Writer, Academic, Painter (1915–1991)

Robert Motherwell was an American painter best known for being an influential force in the abstract expressionism movement of the 1940s.

Synopsis

Robert Motherwell was the youngest and possibly most influential of a group of artists that included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. The group renounced the prevalent American style of the 1940s for abstract expressionism. Motherwell also contributed to art journals and his writings are considered a source for those who want to learn more about non-representational art.

Painter (c. 1497–c. 1543)

One of the greatest portraitists of all time, Hans Holbein, the Younger is known for his depictions of Henry VIII.

Synopsis

Hans Holbein, the Younger is known for the compelling realism of his portraits, the most notable of which depict the royal court of Henry VIII. During his life he produced over 150 life-sized and miniature portraits of royalty and nobility.

Painter (c. 1599–1660)

Diego Velázquez was a 17th century Spanish painter who produced “Las Meninas” and many renowned portraits as a member of King Philip IV’s royal court.

Synopsis

Spanish painter Diego Velázquez was born circa June 6, 1599, in Seville, Spain. Although his early paintings were religious-themed, he became renowned for his realistic, complex portraits as a member of King Philip IV’s court. In his later years, the Spanish master produced a renowned portrait of Pope Innocent X and the famed “Las Meninas.” He died on August 6, 1660, in Madrid.

Early Years and Development

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was born in Seville, Spain, circa June 6, 1599. At the age of 11, he began a six-year apprenticeship with local painter Francisco Pacheco. Velázquez’s early works were of the traditional religious themes favored by his master, but he also became influenced by the naturalism of Italian painter Caravaggio.

Velázquez set up his own studio after completing his apprenticeship in 1617. A year later, he married Pacheco’s daughter, Juana. By 1621, the couple had two daughters.

Royal Patronage

In 1622, Velázquez moved to Madrid, where, thanks to his father-in-law’s connections, he earned the chance to paint a portrait of the powerful Count-Duke of Olivares. The count-duke then recommended Velázquez’s services to King Philip IV; upon seeing a completed portrait, the young king of Spain decided that no one else would paint him and appointed Velázquez one of his court painters.

The move to the royal court gave Velázquez access to a vast collection of works and brought him into contact with important artists such as Flemish baroque master Peter Paul Reubens, who spent six months at the court in 1628. Among Velázquez’s notable works from that period were “The Triumph of Bacchus,” in which a group of revelers falls under the powerful spell of the Greek god of wine.

Velázquez traveled to Italy from June 1629 to January 1631, where he was influenced by the region’s great artists. After returning to Madrid, he began a series of portraits that featured members of the royal family on horseback. Velázquez also devoted time to painting the dwarves who served in King Philip’s court, taking care to depict them as complex, intelligent beings. Along with his painting duties, Velázquez undertook increasing responsibilities within the court, ranging from wardrobe assistant to superintendent of palace works.

Velázquez made a second trip to Italy from 1649 to 1651. During this time, he was given the opportunity to paint Pope Innocent X, producing a work that is considered among the finest portraits ever rendered. Velázquez also produced a portrait of his servant, Juan de Pareja, which is admired for its striking realism, and the “Venus Rokeby,” his only surviving female nude.

Later Years

Velázquez returned to his portraiture after rejoining the Madrid court, his technique more assured than ever. In 1656, he produced perhaps his most acclaimed work, “Las Meninas.” In this snapshot-like painting, two handmaidens dote on future empress Margarita Theresa while Velázquez peers from behind a large easel, ostensibly studying the king and queen, though his gaze meets the viewer’s.

In 1658, Velázquez was made a knight of Santiago. After being tasked with decoration responsibilities for the wedding of Maria Theresa and Louis XIV, Velázquez became ill. He died in Madrid on August 6, 1660.

Velázquez is remembered as one of the great masters of Western art. Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali are among the artists who considered him a strong influence, while French Impressionist Édouard Manet described the Spanish great as “the painter of painters.”

Military Leader, Journalist, Painter, Warrior (c. 1584–1645)

Miyamoto Musashi was a 16th-17th century Japanese samurai, ink painting (or sumi-e) artist and author of the classic strategy text The Book of Five Rings.

Synopsis

Miyamoto Musashi was born in 1584 in Mimasaka or Harima, Japan. He killed a man in single combat at age 13 and later became a ronin (masterless samurai). He invented the style of fencing with two swords, and claimed to have fought in more than 60 duels. According to legend, Musashi wrote his famous work on strategy— Gorin no sho (The Book of Five Rings), on his deathbed. He died in 1645.

