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(b The Hague, Jan 6, 1876; d The Hague, Dec 11, 1955).

Dutch sculptor and ceramicist. He trained at the Academie van Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague (1894–7) and in various sculpture studios. In 1898 he decorated the shop-front of the gallery Arts and Crafts in The Hague after a design by Johan Thorn Prikker, who advised him to set up on his own. From 1901 Altorf exhibited regularly and successfully; he was represented at the Prima Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa Moderna in Turin in 1902, where he won a silver medal, and at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925.

Altorf was a leading exponent of Dutch Art Nouveau. His work is characterized by a strong simplification of form. It is often compared with that of Joseph Mendes da Costa but is somewhat more angular and austere. At first Altorf made mainly animal forms from various types of wood, ivory, bronze and ceramic. In firing his modelled figures, he worked with the ceramicist ...

(b Nancy, Aug 22, 1871; d Nancy, March 10, 1933).

French architect. His grandfather, François André (1811–1904), was a developer and his father, Charles André (1841–1928), became a county architect and was one of the organizers of the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Lorrains of 1894, which proved to be a prelude to the formation of the Ecole de Nancy seven years later. Emile André studied architecture with Victor Laloux at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1896 he travelled to the Nile with Gaston Munier (1871–1918), his friend and fellow student. On the advice of the French archaeologist Jacques de Morgan, they excavated the temple of Kom Ombo (154 bc–ad 14) to the north of Aswan and under his direction they also took part in an archaeological mission to Persia (now Iran). André made drawings and watercolours on his travels and he went to India with the aid of a travel grant awarded to him for his contribution on Kom Ombo to the Salon of ...

(b Boulogne-sur-Seine, May 3, 1870; d Paris, Aug 14, 1935).

French architect. He trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Paul-René-Léon Ginain and Louis-Henri-Georges Scellier de Gisors, receiving his architectural diploma in 1892. His early work included S. Bing’s Art Nouveau pavilion (destr.) at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 (inspired by Louis Bonnier’s initial project), blocks of flats in Paris in ashlar work, for example 236–238 Boulevard Raspail, 105 Rue Raymond Poincaré (both 1906) and the corner site of the Avenues du Bois de Boulogne et Malakoff (c. 1908), as well as regionalist constructions (garage in Neuilly and rural buildings in Herqueville and Heilly). He participated regularly in the competitions organized by the City of Paris, building low-cost housing schemes in the Rue Brillat-Savarin (1914–30) and the garden city at Chatenay-Malabry (1920–32) in collaboration with Joseph Bassompierre and Paul de Rutté. Following World War I he was named architect for the reconstruction schemes for the districts of Aisne and Pas-de-Calais....

Term used to refer to a movement or set of concerns espoused by a small number of left-wing artists and architects in the 1890s and early 1900s, mainly in Brussels and Paris. A significant number of leading Art Nouveau artists and architects, including Victor Horta, Héctor Guimard and Frantz Jourdain (the main spokesman for the movement) were involved. Art à la Rue, which focused specifically on bringing art to the working classes, was part of a broader movement aimed at social reform, whose roots were in the French socialist movement, the political theories of the Russian anarchist Prince Kropotkin and William Morris’s later essays. In challenging the élitist status of art, it urged those in the arts to forget the world of museums and collectors and to concentrate instead on relating art to everyday life, so that it assumed a more socially responsive role in society. The main arena for this was the ...

Dutch company of art dealers and interior design and furniture workshop. The Arts and Crafts interior design and furniture workshop was set up in The Hague in 1893. The Art Nouveau character of the furniture produced by the workshop set it very much apart from its competitors. Designs were produced by the artist Johan Thorn Prikker and the architect Chris Wegerif (1859–1920). During the early years of the workshop the Belgian artist Henry van de Velde exercised a strong influence on its designs. After 1900 the designs became more austere, any Art Nouveau character being confined to woodwork and batik upholstery fabrics. In order to ensure the unity of each interior, an effort was made to have all the objects designed by the same artist. The workshop fostered a close relationship with The Hague school of painting.

[Georges] (Hulot)

(b Beauvais, April 26, 1863; d Paris, Feb 6, 1938).

