 Susan B. Anthony *
 Anna Mae Aquash
 Anne, Queen of Great Britain
 Thomas Aquinas *
 Yasser Arafat
 Maher Arar
 Louise Arbour
 Diane Arbus
 Giuseppe Arcimboldo
 Archimedes
 Jann Arden
 Reinaldo Arenas
 Hannah Arendt
 Aristotle *
 Joan Armatrading
 Neil Armstrong *
 Dorothy Arzner
 Emperor Ashoka
 Pitseolak Ashoona *
 Julian Assange *
 Fred Astaire
 John Jacob Astor IV
 Nancy Astor, (Viscountess Astor)
 Atahualpa
 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
 Attila the Hun
 Margaret Atwood *
 Emperor Augustus *
 Alice Auma
 Emperor Aurangzeb *
 Emperor Marcus Aurelius *
 Jane Austen *
 Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau
 Avicenna
 Jane Avril
 Nahlah Ayed
 Ayyankali
    BSarah Baartman *
 Delia Bacon
 Francis Bacon *
 Joan Baez *
 Josephine Baker *
 Ella Baker
 Abu Bakr as-Ṣiddīq (Abdullah ibn Abi Quhafa)
 George Balanchine *
 James Baldwin *
 Robert Bales *
 Lucille Ball
 Florence Ballard
 Africa Bambaataa
 Sirimavo Bandarnaike
 Karuna Banerjee
 Barbara (Monique Andrée Serf)
 Djuna Barnes
 Bridget Bardot
 Ma Barker
 Clara Barton *
 Jean-Michel Basquiat
 Elizabeth Bathory
 Charles Baudelaire *
 Pina Bausch
 Maurice Bavaud
 Samuel Beckett
 Sister Wendy Beckett *
 Ludwig von Beethoven *
 Gertrude Bell
 Ben Ammi Ben-Israel
 Ota Benga *
 Ingrid Bergman
 Ingmar Bergman
 David Ben-Gurion
 Walter Benjamin
 Isaiah Berlin
 Hector Berlioz
 Bernadette of Lourdes
 Émile Henri Bernard
 Paul Bernardo *
 Sarah Bernhardt
 Vitus Bering
 Tim Berners-Lee
 Gian Lorenzo Bernini
 Leonard Bernstein
 Annie Besant
 Mary Jane Bethune
 Norman Bethune
 Joseph Beuys
 Benazir Bhutto *
 Steve Biko
 Hussein bin Ali
 Osama bin Laden *
 Juliette Binoche
 Björk
 Blackbeard
 Black Elk *
 Chief Black Hawk
 William Blake
 Helena Blavatsky
 Karen Blixen
 Blondie
 Nellie Bly
 Boa Sr. (last native of the Andaman Islands)
 Umberto Boccioni
 Boëthius
 Humphrey Bogart
 Anne Boleyn *
 Simon Bolivar *
 Billy the Kid
 Napoleon Bonaparte *
 Louis-Napoleon III Bonaparte
 Costanza Bonarelli
 Rosa Bonheur
 Andrés Bonifacio
 Bono, (Paul David Hewson)
 Nana Kwaku Bonsam
 John Wilkes Booth
 Lizzie Borden *
 Cesare Borgia
 Gioffre Borgia
 Giovanni Borgia
 Lucrezia Borgia
 Nathaniel Borenstein
 Francesco Borromini
 Hieronymus Bosch
 Sandro Botticelli *
 Mohamed Bouazizi *
 François Boucher
 Louise Bourgeois
 Margaret Bourke-White
 Edith Bouvier Beale *
 Clara Bow
 David Bowie
 Belle Boyd
 Boy George
 Susan Boyle
 Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini
 Mark Bradford
 Ian Brady
 Constantin Brâncuși
 Marlon Brando *
 Eva Braun
 Anders Behring Breivik
 Jacques Brel
 André Breton
 Bridget of Sweden
 Ruby Bridges
 Sergey Brin
 Vera Brittain
 Gwendolyn Brooks
 Romaine Brooks
 Joseph Broussar
 Christy Brown
 John Brown
 Louise Brown
 Molly Brown,  (The Unsinkable Molly Brown)
 Nicole Brown Simpson
 Pieter Bruegel the Elder
 Filippo Brunelleschi
 Giordano Bruno
 Marcus Junius Brutus The Younger
 Martin Bryant
 Yul Brynner
 Lü Bu
 Grace Budd
 James Bulger
 Beau Brummell
 Gisele Bündchen
 Ted Bundy
 Chang and Eng Bunker
 Luis Buñuel Portolés
 Michelangelo Buonarroti *
 Edmund Burke
 Barnet Burns
 George Burns
 Allie Mae Burroughs
 Jackie Burroughs
 Kate Bush
 Judith Butler
 Julian Byng
 Lord Byron
    CHelen Caldicott
 Emperer Caligula *
 Maria Callas *
 William Calley
 June Callwood
 John Calvin
 Caryn Campbell
 Naomi Campbell
 Jane Campion
 Albert Camus
 Al Capone
 Princess Caraboo (Mary Baker)
 Michelangelo Caravaggio *
 George Carlin
 Emily Carr *
 Edward Carpenter
 Karen Carpenter
 Dora Carrington
