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(b Copenhagen, Sept 11, 1743; d Frederiksdal, Copenhagen, June 4, 1809).

Danish painter, designer and architect. His paintings reveal both Neo-classical and Romantic interests and include history paintings as well as literary and mythological works. The variety of his subject-matter reflects his wide learning, a feature further evidenced by the broad range of his creative output. In addition to painting, he produced decorative work, sculpture and furniture designs, as well as being engaged as an architect. Successfully combining both intellectual and imaginative powers, he came to be fully appreciated only in the 1980s.

He studied at the Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi in Copenhagen (1764–72), and in 1767 he assisted Johan Edvard Mandelberg (1730–86) in painting the domed hall of the Fredensborg Slot with scenes from the Homeric epic the Iliad. In 1772 he was granted a five-year travelling scholarship from the Kunstakademi to study in Rome. During his Roman sojourn he extensively copied works of art from the period of antiquity up to that of the Carracci family. His friendships with the Danish painter Jens Juel, the Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel and the Swiss painter Johann Heinrich Fuseli placed him among artists who were in the mainstream of a widespread upheaval in European art. In these years Abildgaard developed both Neo-classical and Romantic tastes; his masterpiece of the period is ...

(b. Oakland, CA, 1893; d. Shiraz, Iran, 25 Jan. 1977).

American historian of Iranian art. While studying mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, Ackerman met and eventually married Arthur Upham Pope, with whom she had taken courses in philosophy and aesthetics. In 1926 she and Pope organized the first ever exhibition of Persian art at the Pennsylvania Museum and helped create the First International Congress of Oriental Art. In 1930 Ackerman was stricken with polio but taught herself to walk again. They were instrumental in preparing the 1931 Persian Art Exhibition at Burlington House, London, and the Second International Congress of Iranian Art and Archaeology, as well as the Third Congress in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1935 and the exhibition of Iranian art at the Iranian Institute in New York in 1940. She visited Iran for the first time in 1964, when the shah of Iran invited Pope to revive the Asia Institute; it was associated with Pahlavi University in Shiraz until ...

(b Puławy, June 1756; d Florence, Feb 8, 1841).

Polish architect and writer, also active in Italy. He probably studied in Rome in the late 1770s and returned to Italy in 1785–6 under the aegis of Stanisław Kostka Potocki, a collector and amateur architect with whom he collaborated throughout his life. In 1786 Aigner and Potocki refronted the church of St Anna, Warsaw, using a giant composite order on high pedestals. The political turmoil of the 1790s disrupted Aigner’s career, but during his second phase of creativity (1797–1816) he won fame through his work on the great estate of the Czartoryski family at Puławy, on the Vistula west of Lublin, the most important centre of cultural life in Poland during the Enlightenment. Aigner had already erected the Marynka Palace there in 1790, a variation on the Petit Trianon at Versailles, France, and from 1798 he began to add ornamental buildings to go with the new Picturesque layout of the Puławy gardens: a Chinese pavilion, a Gothick house and a peripheral Temple of the Sibyl with a shallow dome. In ...

American institution and art school promoting fine art that was active between 1802 and 1841 in New York. The Academy was the second art academy established in the USA, following the Columbianum Academy of Philadelphia. It was founded in 1802 as the New York Academy of the Fine Arts by its first president, mayor Edward Livingston, and his brother Robert R. Livingston, president from 1804 to 1813. The Academy’s first task was to procure plaster casts from antique statues in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. With the exception of this permanent exhibition, however, the institution largely languished. In 1804 it changed its name to the American Academy of the Arts, finally being incorporated in 1808.

After his return to the USA in 1815, John Trumbull became a main force behind the Academy’s reactivation. In 1816, its first exhibition in new rooms was highly successful. Succeeding DeWitt Clinton as president in ...

American not-for-profit organization founded in 1909 that initiates and organizes art exhibitions and provides educational and professional programs in collaboration with the museum community. Established by an act of Congress in 1909, after former Secretary of State and US Senator Elihu Root called for the founding of an organization “whose purpose is to promote the study of art, the cultivation of public taste, and the application of art to the development of material conditions in our country,” the American Federation of Arts (AFA) is one of the oldest art organizations in the country and serves nearly 300 museum members in the USA and abroad. Root’s then revolutionary proposal was unanimously endorsed by representatives of 80 American art institutions in attendance. Among the 35 founders, in addition to Root, were presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft, as well as artist William Merritt Chase and businessmen Mellon, Andrew W(illiam), and J(ohn) Pierpont Morgan...

(b Rome,1850; d Rome, July 2, 1881).

