Pakistani-born painter Salman Toor has earned a place on TIME magazine’s first-ever TIME100 Art list, a new ranking that celebrates 100 people shaping the contemporary art world. The list, unveiled this week, brings together painters, sculptors, photographers, museum directors, curators and collectors from across the globe.
Toor, 42, was placed in the list’s Icons category, reserved for figures whose influence extends beyond their own studios to the wider art scene. Born in Lahore, the New York-based artist joins an inaugural edition of the global list that highlights people shaping the contemporary art world.
Toor rose to international recognition after his debut museum solo exhibition, “How Will I Know,” opened at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art in 2020. Since then, his career has grown rapidly: his paintings have fetched more than $1 million at auction, and his work has been shown internationally, including at the 2024 Venice Biennale. A 2022 exhibition, “No Ordinary Love,” organised by the Baltimore Museum of Art, later travelled to venues in Tampa, Honolulu and Massachusetts.
More milestones lie ahead, as Toor’s first solo exhibition in Europe, titled “Someone Like You,” is set to open at London’s Courtauld Gallery on October 2. The show will feature nearly twenty of his paintings, known for their dreamlike, greenish-toned scenes exploring identity, intimacy and belonging.
This is not Toor’s first brush with TIME recognition, he previously appeared on the magazine’s TIME100 Next list in 2021, which spotlights rising global talent. Toor now lives and works in New York City.