 Lewis Carroll
 Rachel Carson *
 Mary Cassatt *
 Eva Cassidy
 Kevin Carter
 Butch Cassidy (Robert Leroy Parker)
 Fidel Castro *
 Catherine of Alexandria *
 Catherine of Aragon
 Catherine Parr
 Catherine the Great *
 Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
 Elena Ceaușescu
 Miguel de Cervantes
 Aimé Césaire
 Paul Cézanne
 Marc Chagall
 Jean-François Champollion
 Charlie Chaplan
 Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton
 Neville Chamberlain
 Subhas Chandra Bose
 Coco Chanel *
 Iris Chang
 Carol Channing
 Tracy Chapman
 Charlemagne
 Mary Eugenia Charles
 Geoffrey Chaucer
 Cher
 Leslie Cheung
 Judy Chicago
 Andrei Chikatilo
 Julia Child
 Soong Ching-ling
 Shirley Chisholm
 Agatha Christie *
 Noam Chomsky *
 Annabel Chong
 Jesus Christ
 Winston Churchill *
 Huang Chuncai *
 Cicero
 Tansu Çiller
 Emperor Claudius
 El Cid, or El Campeador (Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar)
 Joseph Cinqué
 Conchita Cintrón
 Empress Dowager Cixi *
 Camille Claudel
 José Clemente Orozco
 Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) *
 Pharaoh Cleopatra VII *
 Anne of Cleves
 Patsy Cline
 Hilary Clinton *
 Kurt Cobain *
 Jean Cocteau
 J.M. Coetzee
 Leonard Cohen *
 Bessie Coleman
 Vince Coleman
 Judy Collins *
 Pamela Colman Smith
 Christopher Columbus
 Dorothy Comingore
 Captain James Cook
 Arthur Conan Doyle
 Confucius *
 Constantine the Great
 Nicolas-Jacques Conté
 Whina Cooper
 Nicolaus Copernicus, *
 Charlotte Corday *
 Billy Corgan
 Catherine Cornaro
 Rachel Corrie *
 Maria Cosway
 Gustave Courbet
 Jacques Cousteau
 Hernando Cortez *
 Thomas Cranmer
 Cindy Crawford
 Joan Crawford
 Oliver Cromwell *
 Thomas Cromwell
 Aleister Crowley
 Tom Cruise
 Suzanne Curchod
 Marie Curie *
 Pierre Curie
 Imogen Cunningham
 Merce Cunningham *
 George Armstrong Custer *
 Cyrus II of Persia
    DJeffrey Dahmer
 Daji
 14th Dalai Lama, (Tenzin Gyatso) *
 Salvador Dalí
 Roméo Dallaire
 Joe Dallesandro
 Father Damien
 Thomas D'Arcy McGee
 Charles Darwin *
 Jacques Louis David *
 Alexandra David-Néel *
 Elaine Davidson
 Marion Davies
 Leonardo da Vinci *
 Angela Davis *
 Bette Davis *
 Miles Davis
 Richard Dawkins
 Dorothy Day
 Moshe Dayan
 Lope de Aguirre
 James Dean *
 Blossom Dearie
 Honoré de Balzac
 Simone de Beauvoir *
 Miguel de Cervantes
 Samuel de Champlain
 Jay DeFeo
 Claude de France
 Vasco da Gama
 Ellen Degeneres *
 F. W. de Klerk
 Willem de Kooning
 Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix
 Bartolomé de las Casas *
 Maurice Quentin De La Tour *
 Juana Ines de la Cruz
 Tamara de Lempicka
 Anne-Catherine de Ligniville
 Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles
 Demasduit (Mary March)
 Catherine de Medici *
 Giuliano de' Medici
 Lorenzo de' Medici Ritratti
 Jean Charles de Menezes
 Cecil B. De Mille
 Judi Dench
 Catherine Deneuve
 Frances Densmore
 Gérard Depardieu
 Juan de Pareja
 Antoine de Paris
 Christine de Pizan
 Madaame de Pompadour
 Cardinal de Richelieu (Armand Jean du Plessis)
 Albert DeSalvo
 Lhasa de Sela
 Isabella d'Este
 Diego de Landa Calderón
 Germaine de Staël, (Madame de Staël)
 Maria de Sautuola
 Jacques Derrida
 Jean-Jacques Dessalines *
 Indra Devi
 Sarada Devi
 Cut Nyak Dhien
 Serge Diaghilev
 Diana Princess of Wales *
 Porfirio Diaz
 Evelyn Dick
 Charles Dickens *
 Denis Diderot
 Marlene Dietrich
 Leila Diniz
 Isabelle Dinoire
 Diogenes of Sinope
 Celine Dion *
 Christian Dior
 Walt Disney
 Divine (Harris Glenn Milstead)
 Bernadette Dohrn
 Donovan
 "Paul" Fustave Doré
 Françoise Dorléac
 Alfred (Boise) Douglas
