Art History Archives – Page 2 of 16

Lucian Freud: 1922 – 2011

December 8, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Lucien Freud – photo by Jane Brown

Born on December 8, 1922, in Berlin, Germany, Lucian Michael Freud was a British painter and draughtsman and considered to be the leading figurative painter of his time. Freud was the son of the architect Ernst Freud and the grandson of renowned neurologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. His family fled from Nazi Germany to England in 1932, and Freud became a British citizen in 1939. He studied briefly at the Central School of Art in London and then at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, Dedham, under the painter Cedric Morris. Apart from spending a year in Paris and Greece, Freud lived and worked in the inner-city area of Paddington, London.

Freud’s early works were created with thin layers of paint depicting people, plants and animals in odd juxtapositions. He was also loosely associated with Neo-Romanticism as evidenced by the intense, bulbous eyes that are characterized in his early portraits.

In 1948, Freud married Kitty Garman, daughter of sculptor Jacob Epstein, with whom he had two daughters. The marriage ended in 1952 and in 1953, he married Caroline Blackwood, whom he divorced in 1959.

From the 1950s, Freud began to work in portraiture, often nudes, using an impasto technique. He began to pull away from Neo-Romanticism and developed his own style with portraits that were “more tactile, demonstrating an almost sculptural fascination with flesh and its contours. Freud abandoned the fine lines of his early work for broader strokes – swapping sable brushes for hogshair – and began to work with a more limited palette in which greasy whites and meaty reds predominated. His subjects were also often foreshortened or seen from a peculiar angle, a change in technique brought on by Freud’s beginning to paint while standing up rather than sitting.” Freud’s paintings are decidedly moody, depicting a “physical ugliness” and a sense of alienation.

Although working mostly with the human form, Freud also painted cityscapes seen from his studio window, as well as highly detailed nature studies.

On the personal side, Freud was known for having bitter feuds, most notably with his close friend Francis Bacon, his patron Lord Glenconner, and his dealer, James Kirkman. He is known to have had at least 13 children and rumoured to have many more. He was an eccentric and refused to have a telephone in his studio, and until the late 1980s he could only be contacted by telegram.

Freud exhibited regularly and had several retrospective exhibitions including at the Hayward Gallery, London, in 1998 and at Tate Britain in 2002, as well as solo exhibitions in New York, Edinburgh, Los Angeles, Venice, Dublin, The Hague and Paris. He was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1983, and a member of the Order of Merit in 1993.

Freud painted into his old age and vowed never to give up working, stating that he intended to “paint himself to death”. He died at his home on July 20, 2011 after a brief illness.

For full biographical information, visit the source links below.

Sources: MoMA, Telegraph.co.uk, Wikipedia, BBC

Salvador Dali: 1904 – 1989

May 11, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis of Dalí de Púbol (Salvador Dali) was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Spain near the French border. A painter, draughtsman, illustrator, sculptor, writer and film maker, Dali was one of the most prolific, flamboyant, and well-known artists of the 20th century.

He was a student at the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid but was expelled for encouraging students to rebel and for withdrawing from an exam because he said the teachers were not qualified to judge his work.

Dali gained recognition relatively quickly after just three shows: a solo show in Barcelona in 1925, a showing of his works at the Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh in 1928, and in 1929, his first solo show in Paris. It was at this time that Dali joined the ranks of the surrealists and met his future wife, Gala Eluard.

“The Persistence of Memory” was painted in 1931 after seeing some Camembert cheese melting in the heat on a hot summer day. Later that night, he dreamt of clocks melting on a landscape. The small work (24 cm x 33 cm) is one of the most famous of the surrealist paintings. During this time, and inspired by Sigmund Freud, Dali used his “paranoiac-critical method” to create his art.

During the 1930s Dalí’s political indifference alienated him from the other Surrealists who were mainly leftist. In 1937, he painted an unusual series of Adolf Hitler that were considered to be in bad taste and partly led to his expulsion from the movement.

Salvador and Gala spent World War II in the United States, where he became a popular figure. He painted portraits, dressed shop windows, created a dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock’s film “Spellbound” and created a cartoon, “Destino”, with Walt Disney.

Dalí returned to Europe in 1948 and was completely disconnected from Surrealism. He painted mainly in Spain, with an eclectic approach focusing on history, religion, and science. Dalí created over 1,500 paintings in his career as well as illustrations for books, lithographs, designs for theatre sets and costumes, numerous drawings, sculptures, and various other projects.

Dali was greatly affected by the death of his wife Gala in 1982. After that time, he lost much of his passion for life. His health began to fail, and he painted very little. On January 23, 1989, at the age of 84, Salvador Dali died from heart failure with respiratory complications. He is buried in his Theater Museum in Figueres.

For a full biography of Salvador Dali, see the source links below.

Sources: MOMA, Salvador Dali Museum, Wikipedia

Norval Morrisseau: 1932-2007

March 14, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau (Copper Thunderbird) was born on March 14, 1932 in Fort William, Ontario, Canada. Morrisseau was a painter, carver, draughtsman, storyteller, teacher, Grand Shaman, and was dubbed the “Picasso of the North” by the French press. Morrisseau invented the pictographic style, now used by three generations of Aboriginal artists.

