Alina 2018-07-29 14:05:00 painters biographies
Born in Oaxaca, Mexico, on August 26, 1899, Rufino Tamayo was a largely self-taught artist who was influenced by an array of international ideas which informed his depictions of Mexican culture. He garnered acclaim with paintings like "Women of Tehuantepec" and was also known for his printmaking and sculptures. With two museums in his home country named for him, Tamayo died on June 24, 1991.
Alina 2018-07-28 14:05:00 painters biographies
Henry Ossawa Tanner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 21, 1859. As a young man, he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 1891, Tanner moved to Paris, and after several exhibits, gained international acclaim—becoming the first African-American painter to receive such attention. "Nicodemus Visiting Jesus" is one of his most famous works. He's also known for the paintings "The Banjo Lesson" and "The Thankful Poor." Tanner died in 1937 in Paris, France.
A pioneering African-America artist, Henry Ossawa Tanner was born on June 21, 1859, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The oldest of nine children, Tanner was the son of an Episcopal minister and a schoolteacher.
When he was just a few years old, Tanner moved with his family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he would spend most of his childhood. Tanner was the beneficiary of two education-minded parents; his father, Benjamin Tanner, had earned a college degree and become a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopalian Church. In Philadelphia, Tanner attended the Robert Vaux School, an all-black institution and of only a few African-American schools to offer a liberal arts curriculum.
Despite his father's initial objections, Tanner fell in love with the arts. He was 13 when he decided he wanted to become a painter, and throughout his teens, he painted and drew as much as he could. His attention to the creative side was furthered by his poor health: After falling significantly ill as a result of a taxing apprenticeship at a flourmill, the weak Tanner recuperated by staying home and painting.
Finally, in 1880, a healthy Tanner resumed a regular life and enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. There, he studied under Thomas Eakins, an influential teacher who had a profound impact on Tanner's life and work.
Tanner ended up leaving the school early, however, and moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he would teach art and run his own gallery for the next two years.
In 1891, Tanner's life took a dramatic turn with a visit to Europe. In Paris, France, in particular, Tanner discovered a culture that seemed to be light years ahead of America in race relations. Free from the prejudicial confines that defined his life in his native country, Tanner made Paris his home, living out the rest of his life there.
Tanner's greatest early work depicted tender African-American scenes. Undoubtedly his most famous painting, "The Banjo Lesson," which features an older gentleman teaching a young boy how to play the banjo, was created while visiting his family in Philadelphia in 1893. The following year, he produced another masterpiece: "The Thankful Poor."
By the mid-1890s, Tanner was a success, critically admired both in the United States and Europe. In 1899, he created one of his most famous works, "Nicodemus Visiting Jesus," an oil painting on canvas depicting the biblical figure Nicodemus's meeting with Jesus Christ. For the work, he won the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' Lippincott Prize in 1900.
Also in 1899, Tanner married a white American singer, Jessie Olssen. The couple's only child, Jesse, was born in 1903.
Throughout much of the rest of his life, even as he shifted his focus to religious scenes, Tanner continued to receive praise and honors for his work, including being named honorary chevalier of the Order of the Legion Honor—France's most distinguished award—in 1923. Four years later, Tanner was made a full academician of the National Academy of Design—becoming the first African-American to ever receive the distinction.
Henry Ossawa Tanner died at his Paris home on May 25, 1937.
In the ensuing years, his name recognition dipped. However, in the late 1960s, beginning with a solo exhibition of his work at the Smithsonian, Tanner's stature began to rise. In 1991, the Philadelphia Museum of Art assembled a touring retrospective his paintings, setting off a new wave of interest in his life and work.
Alina 2018-07-27 14:05:00 painters biographies
Maurice Utrillo was born in Paris on December 26, 1883. His mother was model and artist Suzanne Valadon and Maurice was given his name by Spanish art critic, Miguel Utrillo. An alcoholic, Utrillo began painting as therapy and his preferred subjects were the deteriorating houses and streets of Montmartre. Utrillo was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1928. He died in 1955.