 Tommy Douglas *
 Frederick Douglass *
 Alfred Dreyfus
 Livia Drusilla
 W. E. B. Du Bois
 Marcel  Duchamp
 Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester
 Gaëtan Dugas
 Alexandre Dumas
 Albrecht Durer *
 François Duvalier
 Andrea Dworkin
 Bob Dylan *
    EAmelia Earhart *
 Charles Eastman
 Elizabeth Eckford
 Thomas Edison
 Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphries)
 Adolf Eichmann *
 Gustave Eiffel
 Albert Einstein *
 Sergei Eisenstein
 Anita Ekberg *
 Eleanor of Aquitaine
 El Greco *
 George Eliot, (Mary Ann Evans) *
 Daniel Ellsberg
 Ruth Ellis
 Nawal El Saadawi
 Queen Elizabeth I *
 Queen Elizbabeth II *
 Tracey Emin
 Lynndie England *
 Friedrich Engels
 Desiderius Erasmus
 Erté, (Romain de Tirtoff)
 Pablo Escobar
 Vilma Lucila Espín
 Linda Evangelista
 Cesaria Evora
   FSandra Fabara (Lady Pink)
 Faisal I of Iraq
 Marianne Faithfull
 Renée Jeanne Falconetti
 Agnetha Fältskog
 Frantz Fanon *
 Michael Faraday
 Maria Farantouri
 Louis Farrakhan
 Mia Farrow
 Farrah Fawcett
 Guy Fawkes *
 Alexandra Feodorovna, (Alix of Hesse)
 Franz Ferdinand
 Fibonacci
 Gerald Finzi *
 Bobby Fischer *
 Albert Fish
 Ella Fitzgerald *
 F. Scott Fitzgerald
 Zelda Fitzgerald
 James FitzGibbon
 Roberta Flack
 Kirsten Flagstad
 Jane Fonda
 Margot Fonteyn
 Henry Ford
 Jeff Fort
 Nathan Bedford Forrest
 Izola Forrester
 Dian Fossey
 Michel Foucault *
 Jean Fouguet
 Terry Fox *
 Celia Franca *
 Francis of Assisi
 Francisco Franco
 Anne Frank *
 Helen Frankenthaler
 Viktor E. Frankl
 Elisabeth Fritzl
 Josef Fritzl
 Viktor Frnakl
 Aretha Franklin
 Benjamin Franklin *
 Rosalind Franklin
 Elizabeth Freeman (Mum Bett) *
 Paulo Freire
 Kristen French *
 Sigmund Freud *
 Caspar David Friedrich
 Martin Frobisher
 Du Fu
 Buckminster Fuller *
 Annette Funicello
   GMuammar Gaddafi
 Yuri Gagarin
 Birutė Galdikas
 Galileo Galilei *
 Céline Galipeau
 John Galsworthy
 Samia Gamal
 Carlo Gambino
 Indira Gandhi *
 Kasturba Gandhi
 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi *
 Jerry Garcia
 Art Garfunkel
 Judy Garland *
 Amy Ashwood Garvey
 Marcus Garvey
 Elizabeth Gaskell
 Bill Gates
 Antoni Gaudi
 Paul Gauguin
 Jean Paul Gaultier
 Carl Friedrich Gauss *
 Leymah Gbowee *
 Ed Gein
 Sarah Michelle Gellar
 Martha Gellhorn
 Jean Genet
 Kitty Genovese
 Artemisia Gentileschi *
 Chief Dan George
 Théodore Géricault
 ean-Léon Gérôme
 Geronimo *
 Deniz Gezmiş
 Sri Aurobindo Ghose *
 Gia
 Edward Gibbon
 Astrud Gilberto
 Allen Ginsberg *
 Giorgione
 Carlo Giuliani
 Lady Godiva
 Nathuram Godse
 Magda Goebbels
 Emma Goldman *
 Ron Goldman *
 Baruch Goldstein
 Natalia Goncharova
 Maud Gonne
 Jane Goodall *
 Andrew Goodman
 Gordon (Louisiana Slave)
 Glenn Gould
 Francisco Goya *
 Martha Graham *
 Cary Grant
 Lee Grant
 Ulysses S. Grant
 Effie Gray
 Lady Jane Gray
 Clement Greenberg
 Germaine Greer *
 Irma Grese
 Grey Owl
 Edvard Grieg
 Walter Gropius
 Veronica Guerin
 Che Guevara *
 Peggy Guggenheim
 Sharbat Gula, (Afghan Girl)
 Johannes Gutenberg *
 Alan Guth
 Joaquín Guzmán Loera
   HZaha Hadid *
 Emperor Hadrian *
 Nina Hagen
 Alex Haley
 Ann Hamilton *
 Hannibal of Carthidge *
 Françoise Hardy
 Bakira Hasečić
 Mata Hari *
 Keith Haring
 Elijah Harper
 George Harrison
 Sarah Harrison
 Nesjaja Hatali
 Mona Hatoum *
 Hatshepsut
 Pharoah Hatshepsut
 Stephen Hawking *
 Patty Hearst
 Jeanne Hébuterne
 Antony Hegarty
 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
 Martin Heidegger
 Tōgō Heihachirō
 Lillian Hellman
 Ernest Hemingway
 Jimi Hendrix
 King Henry VIII *
 Josiah Henson
 Audrey Hepburn *
