Louis Finkelstein (1923–20 June 2000) was an American painter, art critic and professor. Several of his works have been compared to those of French artist and Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne (1839–1906). Born in New York City in 1923, Louis Finkelstein studied painting at the Cooper Union, the Art Students League of New York and the Brooklyn Museum School of Art that used to be located in the museum as a part of the Brooklyn Museum of Art.  He taught at the Philadelphia College of Art, Yale School of Art (where he served as interim dean of the Art School from 1962–64), and he was the head of the art department at Queens College, CUNY for more than 25 years. In 1979, he received the College Art Association’s award for distinguished teaching and in 1999, was awarded an honorary doctorate in the fine arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Finkelstein received several Fulbright grants, an NEA for painting, and he was a member of the National Academy of Design.

His paintings have been shown at The Whitney Museum of American Art, Yale University, the New York Studio School, the Riverside Museum, the Corcoran Gallery and the Pennsylvania Academy.