French illustrator, typographical designer, writer and printmaker . He went to Paris in 1883 to pursue a literary career. His first humorous essays were published that year in the Chat Noir journal. He was introduced to the many avant-garde artists and writers who frequented the Chat Noir cabaret in Montmartre and contributed to the journal. Of these Henri Rivière and Eugène Grasset were especially important to his artistic development, Rivière coaching Auriol in drawing while Grasset introduced him to typographical design. Auriol’s close association with Rivière culminated in the latter’s album of lithographs, Les Trente-six Vues de la Tour Eiffel (1902; for illustration see Japonisme), for which Auriol designed the decorative cover, end-papers and typography.

Auriol served as writer, illustrator and editor of the Chat Noir for ten years (1883–93). He produced book covers for the Chat-Noir Guide (1888) and the two-volume Les Contes du Chat Noir...

[Rosenberg, Lev (Samoylovich)]

(b Grodno, Belarus, May 10, 1866; d Paris, Dec 27, 1924).

Russian painter and stage designer of Belorussian birth. Born into a middle-class Jewish family, Bakst was educated in St Petersburg, attending a gymnasium and then the Academy of Arts (1883–6). He began professional life as a copyist and illustrator of teaching materials but quickly moved on to illustration for popular magazines. His tastes were influenced and horizons enlarged when he met Alexandre Benois and his circle in 1890. Bakst travelled regularly to various countries in Europe and North Africa and studied in Paris with a number of notable artists including the French Orientalist painter Jean-Léon Gérôme at the Académie Julian and, from 1893 to 1896, the Finnish landscape painter Albert Edelfelt. Returning to St Petersburg, he became active as a book designer and fashionable portrait painter. With Benois and Serge Diaghilev he was a founder and leading member of the World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) group in 1898...

(b Brussels, Sept 15, 1863; d Antwerp, March 6, 1927).

Belgian architect . He began his studies at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, studying monumental architecture in the evenings while working by day. His marriage to the daughter of the architect J.-B. Vereecken introduced him to wealthy bourgeois circles where he found most of his clients. Between 1894 and 1906 he took part in the construction of the Zurenborg district of Antwerp, begun at the instigation of Senator John Cogels, where he built 25 houses for the Société Anonyme pour la Construction du Quartier Est d’Anvers. This group of buildings constitutes one of the city’s architectural curiosities: it is dominated by historicism, particularly in the double residence Euterpia (1906) that is an example of neo-Greek bravura, but Bascourt also developed an original Art Nouveau style there, marked by echoes of Arabian architecture. His own house (1902; destr. 1986) in Antwerp was conceived in the spirit of the work of John Soane, designed around a central hall giving on to rooms that were each furnished and decorated in a different style. He built several mansions, office blocks and industrial buildings in Antwerp between ...

(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....

[Francisco]

(b Reus, July 21, 1866; d Barcelona, Feb 8, 1914).

Catalan architect. His father had taught Antoni Gaudí, who later became a close friend and collaborator with Berenguer, the two architects’ characters perfectly complementing each other. Although Berenguer studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes (from 1881) and attended the Escuela de Arquitectura, both in Barcelona, he never finished his studies, abandoning them in 1887 to work first in the office of Augusto Font i Carreras and later with Gaudí. From 1892 he was employed in the architectural department of the town hall of Gracia, one of the adjoining small towns swallowed up by Barcelona, where he did most of his work: the Mercado de la Libertad (1893), the Casa Parroquial (1900), the renovation of the Iglesia de S Juan de Gracia (1909), and the house at Calle del Oro 44 (1909). These works demonstrate most of the general characteristics of ...

(b Amsterdam, Feb 21, 1856; d The Hague, Aug 12, 1934).

Dutch architect, urban planner, designer and writer. He abandoned early his intention to become a painter and instead trained in architecture at the Bauschule of the Eidgenössiche Polytechnikum (now Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule) in Zurich under Gottfried Semper’s followers. Semper was a major influence on Berlage, especially for Berlage’s emphatic use of a variety of materials and an acute attention to construction. The other major influence was the work of Viollet-le-Duc. After his training Berlage visited Germany and Italy from 1878 to 1881, returning to Amsterdam to become an associate of the classicist architect and businessman Theodorus Sanders, who very soon handed over to him the task of designing. The shop and office-block for Focke & Meltzer (1884–5), Kalverstraat, Amsterdam, was critically acclaimed for its correct application of the Venetian Renaissance style favoured by Semper and for the grandeur of its shopping area, with its unusually large windows. Berlage voiced doubts in ...