Painter (1891–1984)

Guatemalan muralist Carlos Mérida created work inspired by the social revolution in Mexico. An earthquake destroyed his mosaic murals in Mexico City in 1985.

Synopsis

Carlos Mérida was born on December 2, 1891, in Guatemala. From 1910 to 1914, Mérida traveled in Europe studying art and mixing with avant-garde artists. He returned to Guatemala in 1914 and had his first one-man show. Inspired by the revolution in Mexico, Mérida traveled there are became involved in the country’s mural-painting renaissance where he created many of his best works. He died in 1984.

Painter (1896–1987)

André Masson was a French painter and graphic artist associated with Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.

Synopsis

André Masson born on January 4th, 1896 in Balagny, France. He was severely wounded in WWI, and joined the Surrealist movement in 1924, becoming the leading practitioner of automatism. He lived in Spain (1934–36) and later the U.S. (1941–45), where he became an important link between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. He died in 1987.

Painter, Sculptor, Academic (1824–1904)

Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter, sculptor, and teacher. His best-known works are scenes inspired by his travels in Egypt.

Synopsis

Born in Vesoul, France, in 1824, Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter, sculptor and teacher. His best-known works are scenes inspired by his travels in Egypt. His particular style is now known as Academicism—work influenced by European academies or universities, specifically the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Gérôme started off as a painter and ended his career mostly as a sculptor. He died in Paris in 1904.

Painter (c. 1598–1664)

Francisco de Zurbarán was a Spanish Baroque painter who mastered a naturalistic style. The majority of his work followed religious themes.

Synopsis

Francisco de Zurbarán was born circa November 7, 1598, probably in Fuente de Cantos, Spain (the date and place of his baptism). As a teenager, he studied painting, and soon was creating pieces for monasteries in Spain. Later, Zurbarán also sent his paintings to the New World. As styles changed, his popularity began to fade before his death at age 65 on August 27, 1664, in Madrid, Spain.

Early Life

Francisco de Zurbarán was born circa November 7, 1598, probably in Fuente de Cantos, Spain (the date and place of his baptism). As a child, Zurbarán showed a talent for painting, and was sent to Seville in 1614 to apprentice with the artist Pedro Diaz de Villanueva.

Success as a Painter

After finishing his training in 1617, Zurbarán moved to the town of Llerena, near Fuente de Cantos. After getting married, he worked for years as an artist-for-hire. Following the death of his first wife, María Páez, in 1623, Zurbarán wed Beatriz de Morales in 1625. The money and family connections Zurbarán’s second wife possessed were a boon for his career, enabling him to return to Seville.

At the time, religious orders were a significant source of work for artists, and Zurbarán pursued such commissions once he was in Seville. In 1627, he painted “Christ on a Cross” for a Dominican monastery. A masterpiece, the work secured Zurbarán’s standing as a respected, sought-after painter. He received an invitation to stay in the city from the council of Seville in 1629.

As he mainly worked for monastic orders, the majority of Zurbarán’s work consisted of religious imagery. Many of his theologically inspired paintings are simple, yet emotionally compelling, works that showcase his naturalistic style, as well as his skilled use of light and shadow. Zurbarán’s few secular pieces include exquisite still life images, such as “Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose” (1633), and a “Labors of Hercules” series painted for the Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid.

Career Difficulties

Although Zurbarán was an accomplished artist, some of his work has revealed his limitations. The creations of his workshop were occasionally of poor quality, perhaps due to his unfit assistants. And when Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s work became popular in Seville, Zurbarán found himself displaced as the city’s foremost painter, even though he tried—unsuccessfully—to imitate Murillo’s style.

Zurbarán’s career was at its height in the 1630s. In the 1640s, monasteries offered fewer commissions, reducing his opportunities. With his domestic market in decline, Zurbarán turned to the New World, exporting a number of canvases. However, fleet seizures kept him from receiving some payments, which exacerbated his financial difficulties. In the 1650s, he once again focused on domestic commissions, though Zurbarán no longer commanded the high fees he once had.

Death and Legacy

Zurbarán moved to Madrid with his third wife in 1658. He died there, in straitened circumstances, on August 27, 1664. Zurbarán’s artistic reputation may have varied during his lifetime, but today his best pieces mark him as a leading painter from the Spanish Baroque period.

Painter (1471–1528)

Albrecht Durer was regarded as the greatest German Renaissance artist. His work includes altarpieces, portraits and self-portraits, engravings, and woodcuts.

Synopsis

German Renaissance artist Albrecht Durer was born May 21, 1471, in Nurnberg. In 1494 he traveled to Italy, where he remained until 1495. The trip had a strong effect on Durer; echoes of Italian art are apparent in most of his drawings, paintings, and graphics of the following decade. Italian influences were slower to take hold in his graphics than in his drawings and paintings. He died in 1528.