 Katherine Hepburn *
 Herodotus
 Theodor Herzl
 Hesiod
 Eva Hesse
 Wild Bill Hickok
 Lauryn Hill
 Edmund Hillary
 Heinrich Himmler
 Myra Hindley *
 Emperor Hirohito
 Hiroshige
 Damien Hirst
 Alfred Hitchcock *
 Adolf Hitler *
 Hannah Höch
 Ho Chi Minh *
 Thomas Hobbes
 David Hockney
 Jimmy Hoffa
 Hokusai
 Hans Holbein *
 Billie Holiday
 Buddy Holly
 Odette Holmes
 Homer *
 Winslow Homer
 Karla Homolka *
 Erich Honecker
 Bell Hooks
 Pauline Hopkins
 Horemheb
 Hortensia
 Harry Houdini
 Whitney Houston
 Katherine Howard *
 Qin Shi Huang
 Edwin Hubble *
 Langston Hughes
 Victor Hugo
 Thérèse Humbert
 David Hume *
 Jan Hus
 Saddam Hussein
 Anne Hutchinson
 Albert Huxley
 Hypatia *
 
   IAbdu' `l-Bahá,
 Henrik Ibsen *
 Iman
 Imhotep
 Javed Iqbal Mughal
 Marcus Iron
 David Irving
 Isabella of Portugal
 Christopher Isherwood
 Ishi
 Shirō Ishii
 Ivan the Terrible *
 Mineko Iwasaki *
 
   J Jamila, (Nuba Girl)
 Janet Jackson
 Mahalia Jackson
 Michael Jackson *
 Stonewall Jackson
 Jack the Ripper
 Joseph Marie Jacquard
 Jane Jacobs *
 Janet Jagan
 Mick Jagger
 Shah Jahan
 Etta James
 William James
 Jenna Jameson *
 Judith Jamison
 Alfred Jarry
 Thomas Jefferson *
 Fedor Jeftichew, (Jo-Jo The Dog-Faced Boy) *
 Ron Jeremy
 Joan of Arc
 Steve Jobs
 Gwen John
 Antipope John XXIII (Baldassarre Cossa)
 Pope John XXIII *
 Ben Johnson
 Robert Johnson
 Angelina Jolie *
 Regina Jonas
 Grace Jones
 Jim Jones *
 Kim Jong-il
 Janis Joplin *
 Scott Joplin
 Michael Jordan *
 Chief Joseph
 Helen Joseph
 Josephus
 James Joyce
 Donald Judd
 Mychal Judge
 Pope Julius II
 Carl G. Jung *
 
   KChiang Kai-shek
 Frida Kahlo *
 Princess Kaʻiulani
 Abdul Kalam Azad
 Jean Kambanda
 Natascha Kampusch *
 Immanuel Kant *
 Eleni Karaindrou
 Anna Karina
 Tawakkul Karman *
 Wong Kar-Wai
 Jan Rose Kasmir
 David Kato
 Angelica Kauffman
 Elia Kazan
 Buster Keaton
 Helen Keller *
 Grace Kelly
 Ned Kelly *
 Petra Kelly
 Igor Kenk
 Jackie Kennedy
 John F. Kennedy *
 Annie Kenney
 Johannes Kepler *
 Deborah Kerr
 Omar Khadr
 Khafra
 Genghis Khan *
 Kublai Khan *
 Omar Khayyám
 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
 Khufu
 Søren Kierkegaard
 Anselm Kiefer
 Carole King
 Charles D.B. King
 Martin Luther King Jr. *
 Rodney King
 Alfred Kinsey
 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
 Henry Kissinger
 Naomi Klein *
 Ilse Koch
 Kathe Kollwitz *
 Joseph Kony
 David Koresh
 Lee Krasner
 Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya *
 Jiddu Krishnamurti
 Queen Kristina of Sweden *
 Paul Kruger
 Dawid Kruiper
 Umm Kulthum
 Zacharias Kunuk *
 Akira Kurosawa
 Yayoi Kusama
 Femi Kuti
 | LJuanita La Doncella (Inca Ice Lady)
 Susan La Flesche Picotte
 Christine Lagarde
 Rani Lakshmibai
 Delphine LaLaurie (Madame LaLaurie)
 Hedy Lamarr
 Lame Deer *
 Elsa Lanchester
 k.d. Lang *
 Dorothea Lange
 Angela Lansbury
 Cyndi Lauper
 D.H. Lawrence
 Florence Lawrence
 Gertrude Lawrence
 Jacob Lawrence
 Thomas Edward Lawrence, (Lawrence of Arabia) *
 Jack Layton *
 Lead Belly (Huddie William Ledbetter)
 Mary Leakey
 Richard Leakey
 Henrietta Swan Leavitt
 Le Corbusier, (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris)
 Bruce Lee *
 Gypsy Rose Lee
 Harper Lee
 Janet Leigh
 Vivien Leigh
 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin *
 John Lennon *
 Annie Lennox
 Anna Leonowens *
 Marc Lepine *
 Amanda Lepore *
 René Lévesque *
 Claude Lévi-Strauss
 Maude Lewis *
 Judith Leyster
 Fan Li
 Gong Li
 Alice Liddell
 Liliʻuokalani
 Abraham Lincoln *
 Maya Lin *
 Lindow Man *
 Ding Ling
 Clarice Lispector
