by maddoghoek100 » February 21st, 2012, 7:07 am
Best artist or book, depends on what you like and what your skill level is. the list of excellent creators gets longer every day, but below are a few names recognized for different things from animals, modulars, complex folding, and tessellations.
Yoshizawa, Neil Elias, Eric Joisel, Robert Lang, John Montroll, David Brill, Peter Engel, Paul Jackson, Michael LaFosse, Jun Maekawa, Tomoko Fuse, Eric Gjerde, Satoshi Kamiya, Quentin Trollip, Roman Diaz, and the list just goes on and on.
Some are important parts of the history of origami and have passed away (like Yoshizawa, Neil Elias, Eric Joisel) others have been around for years (Lang Montroll). There are more names of great authors than could be put in a list and many of them post here in these forums, so i hope no one is offended for not being mentioned. There are free models online from almost all of these authors that you can test out
One book i always recommend because it is reasonably priced and has models across a range of skill levels is: Genuine Origami by Jun Maekawa