Painter, Illustrator (1899–1979)

Aaron Douglas was an African-American painter and graphic artist who played a leading role in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

Synopsis

Aaron Douglas was an African-American painter and graphic artist who played a leading role in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. His first major commission, to illustrate Alain LeRoy Locke’s book, The New Negro, prompted requests for graphics from other Harlem Renaissance writers. By 1939, Douglas started teaching at Fisk University, where he remained for the next 27 years.

Early Life

Born in Topeka, Kansas, Aaron Douglas was a leading figure in the artistic and literary movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. He is sometimes referred to as “the father of black American art.” Douglas developed an interest in art early on, finding some of his inspiration from his mother’s love for painting watercolors.

After graduating from Topeka High School in 1917, Douglas attended the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. There, he pursued his passion for creating art, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1922. Around that time, he shared his interest with the students of Lincoln High School in Kansas City, Missouri. He taught there for two years, before deciding to move to New York City. At the time, New York’s Harlem neighborhood had a thriving arts scene.

Harlem Renaissance

Arriving in 1925, Douglas quickly became immersed Harlem’s cultural life. He contributed illustrations to Opportunity, the National Urban League’s magazine, and to The Crisis, put out by the National Association for the Advancement Colored People. Douglas created powerful images of African-American life and struggles, and won awards for the work he created for these publications, ultimately receiving a commission to illustrate an anthology of philosopher Alain LeRoy Locke’s work, entitled The New Negro.

Douglas had a unique artistic style that fused his interests in modernism and African art. A student of German-born painter Winold Reiss, he incorporated parts of Art Deco along with elements of Egyptian wall paintings in his work. Many of his figures appeared as bold silhouettes.

In 1926, Douglas married teacher Alta Sawyer, and the couple’s Harlem home became a social Mecca for the likes of Langston Hughes and W. E. B. Du Bois, among other powerful African Americans of the early 1900s. Around the same time, Douglas worked on a magazine with novelist Wallace Thurman to feature African-American art and literature. Entitled Fire!!, the magazine only published one issue.

With his reputation for creating compelling graphics, Douglas became an in-demand illustrator for many writers. Some of his most famous illustration projects include his images for James Weldon Johnson’s poetic work, God’s Trombone (1927), and Paul Morand’s Black Magic (1929). In addition to his illustration work, Douglas explored educational opportunities; after receiving a fellowship from the Barnes Foundation in Pennsylvania, he took time to study African and modern art.

Douglas created some of his best-known painting in the 1930s. In 1930, he was hired to create a mural for the library at Fisk University. The following year, he spent time in Paris, where he studied with Charles Despiau and Othon Friesz. Back in New York, in 1933, Douglas had his first solo art show. Soon after, he started one of his most legendary works—a series of murals entitled “Aspects of Negro Life” that featured four panels, each depicting a different part of the African-American experience. Each mural included a captivating mix of Douglas’s influences, from jazz music to abstract and geometric art.

Later Career

In the late 1930s, Douglas returned to Fisk University, this time as an assistant professor, and founded the school’s art department. Taking his educational responsibilities quite seriously, he enrolled at Columbia University’s Teachers College in 1941, and spent three years earning a master’s degree in art education. He also established the Carl Van Vechten Gallery at Fisk and helped secure important works for its collection, including pieces by Winold Reiss and Alfred Steiglitz.

Douglas remained committed to learning and growing as an artist, outside of his work in the classroom. He received a fellowship from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation in 1938, which funded his painting trip to Haiti and several other Caribbean islands. He later won other grants to support his artistic endeavors. Continuing to produce new works, Douglas had a number of solo exhibits over the years.

Death and Legacy

In his later years, Douglas received countless honors. In 1963, he was invited by President John F. Kennedy to attend a celebration of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, held at the White House. He also earned an honorary doctorate from Fisk University in 1973, seven years after his retirement from the school. He remained an active painter and lecturer until the end of his life.

Douglas died at the age of 79 on February 2, 1979, in a Nashville hospital. According to some reports, he died of a pulmonary embolism.

A special memorial service was held for Douglas at Fisk University, where he had taught for nearly 30 years. At the service, Walter J. Leonard, the university’s president at the time, remembered Douglas with the following statement: “Aaron Douglas was one of the most accomplished of the interpreters of our institutions and cultural values. He captured the strength and quickness of the young; he translated the memories of the old; and he projected the determination of the inspired and courageous.”