 Alexander Litvinenko
 David Livingstone
 John Locke
 Tom Longboat
 Pedro Alonso López *
 Federico García Lorca
 Traci Lords
 Sophia Loren
 Louis XIV of France
 Séraphine Louis
 Courtney Love
 Ada Lovelace
 Linda Lovelace (Linda Boreman)
 Zivia Lubetkin
 Lucretius
 Martin Luther *
 Albert Lutuli
 Rosa Luxemburg *
 Eliza Lynch
 George Platt Lynes
 Frida Lyngstad
 David Lynch
   MSri Anandamayi Ma
 Dora Maar
 Eddie Mabo
 John A. Macdonald *
 Charles Rennie Mackintosh
 Agnes Macphail
 Niccolo Machiavelli *
 Alexander Mackenzie
 Winnie Madikizela-Mandela *
 Bernard "Bernie" Madoff
 Madonna *
 Leslie Mahaffy
 Mumtaz Mahal
 Ramana Maharshi
 Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel
 Gustav Mahler
 Saltan Mahmud II
 Miriam Makeba *
 Nelson Mandela *
 Édouard Manet
 Meri Te Tai Mangakahia
 Chelsea Manning, (as Bradley) *
 Peter Mansbridge
 Charles Manson *
 Robert Mapplethorpe
 Jean-Paul Marat
 Imelda Marcos
 Subcomandante Marcos *
 Queen Marie-Antoinette *
 Marie De France *
 Maria Theresa of Spain
 Mark Antony *
 Bob Marley *
 Christopher Marlowe
 Marquis de Sade
 Agnes Martin *
 Harriet Martineau
 Iri Maruki
 Toshi Maruki
 Queen Mary I
 Mary, Queen of Scots *
 Mary of Guise
 Karl Marx *
 Hugh Ramopolo Masekela
 Iqbai Masih
 Ahmed Shah Massoud *
 Marcello Mastroianni
 Emperor Maximilian (of Mexico)
 Soong May-ling
 Hazel McCallion
 Madeleine McCann
 Infanta Margarita heresa of Spain
 Doris McCarthy
 Joseph McCarthy
 Paul McCartney
 Barbara McClintock
 Nellie McClung
 Hattie McDaniel
 Marshall McLuhan
 Timothy McVeigh
 Golda Meir *
 Lise Meitner
 Rigoberta Menchú *
 Gregor Mendel *
 Fanny Mendelssohn *
 Felix Mendelssohn
 Adnan Menderes
 Ovide Mercredi
 Freddie Mercury
 Angela Merkel *
 Maurice Merleau-Ponty
 Joseph Merrick, (The Elephant Man) *
 Valeria Messalina
 Victorine Meurent
 Anneliese Michel *
 Kate Middleton
 Toshiro Mifune
 Molière Mignard Chantilly
 Mikak
 Harvey Milk
 John Stuart Mill *
 Kate Millett *
 Christopher Robin Milne
 Slobodan Milošević
 Mina *
 Liza Minnelli
 Mirabehn (Madeleine Slade)
 Carmen Miranda
 Helen Mirren
 Prince Imam Verdi Mirza
 Yukio Mishima
 Mistinguett
 Arthur Mitchell
 Joan Mitchell
 Joni Mitchell *
 Moctezuma II
 Amedeo Modigliani
 Tina Moduli
 Stompie Moeketsi *
 Mona Lisa *
 Piet Mondrian
 King Mongkut of Siam
 Marilyn Monroe *
 Fernanda Montenegro
 Lola Montez
 Lucy Maud Montgomery
 Henry Moore
 Thomas More *
 Henry Morgan
 Henry Morgentaler
 Berthe Morisot *
 Jane Morris
 William Morris
 Norval Morrisseau
 Alanis Morissette
 Jim Morrison
 Toni Morrison *
 Grandma Moses
 Kate Moss
 Mother Teresa *
 Lucretia Mott
 Farley Mowat
 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart *
 Hosni Mubarak
 Robert Mugabe
 Alice Munro *
 Iris Murdoch
 Anne Murray
 Edward R. Murrow
 Nabawiyya Musa
 Benito Mussolini
 Eadweard Muybridge
 Victoria Mxenge
   NSarojini Naidu
 Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai
 Albert Namatjira
 Nyurapayia Nampitjinpa
 K. R. Narayanan
 Narmer
 Gamal Abdel Nasser
 Nefertiti *
 Jawaharlal Nehru *
 Neil (Seven Up)
 Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
 Marina Nemat
 Emperor Nero
 Pablo Neruda *
 Evelyn Nesbit *
 Shirin Neshat
 Louise Nevelson
 Isaac Newton *
 Apirana Ngata
 Nicholas II of Russia
 Douglas Nicholls
 Nichelle Nichols
 Joseph Nicéphore Niépce
 Friedrich Nietzsche *
 Florence Nightingale *
 Vaslav Nijinsky *
 Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia
 Richard Nixon *
 Alfred Nobel
 Oda Nobunaga
 Emmy Noether
 Oodgeroo Noonuccal
 Jessye Norman
 The Notorious B.I.G.
