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(Gerónimo)

(b Caracas, Aug 29, 1920; d Caracas, Nov 3, 2004).

Venezuelan designer, potter, educator, curator, and museum administrator. Arroyo was one of the first professional designers in Venezuela. He graduated in drawing and painting from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Artes Aplicadas de Caracas in 1938. From 1938 to 1940 Arroyo lived in New York City, where he worked at the Venezuelan pavilion at the New York World’s Fair (1939–1940) and assisted Luis Alfredo López Méndez with painting La Vida Venezolana on the ceiling of the canopy of the pavilion. Back in Venezuela, from 1940 to 1946, Arroyo taught art at the Liceo de Aplicación in Caracas. During this period, he taught and also worked as an interior designer (Librería Magisterio (1944) and Gran Exposición Nacional de Industria y Comercio de Maracaibo (1945)). From 1946 to 1948 he studied design and pottery at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, PA.

In 1949...

French family of cabinetmakers, antique dealers and collectors. The dynasty was founded by Jean Beurdeley (1772–1853), who, after service in Napoleon’s armies, opened a small antique shop in the Marais district of Paris and in 1830 bought the Pavillon de Hanovre, 28 Boulevard des Italiens, which was the Beurdeley firm’s principal gallery until 1894. His son (Louis-Auguste-) Alfred Beurdeley (1808–82) dealt in antiques and works of art and was also a cabinetmaker specializing in reproductions of 17th- and 18th-century furniture. His clients included Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie. Alfred Beurdeley’s illegitimate son (Emmanuel-) Alfred Beurdeley (b Paris, 11 Aug 1847; d Paris, 20 Nov 1919) took over the gallery and workshops in 1875 and until 1894 concentrated on making luxury furniture, continuing the models sold by his father. He was one of the most important Parisian cabinetmakers, winning a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in ...

(b Paris, Jan 11, 1825; d Labbeville, Jan 8, 1906).

French collector. His collection (dispersed in sales between 1872 and 1906) comprised c. 1000 paintings as well as drawings, sculptures, furniture and objets d’art. Most of the paintings were of the Dutch, Flemish and German schools of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Among the most notable northern works were works by Hugo van der Goes, Hans Memling, Jan van Eyck, Jan Gossart, Hendrick Goltzius and Meindert Hobbema. Paintings included Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Woman (1633) and Landscape with Obelisk (1638; Boston, MA, Isabella Stewart Gardner Mus.); Rubens’s Good Government Quelling the Demon of Discord (c. 1620–34; priv. col.) and Arion Saved by Dolphins (c. 1620–30; priv. col.); and Salomon van Ruysdael’s Quay View in Amsterdam (New York, Frick). French painting was represented by such works as Antoine Coypel’s Flora and Zephyrus; François-Hubert Drouais’s portrait of Madame de Pompadour (1763–4; London, NG); Jean-Siméon Chardin’s ...

(b Arcisate di Como, 1727; d Parma, Nov 4, 1792).

Italian stuccoist, printmaker, painter and collector. Before studying anything else he learned stucco decoration from his father Pietro Luigi (d 1754), who worked in Germany from 1743 until his death. Stucco work always remained Bossi’s main activity, alongside that of printmaking, especially etching. His experiments in the latter field followed in the tradition of the great Venetian printmakers. He was encouraged by Charles-François Hutin, who was in Dresden from 1753 to 1757 and whom he followed to Milan and Parma. His first etching, based on a work by Bartolomeo Nazari (1693–1758), was done in Milan in 1758. From 1759 on he was in Parma, where he produced some plates for the Iconologie tirée de divers auteurs (1759) by Jean-Baptiste Boudard, and where he executed the stucco trophy decoration for the attic of S Pietro, the construction of which began in 1761. From this date Bossi also collaborated with the designer ...

Monumental, marble paschal Candlestick of the late 12th to early 13th century with reliefs signed by Nicolaus de Angelo and Vassallettus now in S Paolo fuori le Mura, Rome. The imposing column (h. 5.6 m), adorned with six registers of reliefs and surmounted by a fluted candle holder, rests upon a base of sculpted lions, sphinxes, rams and female figures. The upper and lower reliefs bear vegetal and ornamental patterns while the three central registers portray Christ before Caiaphas, the Mocking of Christ, Christ before Pilate, Pilate Washing his Hands, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Ascension. The culminating Easter scenes reflect the paschal candle’s function during the Easter season as a symbol of Christ resurrected, as evoked in an inscription on the base. A second fragmentary inscription refers to the unidentifiable patron’s desire for commemoration. A third inscription identifies Nicolaus de Angelo as the master sculptor and Petrus Vassallettus as playing a secondary role. Both were active in the second half of the 12th to the early 13th century and came from leading families of Roman sculptors: the Vassalletti and Cosmati (Nicolaus’s family). The candlestick is the only work signed by and securely attributed to Nicolaus and the scope of his contribution remains uncertain. A plausible theory attributes the base and first register to Petrus, based upon similarities to works signed by him and ascribed to his family, such as the cloister of S Giovanni in Laterano in Rome and the narthex of S Lorenzo fuori le Mura in Rome. Nicolaus probably executed the Christological scenes, distinguishable for their more dynamic, expressive figures and decorative chisel work, and appropriate for the master sculptor because of their centrality and significance. Early Christian sarcophagi and Carolingian ivories may have provided models for the figural types. This form of paschal candlestick was probably inspired by Roman columnar monuments carved with triumphal scenes....

