Father-and-Son Artists

John Butler Yeats (1839-1922) was one of Ireland’s finest portrait painters, and the father of artist Jack Butler Yeats and poet William Butler Yeats.

Pieter Bruegel The Elder was the most significant artist of his era (1500s). His son, Pieter The Younger, copied his father’s style with considerable commercial, if more limited, artistic success. Pieter’s brother Jan, also a painter, had a more original style.

Julian Schnabel, painter bestknown for his massive ‘plate paintings’ and film-maker who directed Before Night Falls and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, is father to Vito Schnabel, gallerist and dealer, and one-time-boyfriend of Heidi Klum.

Hans Holbein the Younger was the painter of many famous portraits, including Henry VIII, Jane Seymour and Sir Thomas More. His lesser-known father, also Hans Holbein, was a mostly religious painter.

When it comes to father-and-son writers, there is a long list, including Evelyn and Auberon Waugh, Alexandre Dumas pere et fils, John Steinbeck III (Of Mice and Men) and IV (The Other Side of Eden) and Kingsley Amis (Lord Jim) and Martin Amis (London Fields).