 Nowadluk
 Lalla Fatma N'Soumer
 Rudolf Nureyev
 Laura Nyro
   OAnnie Oakley
 Barack Obama *
 Michelle Obama
 Phil Ochs
 Flannery O'Connor
 Sinéad O'Connor
 Odetta
 Jacques Offenbach
 Armen Ohanian
 Georgia O'Keeffe
 Virginia Oldoini
 Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia
 Yoko Ono *
 Hiroo Onoda
 Méret Oppenheim
 J. Robert Oppenheimer
 Orlan
 Dolores O'Riordan
 George Orwell
 Lee Harvey Oswald
 Ötzi the Iceman
 Florence Owens Thompson, (Migrant Mother) *
 Jesse Owens
 Malaya Oxana
 Yasujirō Ozu
   PBettie Page
 Larry Page
 Nam June Paik
 K'inich Janaab' Pakal
 Christabel Pankhurst
 Emmeline Pankhurst *
 Erwin Panofsky
 Bertha Pappenheim
 Paracelsus
 Fray Hortensio Felix Paravicino
 Al Parker
 Bonnie Parker
 Dorothy Parker
 Suzy Parker
 Rosa Parks *
 Blaise Pascal
 Emin Pasha
 Louis Pasteur
 Patañjali
 Alan Paton
 Banjo Patterson
 Pedro II of Brazil
 I.M. Pei
 Pelé *
 Ruth Anna Maria Perez *
 Pericles *
 Eva Peron *
 Juan Perón
 Clara Petacci
 Peter the Wild Boy
 Bernadette Peters
 Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca)
 Philip the Good
 River Phoenix
 Edith Piaf
 Pablo Picasso *
 Michel Piccoli
 Mary Pickford
 Robert Pickton *
 Joseph Pilates
 Augusto Pinochet
 Camille Pissarro
 Sylvia Plath
 Plato *
 Pliny the Elder
 Pocahontas *
 Edgar Allan Poe *
 Raymond Poincaré
 Sidney Poitier
 Roman Polanski
 Anna Politkovskaya *
 Sarah Polley
 Jackson Pollock
 Pol Pot
 Pompey the Great
 Monika Pon
 Pontiac
 Carole Pope
 Karl Popper
 Charles Ponzi
 Annie Pootoogook
 Lyubov Popova
 Cole Porter
 Beatrix Potter
 Ezra Pound
 Richard Pousette-Dart
 Colin Powell
 Geronimo Pratt
 Patty Pravo
 Katherine Prescott Wormeley
 Elvis Presley
 Soon-Yi Previn
 George Lawrence Price
 Leontyne Price
 Gavrilo Princip
 Ptolemy I Soter
 Giacomo Puccini
 Joseph Pulitzer
 Queen of Punt
 Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
 Pythagoras of Samos
 Pythia
    QSima Qian
 Thich Quang Duc *
 Mary Quant
 Selena Quintanilla-Pérez
   RJohn Rabe
 François Rabelais
 Radama II of Madagascar
 Gilda Radner
 Aishwarya Rai
 Lala Lajpat Rai *
 Ma Rainey
 Ramakrishna *
 Cyril Ramaphosa
 Ramesses I
 Ramesses II
 JonBenét Ramsey *
 Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar
 Ayn Rand *
 Grigorij Rasputin
 Man Ray
 Satyajit Ray
 Red Cloud
 Lou Reed
 Martha Reeves
 Steve Reich
 Bill Reid
 Tadeusz Rejtan
 Judith Resnik
 Paul Revere
 Joshua Reynolds
 Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavī
 Cecil John Rhodes
 Maurice Richard
 Richard I of England (The Lionheart)
 Condoleeza Rice *
 Leni Riefenstahl *
 Louis Riel *
 Righteous Bothers
 Arthur Rimbaud
 Bessie Rischbieth
 Diego Rivera
 Joan Rivers
 José Rizal *
 Joseph Jenkins Roberts
 Alexander Rodchenko
 Gene Roddenberry
 Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin
 Auguste Rodin
 Sue Rodriguez
 Ginger Rogers
 Madame Roland
 Óscar Romero
 Ronaldo
 Eleanor Roosevelt *
 Franklin D. Roosevelt *
 Ethel Rosenberg *
 Diana Ross
 Dante Gabriel Rossetti
 Mark Rothko
 Johnny Rotten (John Joseph Lydon)
 Henri Rousseau (Le Douanier Rousseau)
