Article
a.r. group
Ewa Mikina
[Pol. artysci rewolucyjni: ‘revolutionary artists’]
Polish group of avant-garde artists that flourished between 1929 and 1936. Its members were the sculptor Katarzyna Kobro, the painters Władysław Strzemiński and Henryk Stażewski, and the poets J. Brzękowski and J. Przyboś. It was founded by Strzemiński after he, Kobro and Stażewski left the Praesens group. The group’s programme chiefly reflected the views of Strzemiński. In two leaflets entitled Kommunikaty a.r. (‘a.r. bulletins’) the group declared itself in favour of a ‘laboratory’ version of Constructivism and an avant-garde art that influenced social life in an indirect and gradual manner. It opposed the politicization and popularization of art, which it regarded as a debasement of artistic expression, but the group also believed that rigorous, formal discipline, the organic construction of a work, its coherence, effectiveness and economy of means, made art somewhat synthetic or contrived. From 1933 the group’s announcements regarding its programme appeared in the Łódź art magazine Forma...
Article
Aa, Cornelis Johannes van der
Dutch, 20th century, male.
Born 1883; died 1950.
Painter. Urban landscapes.
Amsterdam, 5 June 1990: View of Rome with St Angel Castle and the Tiber (1925, oil on canvas, 25½ × 52¼ ins/65 × 132.5 cm) NLG 1,150
Article
Aa, Edith van der
Dutch, 20th century, female.
Born in Cilacap (Java), Indonesia.
Painter. Portraits, still-lifes.
Edith van der Aa exhibited some still-lifes and her Portrait of A.H. Lemaître at the Paris Salon des Indépendants in the 1930s.
Article
Aae, Arvid
Swedish, 19th – 20th century, male.
Born 1 July 1877, in Johannishus.
Painter. Portraits.
Having studied at the academy of art in Copenhagen in the last few years of the 19th century, Arvid Aae went on to specialise in painting portraits of children.
Article
Aagaard Andersen, Gunnar
Rigmor Lovring
(b Ordrup, July 14, 1919; d Munkerup, nr Dronningmølle, Hillerød, June 29, 1982).
Danish painter, sculptor, designer and writer. He studied at the Kunsthåndvaerkerskole (1936–9) and the Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi (1939–46), both in Copenhagen. He experimented with non-figurative forms of expression in numerous media. He was a co-founder of Groupe Espace in 1951, and his work was important for the development of Concrete art internationally.
From 1947 to 1950 Aagaard Andersen developed a new, pure pictorial dynamic, moving from fine-lined drawings and faceted landscapes towards an abstract formal language that explored form in terms of light, shadow and reflection. His ‘picture boxes’, in which various elements manifested rhythmic and dynamic growth, explored the concept of painting as object. He began to use the techniques of folding and pleating (e.g. Black Picture Surface with Three Folded Sections, 1964; Esbjerg, Kstpav.), and his work was dominated by his interest in light and shadow.
Besides paintings, Aagaard Andersen produced a number of sculptures, for example the abstract steel work ...
Article
Aagaard, Gunnar Andersen
Danish, 20th century, male.
Born 1919.
Sculptor.
Copenhagen, 26 May 1987: Sculpture (1954, steel, 32¼ × 99½ ins/82 × 253 cm) DKK 6,000
Article
Aali, Halil
Article
Aalto, (Hugo) Alvar
Göran Schildt
(Henrik)
(b Kuortane, Feb 3, 1898; d Helsinki, May 11, 1976).
Finnish architect and designer, active also in America. His success as an architect lay in the individual nature of his buildings, which were always designed with their surrounding environment in mind and with great attention to their practical demands. He never used forms that were merely aesthetic or conditioned by technical factors but looked to the more permanent models of nature and natural forms. He was not anti-technology but believed that technology could be humanized to become the servant of human beings and the promoter of cultural values. One of his important maxims was that architects have an absolutely clear mission: to humanize mechanical forms.
His father was a government surveyor working in the lake district of central Finland and became a counterforce to his son’s strong artistic calling. Instead of becoming a painter, which tempted him for a long time, Alvar chose the career of architect as a possible compromise. He never became a planner dominated by technological thinking, however, but always gave his creations an artistic, humanistic character. He studied at the Technical College in Helsinki (...
Article
Aalto, Alvar
Finnish, 20th century, male.
Born 3 February 1898, in Kuortane; died 11 May 1976, in Helsinki.
Architect, designer, painter, draughtsman, watercolourist. Figures, landscapes, landscapes with figures, urban landscapes, still-lifes. Models (furniture/glass).
Alvar Aalto was adamant that his experience as a painter was an indispensable adjunct to his profession as an architect, noting repeatedly that modern architecture had its roots in painting. As an architecture student, he took private lessons with the Finnish painter Eero Järnefelt. He moved in artistic circles and was frequently to be found in the company of the sculptor Wäinö Altonen and the painters Henry Ericsson and Eemu Myntti. For a period, he also worked as an art critic....
Article
Aaltonen, Vallio or Waïnö
Finnish, 20th century, male.
Born 8 March 1894, in Martilla (Swedish St Mårtens); died 30 May 1966, in Helsinki.
Painter, sculptor. Figures. Monuments.
Vallio Aaltonen studied at the school of painting of the Turku Artistic Association. He became a teacher and member of the academy of Finland, as well as an associate member of the art academies of Brazil and the USSR....
Article
Aaltonen, Wäinö
Leena Ahtola-Moorhouse
(Waldemar)
(b Marttila [Swed. St Mårtens], March 8, 1894; d Helsinki, May 30, 1966).