(b Stockholm, April 25, 1709; d Stockholm, Nov 9, 1777).

Swedish architect, administrator, designer and collector. Considered the most technically orientated of 18th-century Swedish architects, he studied mechanics under the engineer Christoffer Polhem (1661–1751) and architecture and drawing with Carl Hårleman and continued his studies in Paris and Rome, while recruiting artisans for work on the Royal Palace, Stockholm. He became Hårleman’s assistant during the construction of the palace and succeeded him as Superintendent of Works (1753–68). He used the Baroque style in his refurbishment of the interior of the church of St Mary, Stockholm (1760). He was also responsible for the Rococo interiors of the royal palaces of Drottningholm and Stockholm and designed several country houses, such as Svenneby in Östergötland and Myrö in Närke (both 1770). As an urban planner he is best known for his designs for bridges. He also invented (1767) a type of tiled stove that remained a typical feature of Swedish interiors (...

(bapt Amsterdam, June 21, 1744; d Haarlem, Jan 23, 1831).

Dutch painter, draughtsman, Curator and collector. He was the son of a sculptor of modest means, and presumably he, together with his brothers, first trained in his father’s workshop. In 1765 Wybrand became an active member of the Amsterdam Drawing Academy, where from 1772 to 1774 he won top prizes. Until 1772 he worked as a landscape painter in the Amsterdam wallpaper factory of Johannes Remmers. The staffage in Hendriks’s landscapes was added by Willem Joseph Laquy (1738–98). In 1772 Hendriks bought his own small wallpaper factory in Amsterdam, which he ran until 1776. Around 1775 he made a short trip to England with Hendrik Meijer (1737–93), a Haarlem painter, etcher and wallpaper manufacturer, and in 1776 moved to Haarlem, where he painted still-lifes and made watercolour copies after 17th-century masters for collectors. From 1782 to 1785 Hendriks was in Ede, where he drew and painted mostly landscapes. He returned to Haarlem in ...

(b Andernach, April 15, 1823; d Cologne, Sept 13, 1888).

German sculptor, writer, designer, collector, dealer and furniture-restorer. From 1846 to 1871 he made gothicizing sculptures for Cologne Cathedral: for example figures of evangelists, martyrs and angels and figured reliefs (limestone; south transept, portals and buttresses). He also produced sculpture in period styles for castles, public buildings and private houses, for example 36 limestone statues of German emperors (1882–7; Aachen, Rathaus). The balanced form of his blocklike standing figures shows the influence of classical sculpture, and their generally pensive expression may be traced to the influence of the Lukasbrüder (see Nazarenes). With the help of costumes, Mohr adapted sculpted figures to the style of architecture, but in general his work after 1860 is characterized by massiveness, broad surfaces and an expression of pathos.

Mohr’s later work suggests an admiration for Michelangelo and for the monumental sculpture of Mohr’s contemporaries Ernst Rietschel and Johannes Schilling. The sculptures Mohr made between ...

[MoMA] (New York)

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) was founded in 1929 by patrons Lillie P(lummer) Bliss, Cornelius J. Sullivan and Rockefeller family §(1) to establish an institution devoted to modern art. Over the next ten years the Museum moved three times and in 1939 settled in the Early Modern style building (1938–9) designed by Philip S. Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone that it still occupies at 11 West 53 Street. Subsequent renovations and expansions occurred in the 1950s and 1960s by Philip Johnson, in 1984 by Cesar Pelli and in 2002–4 by Yoshirō Taniguchi (b 1937). MoMA QNS, the temporary headquarters during this project, was subsequently used to provide art storage. In 2000, MoMA and the contemporary art space, P.S.1, Long Island City, Queens, announced their affiliation. Recent projects are shown at P.S.1 in Queens in a renovated public school building.

According to founding director, Alfred H(amilton) Barr...

(b London, 1806; d London, 1871).

English architect, designer, writer and collector. He received his architectural training under John Soane and practised independently from 1832. He wrote three books that established his expertise on the subject of Elizabethan design, architecture and ornament, and in addition he designed Elizabethan Revival furniture, which was shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London.

From 1845 to 1852 Richardson taught ornamental and geometrical drawing as master of the architectural class of the School of Design at Somerset House, London. In 1846, along with H. J. Townsend (1810–90) and Richard Redgrave, he presented the curricular problems of the School to a Special Committee, which resulted in the reorganization of courses. In 1851 he was appointed Surveyor of the South Kensington estate of William Cavendish (1808–91), Marquess of Hartington (later the 7th Duke of Devonshire), and was responsible for supervising construction (1851–3) of the Earl’s mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens, London. His executed designs include works at Belsize Park, Hampstead (...

(b Papendrecht, 1922)

Dutch furniture designer, collector and patron. Having originally trained as an architectural draughtsman, he became one of the most important furniture designers in the Netherlands after World War II. From 1947 he worked as a buyer, salesman and designer in the furniture department of the Bijenkorf store in Amsterdam. From 1955 to 1974 he designed for the furniture manufacturer ’t Spectrum in Bergeijk. Visser’s utilitarian concept of furniture was tempered by his interest in craftsmanship and his desire to produce unique works. Until 1955 he designed simple, well-constructed wooden furniture, using mostly natural pine. About 1955 he and his wife, Mia, moved into a house in Bergeijk, which had been designed and built for them by Gerrit Rietveld, and which they filled with furniture designed by Visser and his colleagues. In 1959 they began seriously to collect art by contemporary artists and enlarged their house with the addition of a gallery designed by ...