 Dilma Rousseff
 J.K. Rowling *
 Felice della Rovere
 Roxelana
 Gabrielle Roy
 Helena Rubinstein
 Ida Rubinstein
 Bertrand Russell
 Shota Rustaveli
 Babe Ruth *
 Chishu Ryu
    SSacajawea
 Vita Sackville-West
 Anwar El Sadat
 Carl Sagan
 François Sagat
 Chevalier de Saint-George
 Buffy Sainte-Marie *
 Yves Saint Laurent
 Doris Salcedo
 Antonio Salieri
 Jonas Salk
 Charlotte Salomon
 Eugen Sandow
 Bobby Sands
 Margaret Sanger
 Odette Sansom Hallowes
 Lúcia Santos
 John Singer Sargent
 Jean-Paul Sartre *
 Sadako Sasaki
 Jimmy Savile
 Ibn Saud
 Jeanne Sauvé
 Girolamo Savonarola
 Arthur Scargill
 Egon Schiele
 Oskar Schindler
 Arthur Schopenhauer
 Erwin Schrödinger
 Clara Schumann *
 Conrad Schumann
 Albert Schweitzer
 Coretta Scott King
 Bobby Seale
 Chief Seattle
 Jean Seberg
 Laura Secord
 Edie Sedgwick
 Haile Selassie I
 Amartya Sen
 Irena Sendler
 Seneca the Younger
 Zinaida Serebriakova
 Georges Seurat
 Caterina Sforza
 Huda Shaarawi
 Betty Shabazz
 Ernest Shackleton
 Doria Shafik
 Fat'h Ali Shah Qajar
 William Shakespeare *
 Tupac Shakur
 Imam Shamil
 William Shatner
 George Bernard Shaw *
 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
 Mary Shelley
 Emperor Shenzong of Song
 Matthew Shepard *
 Kate Sheppard *
 Cindy Sherman
 Su Shi
 Kato Shidzue
 Wuzhun Shifan
 Saadi Shirazi
 Wakamatsu Shizuko
 Elizabeth Short *
 Dmitri Shostakovich
 Prince Shōtoku
 Jean Shrimpton
 Jane Siberry
 Elizabeth Siddal
 Carly Simon
 Nina Simone *
 OJ Simpson
 Wallis Simpson
 Mimar Sinan
 Jyoti Singh Pandey
 Inderjit Singh Reyat
 John Singleton Copley
 David Alfaro Siqueiros
 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf *
 Walter Sisulu
 Sitting Bull *
 Krystyna Skarbek
 B. F. Skinner
 Grace Slick
 Adam Smith *
 Anna Nicole Smith
 Bessie Smith
 Edward Smith
 Joseph Smith
 Patti Smith
 Jan Smuts
 Edward Snowden
 Socrates
 Okita Sōji
 Solon
 Stephen Sondheim
 Susan Sontag
 Sophocles
 Mercedes Sosa
 Wole Soyinka
 Britney Spears
 Sabina Spielrein
 Dusty Springfield
 Spotted Tail
 Nancy Spungen
 Rettamalai Srinivasan
 Joseph Stalin *
 Constantin Stanislavski
 Henry Morton Stanley
 Elizabeth Cady Stanton *
 Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey)
 Gertrude Stein *
 John Steinbeck
 Gloria Steinem
 Stendhal
 Robert Louis Stevenson
 Isabella Stewart Gardner
 Clyfford Still
 Mary Stott
 Lee Strasberg
 Meryl Streep *
 Barbra Streisand
 Elizabeth Stride
 Charles Edward Stuart, (Bonnie Prince Charlie)
 Haji Muhammad Suharto
 Annie Sullivan
 Ed Sullivan
 Servius Sulpicius Galba
 Donna Summer
 Kamala Surayya, (Kamala Das)
 Aung San Suu Kyi  *
 Helen Suzman
 David Suzuki *
 Gloria Swanson
 Violette Szabo
    TRabindranath Tagore
 Abdellah Taïa
 Emperor Taizong of Song
 Emperor Taizu of Song
 Maria Tallchief
 Oliver  Tambo
 Jessica Tandy
 Dorothea Tanning
 Sharon Tate
 Vladimir Tatlin
 Annie Edson Taylor
 Elizabeth Taylor *
 Tecumseh *
 Brandon Teena
 Shirley Temple
 Alfred, Lord Tennyson
 Vlad Tepes, (Vlad the Impaler) *
 Teresa of Ávila
 Nikola Tesla
 Helga Testorf
 Margaret Thatcher *
 Thérèse of Lisieux
 Hugh Thompson Jr.