Finnish sculptor and painter. He was the most significant sculptor of the early decades of Finnish independence (after 1917). His style combined classical tranquillity with a modern sensitivity and disclosed the beauty of granite as a sculptural material. He studied painting at the School of Drawing of the Turku Art Association between 1910 and 1915 but on graduation began to practise moulding techniques and to teach himself stone sculpting. In 1916 his firm instincts and talent for monumental sculpture were remarked on at a general exhibition. His Granite Boy (1917–20; Helsinki, Athenaeum A. Mus.) is one of the masterpieces of his youth, the timid austerity of the child’s figure conveying an Egyptian quality. The marble sculptures Little Wader (1917–22; priv. col., see Okkonen, 1926) and Wader (1924; Helsinki, Athenaeum A. Mus.) are both good examples of Aaltonen’s tonal carving. His main concerns were light and shadow and the atmosphere they create around the sculpture. In ...
Article
Aarsleff, Carl Wilhem Oluf Peter
Danish, 19th – 20th century, male.
Born 14 August 1852, in Nyborg.
Sculptor. Statues.
Initially a woodcarver, Carl Wilhelm Oluf Peter Aarsleff went on to study under Fjeldskov at the Kunstakademi in Copenhagen from 1872 to 1876. In 1879 his statue of Telemachus, now in the museum of Odense, earned him a gold medal. He visited Paris, Greece and Italy, where he stayed for quite some time in Rome. His works can be seen in the art gallery of Copenhagen and at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. The art lover Jacobsen commissioned two reliefs which now adorn the façade of the latter. Aarsleff was also involved in the decoration of Copenhagen's law courts. He was appointed a member of the Kunstakademi of Copenhagen in ...
Article
Aarts, A.
Belgian, 19th – 20th century, male.
Sculptor. Busts.
A. Aarts showed an ivory sculpture representing a Head of a Laughing Child at the Brussels Exhibition in 1897.
Article
Aarts, Johannes Josephus
Jan Jaap Heij
(b The Hague, Aug 18, 1871; d Amsterdam, Oct 19, 1934).
Dutch printmaker and painter. He trained at the Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague, where he subsequently taught graphic art (1893–1911). In 1911 he succeeded Pieter Dupont as professor in graphics at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam under the directorship of Antoon Derkinderen. In the early years of his career Aarts produced some paintings using the pointillist technique, mostly landscapes (The Hague, Gemeentemus.); he also carved some sculptures in wood. He is, however, best known for his graphic work. In technique and subject-matter, his prints have a great deal in common with those of Dupont. As the latter’s successor he devoted himself to the revival of engraving, which his predecessor had reintroduced; his own experiments in this medium (in particular his scenes with diggers and beggars, all c. 1900) are considered milestones in early 20th-century Dutch printmaking. He also applied his skills to etching, lithography, woodcutting and wood-engraving; of the latter his ...
Article
Aarts, Johannes Josephus
Dutch, 19th – 20th century, male.
Born 18 August 1871, in The Hague; died 19 October 1934, in Amsterdam.
Engraver, lithographer.
Johannes Josephus Aarts studied at the school of fine art in The Hague and became professor in graphics at the art academy of Amsterdam.
He executed wood engravings and etchings....
Article
Aas, Niels
Norwegian, 20th century, male.
Born 21 April 1933, in Inderøy (Nord-Trøndelag); died 10 February 2004, in Oslo.
Sculptor.
Niels Aas was included in the Norwegian selection for the Paris Biennale des Jeunes (Biennale for Young Artists) in 1965.
Article
Aas, Nils
Ingeborg Wikborg
(Sigurd)
(b Inderøy, Nord-Trøndelag, April 21, 1933).
Norwegian sculptor, designer and medallist. He became familiar with handicraft in his father’s furniture workshop. In 1954 he began five years’ study as a commercial artist at the Håndverks- og Kunstindustriskole in Oslo and from 1957 to 1963 he worked as an illustrator for a newspaper. He studied at the Kunstakademi in Oslo from 1959 to 1962 under the sculptor Per Palle Storm (1910–94) who advocated naturalism in sculpture. As an assistant to Arnold Haukeland from 1961 to 1964, Aas lost his apprehension of the untried and cultivated his sense of daring, as he gained experience with welding techniques. Highly imaginative and versatile, Aas worked in both abstract and figurative modes and is reckoned one of the foremost sculptors in Norway; in 1990 he was honoured with St Olav.
Aas’s first sculpture was an equestrian monument in snow, made in Inderøy while he was a schoolboy. His first public project was the abstract steel figure ...
Article
Aba-Novák, Vilmos
S. Kontha
(b Budapest, March 15, 1894; d Budapest, Sept 29, 1941).
Hungarian painter, draughtsman and etcher. He trained as a drawing teacher at the College of Fine Arts, Budapest (1912–14). In 1913 he worked at the Szolnok colony and he served in World War I. He taught drawing for a while at the Technical University, Budapest. In 1922 he learnt etching from Viktor Olgyay at the College of Fine Arts. His early works show an affinity with the Group of Eight; later he moved closer to the work of the Activists, especially József Nemes Lampérth and Béla Uitz. He instinctively sought a dynamic and powerful form of expression. His pen-drawings and etchings are frequently based on biblical subjects and are characterized by a heroic conception, an illusory atmosphere and romantic associations. The etching Savonarola (1925; Budapest, N.G.) reveals his extraordinary compositional abilities, especially in the rendering of crowds, and his use of strong chiaroscuro. His landscapes are dominated by carefully composed, naturalist details and the exploitation of the dramatic effect of reflections. In his drawings, Cubist arrangements gradually gave way to a more diffuse composition. His nudes in the landscape (e.g. ...