(b Oporto, Oct 1, 1864; d Sintra, Feb 19, 1948).

Portuguese architect. He studied architecture at the Academia de Belas Artes in Oporto and then for five years with Paul Blondel (1847–97) in Paris on a state scholarship. He returned to a busy and successful career in Portugal, his work ranging from projects in Revivalist styles to the propagation of a simplified version of Art Nouveau. In 1895 he won first prize in a competition for restoration work on the church of the Hieronymite Monastery at Belém, although this was subsequently carried out by teams from the Ministry of Public Works, and in 1897 he won first prize in a competition project for the design of low-cost housing estates, in which his approach was derived from the garden city concept. He then won first prize for a standardized design (1898) for primary schools in a style that included some of the hybrid characteristics of the Casa Portuguesa style; this brought him commissions for the construction of about 300 buildings throughout Portugal. He also designed many branches of the ...

(b Villefranche, Rhône, 1872; d Paris, 1909).

French designer and lithographer. He began his training in Villefranche, where he studied painting, and in 1893 he moved to Paris, entering the Ecole Normale d’Enseignement du Dessin. There he became a pupil and disciple of Eugène-Samuel Grasset, the Professor of Decorative Arts, and was also influenced by Luc Olivier Merson. Berthon’s main output consisted of posters and decorative panels. However, he also produced bookbindings and furniture designs, both of which he exhibited at the Salon in 1895; designs for ceramics for Villeroy & Boch in the late 1890s; and a few designs for the covers of such magazines as L’Image (July 1897) and Poster (May 1899). His work is in an Art Nouveau style, and he adopted that movement’s plant and figural motifs, especially the motif of the femme fatale, and also its long sinuous lines. These features can be seen in such works as the poster ...

(b Venice, 1852; d Venice, Oct 8, 1908).

Italian architect, teacher and designer, active in Portugal. Little is known of his early life and work before the 1880s, when he was one of several Italian architects invited by the Portuguese State to teach in the recently founded schools of industrial design set up in Portugal as part of the reform of art education there, which was carried out by the Minister of Public Works, Emídio Navarro. Bigaglia divided his time in Portugal between teaching in the Escola Industrial Afonso Domingues, Lisbon, and designing many single-family houses or small residential blocks in Lisbon and other parts of Portugal. Bigaglia was a versatile architect and adapted well to the variations in Portuguese middle-class taste of the time, designing decorative façades that incorporated the fashionable style of Art Nouveau in wrought-iron railings, azulejo (glazed tile) friezes, and door- and window-mouldings, but which retained traditional structural design and volume. The most original examples are in Lisbon: Casa Lima Mayer (...

(b Mer, nr Blois, Nov 5, 1862; d Paris, 1927).

French ceramics manufacturer. He was initially a physics and chemistry teacher and in 1889 visited the Exposition Universelle in Paris, where he saw Chinese porcelain with opaque glazes that enhanced the ground colours and emphasized the forms of the body. He transferred this technique to stoneware, a less expensive material that has the advantage of being able to withstand great variations of temperature when fired. In this way, with one type of ceramic body, it is possible to vary the degree to which enamels are fused in order to obtain dull, oily or crystalline finishes in the greatest possible variation of colours.

Bigot exhibited his work in the Salons from 1894 and through Siegfried Bing in 1897. In 1900 he won a major prize at the Exposition Universelle, for which he made a frieze of animals in low relief, after the design by the sculptor Paul Jouve (b 1880...

(b Karlsruhe, Feb 7, 1867; d Karlsruhe, March 2, 1946).

German architect and teacher. He came from a family of building craftsmen established in Karlsruhe and studied there (1883–4) at the Kunstgewerbeschule, which, under the directorship of Hermann Götz (1848–1901), had become a focus of progressive tendencies in the applied arts in Germany. After a year’s military service he moved on to study architecture at the Technische Hochschule, Karlsruhe, but did not graduate. Feeling little affinity with the doctrinaire Renaissance Revival ideas promoted by his teacher Josef Durm, he was more influenced by study tours in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Scandinavia. In 1888–92 he lived in Berlin and Aachen, where he worked in leading architectural practices and encountered the emerging stylistic movements of the day.