Italian painter and art teacher active in Australia. He trained at the Accademia di S Luca, Rome. His conservative style emulates his teacher Alessandro Capalti’s use of drape, column and rhetorical gesture, as seen in Capalti’s portraits at the University of Sydney. On Bishop James Quinn’s advice, Anivitti emigrated to Brisbane in 1871 with the sculptor Achille Simonetti. In 1875 he was appointed first teacher of painting and drawing at the Art Training School of the New South Wales Academy of Art, founded in 1871. Among his 30 recorded pupils were medal winners Frank Mahony (1862–1916), artist for the Picturesque Atlas of Australasia, whose drawing of Anivitti is at the Mitchell Library, Sydney, and A. J. Fischer, staff artist for the Illustrated Sydney News and Bulletin.

Anivitti’s duties at the Academy included curatorship of a collection of paintings acquired by the Academy with government funds. These paintings became the foundation of the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, whose antecedents were in the Academy....

(b Manchester, Oct 19, 1832; d Abbots Langley, Herts, April 22, 1911).

English painter, designer and administrator of art education. When he left school he embarked on a business career in Manchester. In 1853 he travelled to Paris, where he became a pupil in the studio of Ary Scheffer. The semi-bohemian life that Armstrong led in Paris from 1853 to 1856, with his artist friends E. J. Poynter, T. R. Lamont (1826–98) and Whistler, is described in George Du Maurier’s novel Trilby (1894; the character Taffy is modelled on Armstrong). During the later 1850s Armstrong travelled and painted in Europe and in Algiers; after c. 1860 he settled in London.

Armstrong’s early paintings (e.g. A Street Scene in Manchester, 1861; Manchester, C.A.G.), which were exhibited at the Royal Manchester Institution, the British Institution and the Royal Academy, generally treat themes of social deprivation. In the later 1860s Armstrong joined the circle of painters associated with the emergent Aesthetic Movement. He painted bland but harmonious figurative pictures without narrative subject or contemporary references, such as ...

One of the oldest and largest artist-run schools of art instruction in the USA. The Arts Students League (ASL) was founded in 1875 by and for art students, many of whom were women. It opened largely in response to student dissatisfaction with the classes and conservative leadership at the National Academy of Design (NAD), then the predominant school of art instruction. The Academy had been founded in 1825 by artists including Samuel F(inley) B(reese) Morse, Asher B(rown) Durand, and Thomas Cole. Faced with financial difficulty, it was rumored that live figure drawing classes were to be canceled at the Academy, and therefore students and concerned teachers called for a meeting to initiate a new program of art instruction. The Art Students League was independently funded by tuition fees and vowed that life drawing would always be available. The mission of the ASL remains to emphasize the importance of artistic creativity, to maintain the greatest respect for artists who devote their lives to art and to educate students in the process of making art in an environment where anyone who wishes to pursue an art education can realize their full potential....

(Rossi)

(b Alderstone, England, Jan 27, 1851; d Bondi, Sydney, April 27, 1942).

Australian painter and writer . He attended the West London School of Art and, following the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1878 the newspaper owner David Syme invited Ashton to Melbourne to produce black-and-white illustrations for the Illustrated Australian News. After a disagreement with the management he transferred to the rival Australasian Sketcher. In 1883 he went to Sydney, where he joined the staff of the Picturesque Atlas of Australia and also contributed to the Sydney Bulletin. Ashton was an ardent disciple of Impressionist painting and claimed to have executed the first plein-air landscape in Australia: Evening, Merri Creek (1882; Sydney, A.G. NSW). Much of his work, as in the watercolour A Solitary Ramble (1888; Sydney, A.G. NSW), had a strong sentimental streak. In addition to his outdoor works Ashton painted a number of portraits, such as that of Helen Ashton...

American multi-ethnic arts organization based in New York’s Chinatown. The Asian American Arts Centre (AAAC) and its predecessors, the Asian American Dance Theatre (1974–93) and the Asian Arts Institute (1981–8), emerged from the milieu of the Basement Workshop, the first working group of the Asian American Movement on the East Coast, whose mouthpiece was the journal Bridge (1970–81). After the closing of the Basement Workshop in 1987, the Dance Theatre and the Asian Arts Institute were consolidated as the AAAC.

Directed by Eleanor S. Yung, the Dance Theatre was at the core of the organization’s activities from the 1970s through the early 1990s, performing traditional dances from several Asian cultures alongside modern and postmodern forms. In the early 1980s, the Asian Arts Institute began to hold exhibitions and collect slides of artists’ work and documentation of their activities, working primarily with artists involved in the downtown art scene. Early programs included open studio events for artists working in Chinatown and exhibitions of the work of Arlan Huang (...

(b Dolenčice, nr Škofja Loka, May 30, 1862; d Munich, Aug 5, 1905).