Alina 2018-07-26 14:05:00 painters biographies
Antoine Watteau was born Oct. 10, 1684, in Valenciennes, France. At 18 he moved to Paris, where he worked for a theatrical scenery painter, and much of Watteau's work consequently embraced the artifice of the theater. His works typified the Rococo style. The greatest was inducted into the academy in 1717. The academicians welcomed him as a painter of the fêtes galantes genre.
Alina 2018-07-25 14:05:00 painters biographies
Born on February 23, 1931, in Cincinnati, Ohio, cartoonist and collagist Tom Wesselmann eventually moved to New York City to become one of the founding figures of the Pop Art movement, making waves with his "Great American Nude" series. He later became well known for his huge canvas paintings of household objects as well as his printmaking and abstract work. He died on December 17, 2004.
Tom Wesselmann was born on February 23, 1931, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and attended university before serving in the Korean War during the early 1950s. While overseas he began to craft cartoons, and upon his return to the States he earned a psychology degree from the University of Cincinnati. He then enrolled at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and later the Cooper Union in New York City, finishing his studies by the late 1950s.
"New York lit him on fire," said Wesselmann's second wife, Claire—a fellow Cooper Union student and model for her husband—about the city's creative scene at that time. Having presumed he would continue cartoon work, Wesselmann was inspired by innovative exhibitions to go in a new direction and worked as a collagist, having initial showings at the Tanager and Green galleries by the early '60s.
He began to create art that incorporated commonplace real-world items with historical portraiture, often focusing on a reclining female nude. Hence he became known for his "Great American Nude" series, linked to more classical works. Due to his particular aesthetic, he was seen, along with figures like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, as one of the purveyors of Pop Art, though Wesselmann stated that he didn't care for the term. Later in the decade his pieces were exhibited in Europe and Brazil.
During the '70s, Wesselmann completed his "Nude" series and went down a specific path with his "Standing Still Life" paintings, which featured objects such as keys and a toothbrush magnified to larger-than-life scale on canvas. He also became known for the "Smokers" series, zeroing in on disembodied presentations of hands and lips, and his "Bedroom Painting" art, with close-ups of objects, forms and faces in vivid color.
Having become an established international artist who was also known for his printmaking, Wesselmann later played with ideas around sculpture and metalwork. In the new millennium he returned to the nude figure, this time in a more abstract sense though continuing his use of an electric palette.
Wesselmann died on December 17, 2004, in New York, after heart surgery, and was survived by his wife Claire and three children. Wesselmann had published his autobiography in 1980, using the alias Slim Stealingworth. Published retrospectives include Tom Wesselmann: His Voice and Vision from Rizzoli International and Wesselmann from Prestel Publishing.
Alina 2018-07-24 14:05:00 painters biographies
Benjamin West, born October 10, 1738 in Pennsylvania, a painter of historic and religious subjects, including King George III of England. One of his most famous works “The Death of General Wolfe” was notable for its realistic use of modern dress.
Alina 2018-07-23 14:05:00 painters biographies
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born on July 11, 1834, in Lowell, Massachusetts. He was educated in St. Petersburg, Russia, then attended the United States Military Academy at West Point. Establishing himself as a painter in Paris and London, Whistler developed his distinctive style, utilizing muted colors and simple forms. His masterpiece is largely credited as "Whistler's Mother" ("Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1"). Whistler died in 1903. His work later provided the inspiration for Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890).
Alina 2018-07-22 14:05:00 painters biographies
Richard Wilson is considered one of Britain's earliest landscape painters and is best known for the picturesque effects and serenity in his pieces. Influenced by painters Nicolas Poussin, Salvator Rosa and Claude Lorrain, Wilson focused on Italian landscapes for most of his work but later in life turned to depicting his own country, Wales.
