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Ābols, Ojārs  

Latvian, 20th century, male.

Born 25 July 1922, in Riga, Latvia; died 1 March 1983, in Riga, Latvian SSR (now Latvia).

Painter and theorist. Historical, still-life, cartographic, environmental, and abstract subjects.

Ojārs Ābols distinguished himself in later years by transcending political orthodoxy and stylistic parochialism in his own work and by enabling colleagues and younger artists to do likewise. His studies began under modernist Romans Suta at Riga’s Second Gymnasium ...

Article

Alberti, Leon Battista degli  

Italian, 15th century, male.

Born 14 February 1404, in Genoa, illegitimate son of a noble Florentine banking family (in exile at the time of his birth); died 1472.

Architect, theorist, painter, sculptor.

Leon Battista Alberti was a leading scholar and architect of the fifteenth century. After receiving his doctorate in canon and civil law from Bologna University in ...

Article

Alberti, Romano  

Italian, 17th century, male.

Active in Rome.

Born 1593, in Borgo San Sepolcro.

Painter, sculptor, engraver, art theorist. Religious subjects. Frescoes.

Served as Secretary to the Accademia di San Luca in Rome (founded by Zuccharo). In 1585, he published in Rome a benchmark Treatise on the Noble Art of Painting...

Article

Albrecht, Siegfried  

German, 20th century, male.

Environmental artist.

Lumino-Kinetic Art.

From certain observations made by Goethe in his Theory of Colours, Siegfried Albrecht produced changing shadows in unexpected shades of colour by the projection of chromatic beams onto objects. The results were partly due to the phenomena of simultaneous contrasts, and partly to the intersecting of vividly coloured beams which triggered an artificial splitting of the light....

Article

Altamira, Adriano  

Italian, 20th – 21st century, male.

Born 17 July 1947, in Milan.

Painter, sculptor, theorist.

Arte Povera, Conceptual Art.

Adriano Altamira put forward his first critical observations on the phenomena of vision in 1967. Next he began to use minimalist structures, plaits and interlacings, like some of the methods used in France by the ...

Article

Amfreville, Henri d'  

French, 20th century, male.

Born 8 January 1906, in Paris.

Painter, lithographer.

His work appeared at the Salon d'Automne in Paris from 1938 to 1941, then at the Salon des Tuileries in 1942 and 1943. He was also a poet and art historian.

Article

Andrade, Oswald de  

Brazilian, 20th century, male.

Born 1914; died 1972.

Painter.

Oswald de Andrade was probably the son of the writer and art theorist, Mario de Andrade. His art, which reveals Surrealist lyricism and folkloric fantasy, has been likened to that of Chagall.

Article

Ansa, Luis  

Argentinian, 20th century, male.

Active in France.

Watercolourist.

Ansa is a teacher of graphic arts and colour theory at the French Institute for the Restoration of Art. In the book The Eagle's Secret (Albin-Michel, 2000), Henri Gougaud describes the turbulent career of Luis Ansa, the 'painter-shaman'. He teaches oriental lacquering, wash procedures and painting in Paris. The Adac gallery and studio held a solo exhibition of his works in Paris in ...

Article

Back, Jakob Conrad  

German, 18th century, male.

Active in Frankfurt am Mainc.1760.

Engraver (burin).

According to the German art historian Philipp Friedrich Gwinner ( Kunst und Künstler in Frankfurt am Main, 1862), Back lived for much of his life in Offenbach. His works are richly praised by Berny de Nogent in his book ...

Article

Barnard, Edward Herbert  

American, 19th century, male.

Born 10 July 1855, in Belmont (Massachusetts); died 16 April 1909, in Westerly (Massachusetts).

Painter. Landscapes.

Edward Herbert Barnard learned the art and theory of painting in Belmont and Boston, and between 1885 and 1889 studied in Paris with Julian and Collin. There are paintings by him in the Academy in Bradford, Massachusetts, the Art Association of Lincoln, Nebraska, and the St Botolph Club in Boston....

Article

Bell, Quentin  

British, 20th century, male.

Born 1910, in London; died 1996, in Firle (East Sussex).

Painter, potter, writer, art historian.

Bloomsbury Group.

