A painter is a person who paints pictures as art, or someone who covers walls and other surfaces with paint.
From “paint” plus the agent noun suffix -er, from Old French *peintour* “painter, artist.” The root goes back to Latin *pingere* “to paint, embroider, decorate.”
The same word covers both the artist shaping ideas and the worker covering walls, showing how art and everyday labor share tools. Many famous painters were also decorators, sign‑painters, or craftsmen to pay the bills.
In art history, 'painter' was long treated as a default-male category, with women painters excluded from training, patronage, and canonical narratives. Catalogs and museums often listed women as exceptions or omitted them entirely.
Use 'painter' as a gender-neutral term and avoid assuming gender based on genre or style. When discussing art history, be explicit about including women and nonbinary painters where they have been overlooked.
Women painters such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Alma Thomas, and many others significantly shaped painting traditions despite systemic exclusion; naming them challenges the idea that 'painter' historically meant 'man.'
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