Painting: Top 13

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Van Gogh would have missed out on a rating of the top ten of his time (at the time of his death he was virtually unknown), but cultural polls have their points. Every five years, France's Connaissance des Arts polls connoisseurs with the question, "Who are the ten living painters whom you prefer today?" The 86 replies from a mostly European group of critics, curators, dealers and historians yielded more than 200 names. The result was actually the top 13, since No. 1 was declared hors concours and there were two ties. The list:

1. Pablo Picasso, 35 votes

2. Joan Miró, 31

3. Max Ernst, 27

4. Jean Dubuffet, 24

5. Francis Bacon, 21

6-7. Marc Chagall, Marc Tobey, 16

8. Vieira da Silva, 14

9. Hans Hartung, 13

10-11. Sam Francis, Mark Rothko, 11

12. Balthus, 10

13. Willem de Kooning, 9

Nine of the 13 appeared in the Connaissance poll of 1961. Bacon, Balthus, De Kooning and Rothko are the newcomers.