Quentin Bell was the son of the painter Vanessa Bell and the art critic Clive Bell. An author, biographer and art historian, he is also well known as an artist. Bell studied at Peterborough Lodge in Swiss Cottage, London, and Leighton Park School in Reading before dropping out at age seventeen to pursue his career as a painter. In ...

Article

Berlepsch-Valendas, Hans Eduard von  

Swiss, 19th – 20th century, male.

Active in Germany.

Born 31 December 1849, in St Gall; died 1921, in Planegg.

Architect, painter, decorative designer, theorist. Designs (furniture/fabrics/metal objects/ceramics).

Jugendstil.

From 1868 to 1871 Hans Eduard von Berlepsch-Valendas was a student of architecture with Gottfried Sempers in Zurich. After graduating he abandoned architecture while he was living in Frankfurt, to go and train as a painter in Munich (...

Article

Bermejo, Bartolomé  

Spanish, 15th century, male.

Born c. 1425 or 1430, in Cordova; died soon after 1498.

Painter. Religious subjects.

At present nothing is known about the Bartolomé Bermejo's life before around 1467; however, art historians have built up theories based on what is known of his later years. There are two salient features of the known part of his life: he travelled a great deal, so was international in outlook, and he was acquainted with Flemish technique and Italian painting. It is therefore tempting to think he must have travelled when he was younger. It has been suggested that he went to Valencia, Seville, Flanders and Italy. The presence of some of his works in Italy, in particular the ...

Article

Boito, Silvestro  

Italian, 19th century, male.

Born 31 July 1802, in Polpeto; died 1852, in Motagnana (Veneto).

Miniaturist.

Father of architect and art historian Camillo Boito.

Article

Bragaglia, Alberto  

Italian, 20th century, male.

Born 26 January 1896, in Frosinone; died 30 April 1985, in Anzio.

Painter, draughtsman, watercolourist, art theorist. Figures, nudes, landscapes.

Futurism.

Alberto Bragaglia was the youngest of the four Bragaglia brothers. He taught himself to paint, attending life-drawing classes at the Accademia in Rome when he was young. While he was painting, he also studied philosophy, made stage sets and wrote about dance and theatre, often under the pseudonym Alberto Visconti (Visconti was his mother's maiden name). He contributed to numerous periodicals, and notably to the following: ...

Article

Briggs, Dana  

American, 20th – 21st century, female.

Active in France since 1969.

Born 1946, in Cleveland (Ohio).

Painter, draughtswoman, engraver.

Dana Briggs studied the theory and practice of fine art at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) between 1965 and 1969. She has participated in collective exhibitions in Paris, including the Salon des Artistes Indépendants (...

Article

Burch, Jacques Hippolyte van der  

French, 19th century, male.

Born 25 November 1786 or or, in Paris; died 26 October 1854 or or, in Paris.

Painter. Genre scenes, landscapes.

Studied under David, Guérin and his own father Jacques-André van der Burch; also active as an art historian.

Béziers: Hunter Bringing Down a Bear...

Article

Burnett, Calvin  

American, 20th century, male.

Born 18 July 1921, in Cambridge (Massachusetts).

Painter, engraver, art theorist.

Calvin Burnett studied at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. His work is an indictment of capitalist corruption, as in I've Been in Some Big Towns, 1942, well served by a style which highlights the bleakness of poverty. Oppression is palpable in his dark portraits assailed by shadows in compositions based on the superimpositions of angles. He has also written a book on drawing: ...

Article

Carrà, Carlo  

Italian, 20th century, male.

Born 11 February 1881, in Quargnento (Alessandria); died 13 April 1966, in Milan.

Painter, watercolourist, draughtsman, collage artist, engraver (including etching), lithographer, decorative designer, art theorist. Landscapes, landscapes with figures, urban landscapes, seascapes. Frescoes.

Futurism, Pittura Metafiscia (Metaphysical Painting), Novecento Italiano, Magic Realism...

Article

Carus, Carl Gustav  

German, 19th century, male.

Born 1789, in Leipzig; died 1869, in Dresden.

Painter, watercolourist. Landscapes.

Carus was a true Romantic - a doctor, professor of gynaecology, botanist, writer and aesthetic theorist. He illustrated his theories himself, and was one of the most important representatives of the school of German Romantic landscape painting. He became an honorary member of the academy of fine art in Dresden. Unfortunately, many of his most representative works (along with several works by other painters of the movement) were destroyed in the fire at the ...