Slovenian painter and teacher, active in Germany . He trained in Ljubljana with the Slovenian painter Janez Wolf (1825–84), who taught him in a style derived from Anselm Feuerbach and the work of the Nazarenes and emphasized the ethical ideals and role of art. Ažbe studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna (1882–4), and at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich (1884–91), where he became an excellent draughtsman, especially with nudes and portrait heads. In the spring of 1891 he opened his own private school, the Ažbè-Schule, which established a reputation. From 1898 to 1901 Igor’ Grabar’ joined him as a teacher there. Its students included the Slovenian Impressionists Matija Jama (b 1872), Rihard Jakopič and Matej Sternen (b 1870), the Serbian Nadežda Petrović, the Croatian Josip Račić (1885–1909) and the Czech Ludvík Kuba, as well as Vasily Kandinsky and ...

[Shijun]

(b Kyoto, March 3, 1844; d Kyoto, February 20, 1895).

Japanese painter, book illustrator and art educator. Born the fourth son of Yasuda Shirobei, a Kyoto moneylender, the young Bairei was adopted into the Kōno family. In 1852 he began his artistic training under the Maruyama-school painter, Nakajima Raishō (1796–1871). After Raishō’s death, Bairei studied with the Shijō-school master Shiokawa Bunrin (1808–77). He also studied Chinese literature and calligraphy with Confucian scholars. In 1873 his talent was officially recognized when he was included among the painters selected to show at the second Kyoto Exhibition.

In 1878 he and the painter Mochizuki Gyokusen (1834–1913) successfully petitioned the governor of Kyoto Prefecture to establish the Kyoto Prefectural Painting School (Kyōto Fu Gagakkō) in 1880. Bairei was appointed instructor in the Kanō and Tōyō Sesshū styles of ink painting (suibokuga; see Japan §VI 4., (iii)), but in 1881 he resigned his post to open a private art academy. Among his students were ...

American community-based arts and activist group in New York that flourished from 1971 to 1986. Basement Workshop (Inc.) evolved during the Asian American art movement, inspired by the Black Power and the Third World Liberation movements of the late 1960s. The group of artists, writers, performers, and social activists initially met in a leaky basement at 54 Elizabeth Street located in New York’s Chinatown. Basement moved successively to 22 Catherine Street, 199 Lafayette Street, expanded to include spaces at 7 Eldridge Street and 32 East Broadway, and finally returned to 22 Catherine Street during the collective’s existence from 1971 to 1986.

Basement was co-founded by Danny Yung (b 1943), Eleanor Yung, Peter Pan, Frank Ching (b 1943), and Rocky Chin. Its activities grew from the “Chinatown Report of 1969,” which was headed by Danny Yung and funded by the Ford Foundation. Basement was formally incorporated in ...

American organization dedicated to improving the quality of architectural education. Incorporated in 1916 by the architect Lloyd Warren (1867–1922), the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design (BAID) was an outgrowth of the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects (SBAA; 1894–1942) established by his brother Whitney Warren (1864–1943) with Thomas Hastings and Ernest Flagg who had all studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and were nationally recognized American architects. BAID was dedicated to the improvement of architectural education by providing a centralized location for the distribution and judging of design problems. Architecture schools and private ateliers located throughout the United States developed projects based on the programs created by BAID. The student work was then sent to the headquarters in New York to be judged. An award system of medals and mentions cited the work considered most deserving by the jury of distinguished architects. The award winning projects published in ...

(b Hamburg, April 14, 1868; d Berlin, Feb 27, 1940).

German architect, designer and painter. Progressing from painting and graphics to product design and architecture, Behrens achieved his greatest successes with his work for the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG), in which he reconciled the Prussian Classicist tradition with the demands of industrial fabrication.

After attending the Realgymnasium in Altona, he began his painting studies in 1886 at the Kunstakademie in Karlsruhe. From there he moved to Düsseldorf, where he studied with Ferdinand Brütt. In December 1889 Behrens married Lilli Krämer, and the following year the couple moved to Munich, where he continued his studies with Hugo Kotschenreiter (1854–1908). Behrens was one of the founder-members of the Munich Secession (see Secession, §1) in 1893 and, shortly afterwards, a founder of the more progressive Freie Vereinigung Münchener Künstler, with Otto Eckmann, Max Slevogt, Wilhelm Trübner and Lovis Corinth. He also joined the circle associated with the magazine Pan, which included Otto Julius Bierbaum, Julius Meier-Graefe, Franz Blei, Richard Dehmel and Otto Eckmann....

(b Nyíregyháza, Jan 28, 1844; d Dolány, Czechoslovakia [now Szécsény, Hungary], July 16, 1920).