In 1892 Billing set up his own practice in Karlsruhe and produced some competition entries that attracted considerable attention, for example the design (1893) of a bridge over the River Weser at Bremen. Private commissions for houses, residential buildings and industrial developments followed. His work before ...

(b Casale Monferrato, March 15, 1859; d Turin, Sept 2, 1933).

Italian sculptor, painter and writer. The leading Art Nouveau sculptor in Italy, he was the son of Giovanni Bistolfi, a wood-carver. Bistolfi first studied (1876–9) at the Accademia di Brera, Milan, under Giosué Argenti (1819–1901), transferring to the Accademia Albertina, Turin, in 1880 for more advanced work under Odoardo Tabacchi. In 1881 Bistolfi received a commission for the Braida family tomb (Turin cemetery), for which he carved the marble figure the Angel of Death, a commission enabling him to open his own studio. During the 1880s Bistolfi worked mainly on small bronze groups, in which he sought to communicate sentiments that had hitherto been expressed only in painting. Like the artists of I Scapigliati, he depicted literary subjects, such as his bronze Washerwomen (Italian priv. col.), inspired by Emile Zola’s novel L’Assommoir (1877). While influenced by Impressionism and by such artists as Daniele Ranzoni, Tranquillo Cremona and Giuseppe Grandi, Bistolfi produced his ...

(b Brussels, Feb 21, 1870; d Brussels, Jan 19, 1957).

Belgian architect and designer. He studied architecture at the Ecole Saint-Luc in Brussels and during his very brief career as a practising architect (1899–1903) he became one of the most interesting protagonists of the Art Nouveau style in Brussels. His work included a total of 17 houses in Saint-Gilles and 11 houses in Saint-Boniface, Ixelles, Brussels, where he acted as both architect and builder and sold the houses on completion. To suit the individual tastes of the purchasers he created a different façade for each house based on virtually identical plans, and these buildings remain as examples of Art Nouveau ensembles that are unique in their architectural variety. During the same period he built some 15 houses in the new districts to the south of Brussels, for which he also designed some remarkable wrought ironwork. From 1902 to 1908 he concentrated on building his own house (destr. 1962...

(b Paris, 1878; d Nov 6, 1948).

French architect, grandson of Louis-Auguste Boileau. He was a student of Gaston Redon at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, graduating in 1907. Shortly thereafter he designed the Hotel Lutetia (1910; with Henri Tauzin), Paris, with faĉades and reception rooms that successfully combine Baroque ornamentation, characteristic of turn-of-the-century eclecticism, with a touch of Art Nouveau. He inherited from his father, Louis-Charles Boileau, the position of architect of the Bon Marché department stores and built for them an annexe (1924) at the corner of the Rue du Bac and Rue de Sèvres, Paris, the Pavilion Pomone at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (1925), and several stores in other French cities. In his interior designs for the Prunier restaurant (1925) on the Rue Traktir and the Café des Capucines (1928), both in Paris, Boileau appears as a major proponent of a classicizing, rich but not stuffy version of Art Deco. In the 1930s his style became more sober, as demonstrated by his Maison de France (...

(Yevgrafovich)

(b Ufa, 1870; d Moscow, Jan 29, 1946).

Russian architect, architectural historian, restorer and exhibition organizer. He studied (1887–91) at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Moscow, and then at the Technische Hochschule, Zurich, where he completed his studies in 1894. He designed the Russian craft pavilion at the Exposition Universelle (1900) in Paris with A. Ya Golovin and with the painter Konstantin Korovin. The work largely reflected the search for a distinct national style, particularly the revival of Russian timber architecture and tent-roofed churches (for illustration see Mir Iskusstva). His own churches, built for the Old Believers community, are in Bogorodsk (now Noginsk; 1900–02), Tokmakov Lane, Moscow, Gavrilov Lane, Moscow, and in Orekhovo-Zuyevo and Kuznetsy near Moscow, all built in 1906–9. Two later examples are at Kuznetsov (1911) near Kashin, near Moscow, and in Riga (1913–14). They are picturesque compositions, complex in form with expressive contrasts in texture and colour. Similar in approach are his country houses, including those for ...