 Thompson, Robert and Venables, Jon
 Tom Thomson *
 Henry David Thoreau *
 Thutmose III
 Paul Tibbets *
 Emmett Till *
 Timur-e Lang (Tamerlane)
 Tintoretto (Jacopo Comin)
 J.D. Tippit
 Titian *
 Tiye
 Iva Toguri D'Aquino, (Tokyo Rose) *
 Alice B. Toklas
 Nadezhda Tolokonnikova
 Leo Tolstoy *
 Tomas de Torquemada *
 Touch the Clouds
 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
 Flora Tristan
 Leon Trotsky *
 Margaret Trudeau
 Pierre Trudeau *
 Steven Truscott
 Sojourner Truth *
 Harriet Tubman  *
 Tukauk
 Tukukino
 Alan Turing
 Joseph Mallord William Turner *
 Nat Turner
 Tina Turner
 Marie Tussaud
 Pharaoh Tutankhamun
 Desmond Tutu
 Twiggy
 Yulia Tymoshenko
 Tristan Tzara
    UUlay, (Frank Uwe Laysiepen)
 Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski)
 David Unaipon
    VSuzanne Valadon
 Theo van Gogh
 Vincent van Gogh
 Caterina van Hemessen
 Nguyễn Văn Lém
 Ornella Vanoni *
 Rembrandt van Rijn *
 Madame Nguyen van Thieu *
 Saskia van Uylenburgh
 Agnès Varda *
 Chavela Vargas
 Giorgio Vasari *
 Vasily II of Moscow
 Giuseppe Verdi
 Paul Verlaine
 Paul Verryn
 Hendrik Verwoerd
 Sid Vicious
 Queen Victoria *
 Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun *
 Pancho Villa
 Virgil
 Monica Vitti
 Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)
 Otto von Bismarck
 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
 Franz von Papen
 Claus  von Stauffenberg
 Bertha von Suttner
 Maria von Trapp
 Veda Vyasa
    WRichard Wagner
 Lech Walesa *
 Alice Walker
 Madame C J Walker
 Kara Walker
 Alfred Russel Wallace
 Vera Wang
 Maathai Wangari *
 Andy Warhol *
 Dionne Warwick
 Booker T. Washington
 George Washington *
 Ethel Waters
 Paul Watson
 James Watt
 Sheila Watt-Cloutier
 Jean-Antoine Watteau
 Evelyn Waugh
 Wang Weilin (Tank Man)
 Adam Weishaupt
 Alek Wek
 Raquel Welch
 Orson Welles
 Arthur Wellesley
 H.G. Wells
 Mary Wells
 Ida Wells-Barnett *
 Mae West
 Vivienne Westwood
 Edith Wharton
 Walt Whitman *
 Simon Wiesenthal
 Bertold Wiesner
 William Wilberforce
 Billy Wilder
 Wilhelm II
 Ralph Vaughan Williams
 Russell Williams
 Serena Williams
 Venus Williams
 Windradyne
 Amy Winehouse *
 Oprah Winfrey *
 Anna Wintour
 Ludwig Wittgenstein
 Anna May Wong
 Francesca Woodman
 Deanne Woodward Roger
 Roger Woodward
 Mary Wollstonecraft *
 Virginia Woolf *
 Dorothy Wordsworth
 Frank Lloyd Wright
 Chien-Shiung Wu *
 Emperor Wu of Han (Wu Di)
 Aileen Wuornos
 Empress Wu Zetian
    XMalcolm X, (Malcolm Little) *
 Xenophanes
 Liu Xiaobo
 Deng Xiaoping
    YTsutomu Yamaguchi
 Emperor Yang of Sui (Yangdi)
 Sun Yat-sen
 W.B. Yeats (William Butler)
 Alexandre Yersin
 Yip Man (martial artist)
 Paramahansa Yogananda
 Malala Yousafzai
 Viktor Yushchenko
   ZEmiliano Zapata *
 Abraham Zapruder
 Mao Zedong *
 Sabbatai Zevi
 Consort Zhen
 Emperor Zhu Di
 Khaleda Zia
 Slavoj Žižek
 Zodiac Killer
 Émile Zola
 Huldrych Zwingli
    UnnamedAfrican knight of Baguirmi
 Buffalo Solider
 Greenland Mummy boy
 Hiroshima Survivor
 Inupiat woman
 Jamestown Jane
 Judging portrait
 The Loulan Beauty *
 Maori Chief
 Mixed blood Fur Trader
 My Lai Massacre Woman 1
 My Lai Massacre Woman 2
 Pompeii couple
 Rape of Nanking Executed Man
 Scholar in a Meadow (11th Century Chinese)
 The Girl with the Pearl Earring
 Red haired Thracian Woman (Ostrusha Mound, Bulgaria)
 Raft of the Medusa Survivor 1
 An 8th century Uyghur Khagan
 Woman from the island of Nossi-bé
 Yde Girl
 Yoruba woman
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