Hungarian painter and teacher. In 1861 he was accepted by the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, where from 1864 to 1869 he was a pupil of Karl Theodor von Piloty, whose influence can be seen in many of Benczúr’s works. During his first year at the academy he painted a small Self-portrait (Budapest, N.G.) that showed him to be already an accomplished artist. His talent as a modern portrait painter is illustrated by the sensitive portrait of his sister, Etelka with Black Lace Shawl (1868; Budapest, N.G.). Benczúr’s lack of ambition, however, led him to concentrate on history pictures: while he was still a pupil of Piloty’s he painted Laszló Hunyadi’s Farewell (1866; Budapest, N.G.), one of the greatest Hungarian history paintings. His early works are full of patriotic sentiments, but later Benczúr distanced himself from intense dramatic situations and from the triumphant episodes of Hungary’s past. In ...

(b Stockholm, March 29, 1828; d Stockholm, Sept 23, 1880).

Swedish painter and teacher. Edvard Bergh abandoned a legal career to enter the Konstakademi in Stockholm in 1852. In 1854 he received the Akademi’s travel scholarship and set out on a three-year study trip to Düsseldorf, Switzerland and Italy. In Düsseldorf he became a pupil of the Norwegian landscape painter Hans Fredrik Gude, whose paintings of dramatic mountainous landscapes and waterfalls, characterized by a careful study of detail and clear contrasts of light, left their impression on Bergh’s early style. Another important influence was that of the Swiss landscape painter Alexandre Calame, whom he met in Geneva. In 1861 Bergh was appointed to direct the recently founded landscape school at the Konstakademi in Stockholm. In 1867 he became a professor there and in this post had a significant influence on the development of Swedish landscape painting.

From the late 1860s Bergh stopped painting Düsseldorf subjects and concentrated on the landscape of central Sweden. Most typical of this period, on which Bergh’s great popularity came to rest, are summer landscapes with birch forests, lakes and grazing cattle, for example ...

(b Salzburg, May 1, 1753; d Prague, June 25, 1829).

Austrian painter, printmaker, draughtsman, illustrator and teacher, active in Bohemia. He was taught by his father, the sculptor and painter Josef Bergler the elder (1718–88), and, during his stay in Italy, by Martin Knoller in Milan and Anton von Maron in Rome. An accomplished portrait painter, he was employed as official painter by bishops and cardinals at Passau and painted a number of altarpieces in Austria and especially in Bohemia. He helped establish the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague (1800), which placed a new emphasis on draughtsmanship, composition and Classical subjects and models. As the first Director of the Academy, Bergler won new academic prestige for art in Bohemia and, for himself, a privileged position in obtaining commissions such as the Curtain at the Estates Theatre (sketches, 1803–4; Prague, N.G., Convent of St Agnes). He also published albums of engravings intended as models (Compositions and Sketches...

(b Rome, Oct 30, 1836; d Milan, June 28, 1914).

Italian architect, teacher, restorer and writer. Boito was an important figure in many ways in the cultural life of Italy, and especially Milan, in the second half of the 19th century. He not only taught at the Accademia di Brera and the Istituto Tecnico Superiore for nearly 50 years but also took part in competitions (both as competitor and adjudicator), wrote articles on architecture and restoration for newspapers and periodicals, as well as numerous reports for private individuals and the government, and was active in numerous professional associations. He also served on numerous commissions, particularly after his appointment as Director of the Accademia di Brera in 1897.

Giuliana Ricci

Boito entered the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice in 1850 and won a prize there in 1852. In 1854 he entered the Studio Matematico at the Università degli Studi in Padua, and in 1855 he qualified as a professional architect. In ...

(Stanisław)

(bapt Warsaw, Dec 26, 1784; d Warsaw, March 31, 1832).

Polish painter and teacher. He studied for a short time under Jean-Baptiste Augustin in Paris between 1805 and 1808, returning later to Paris at the end of 1809 and remaining until the autumn of 1814 as a bursar of the Chamber of Public Education of the Duchy of Warsaw. He wished to study under Jacques-Louis David but was able to do so only on a part-time basis. After a brief period of study under Anne-Louis Girodet, he became a pupil of François Gérard in 1811. At this time Brodowski painted his first oil portraits, one of the best being his Self-portrait (1813; Warsaw, N. Mus.). He also started work on a large composition suggested by Gérard, Saul’s Anger at David (1812–19; Warsaw, N. Mus.), which was exhibited after his return to Warsaw at the first public fine arts exhibition in 1819, where it won first prize. The painting clearly shows the influence of David and Brodowski’s commitment to the strict canons of the French Empire style; it became a model for Neo-classical painting in Warsaw....