The first of five sons, Morrisseau was, according to Ojibway custom, raised by his grandparents. He learned about Ojibway beliefs and Anishinaabe cosmology from his grandfather who was a member of the Midewiwin religious society. As a child, he also learned about Christianity from his Catholic grandmother. In the 1970s, he became interested in the spiritual philosophy of Eckankar and its theories of astral visions and soul travel. All of these experiences influenced his artistic development.

Self-taught, Morrisseau began drawing the ancient stories of his people at a very young age. He was discouraged by some who believed that the communication of any content from the scrolls was strictly the task of a Shaman. While Morrisseau continued to paint, he studied his Anishinaabe heritage intensively until he himself became a Shaman.

In 1956, Morrisseau contracted tuberculosis and was admitted to the Thunder Bay Tuberculosis Sanatorium where he continued creating artwork. While there, he met Harriet Kakegamic and the couple married in 1957 and had six children.

In 1962, Morrisseau’s work attracted the attention of Toronto gallery owner Jack Pollack who organized a successful solo exhibition of the artist’s work. Over the next decade, Morrisseau developed his unique painting style termed the “Woodlands School” which was known for its vibrant colours, x-ray impressions, and flat forms separated by thick black lines. His art influenced the work on numerous First Nation artists including Daphne Odjig, and Carl Ray.

Morrisseau was also known as Copper Thunderbird, a name he was given as a young man. “In Ojibway culture, the thunderbird acts as a go-between; in combination with “copper,” the name suggests that Morrisseau has the ability to unite opposing powers of underwater/underearth and above sky.” Morrisseau signed all of his works in Cree syllabics as Copper Thunderbird.

“Through the 1970s and ’80s, Morrisseau’s “eccentricities” – binge drinking and often a hand-to-mouth street existence – were the despair of his friends and buyers of his work who were uncertain of the authenticity of his paintings. The artist admitted in 2004 he had signed other artists’ work ‘if they needed the money.'”

The prevalence of forgeries, however, became a great concern to Morrisseau, especially in his later years, and he actively sought to remove these from the marketplace. In 2005 he established the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society (NMHS). The Society’s mandate is to catalogue and verify authentic Morrisseau paintings.

Morrisseau received numerous awards and honours in his lifetime including the Order of Canada in 1978, member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, recipient of Doctor of Laws, and Doctor of Letters, holder of the Eagle Feather (the highest honour awarded by the Assembly of First Nations), and Grand Shaman. As well, he was the only Canadian painter invited to exhibit in the Paris French Revolution bicentennial in 1989.

In the last years of his life, Morrisseau was unable to paint. Afflicted by Parkinson’s disease, Norval Morrisseau died on December 4, 2007 in Toronto General Hospital. He was buried in Northern Ontario next to the grave of his ex-wife Harriet, on Anishinaabe land.

Sources:Virtual Museum, Kinsman Robinson, McMichael Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, Maslak McLeod Gallery, Wikipedia, Toronto Star

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Michelangelo: 1475-1564

March 6, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Born on March 6, 1475, in Caprese, Italy, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was a Renaissance sculptor, painter, draftsman, architect, and poet. Michelangelo was thought of as the greatest living artist in his lifetime, and is considered to be one of the greatest artists of all time.

In 1488, at the age of 13, Michelangelo apprenticed with Domenico Ghirlandaio, Florence’s best fresco painter. Following that, he studied with sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni in the Medici gardens in Florence. During this time, he was surrounded by prominent people including Lorenzo de’ Medici (known as “Lorenzo the Magnificent”), who introduced him to poets, artists, and scholars in his inner circle.

Early on, Michelangelo strove for artistic perfection in his depictions of the human body. He studied anatomy with great interest and at one point even gained permission from the prior of the church of Santo Spirito to study cadavers in the church’s hospital. It was at this time that Michelangelo began a life-long practice of preparatory drawing and sketching for his works of art and architecture.

After Medici’s death in 1492, Michelangelo left Florence, traveled to Bologna and eventually to Rome, where he continued to sculpt and study classical works. In 1498-99, the French Ambassador in the Holy See commissioned Michelangelo to sculpt the “Pietà” for Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

In 1501, Michelangelo returned to Florence where he began work on his famous marble statue “David”. This work established Michelangelo’s prominence as a sculptor of incredible technical skill and innovation.

In 1503, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to create his papal tomb which features the famous statue of Moses. The artist worked on the tomb for 40 years, stopping often to work on other commissions including the painting of more than 300 figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel from 1508-12.

From 1534 to 1541, Michelangelo produced an enormous fresco “The Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel. “A depiction of the second coming of Christ and the apocalypse, the work was controversial even before its unveiling because of the depictions of nude saints in the papal chapel, which were considered obscene and sacrilegious.”

From about 1516, Michelangelo began to focus his attention more on architecture. In 1534, he designed plans for the Medici Tombs and the Laurentian Library attached to the church of San Lorenzo. In 1536, he designed the Piazza del Campidoglio, and in 1546 he was appointed architect of Saint Peter’s Basilica and designed its dome. From 1561-65, Michelangelo’s final plans were for the Porta Pia, a gate in the Aurelian Walls of Rome.

More than any other artist, “Michelangelo elevated the status of the artist above the level of craftsman. His deeply felt religious convictions were manifested in his art. For him, the body was the soul’s prison. By using movement, monumental forms, and gesture to express spiritual urges, he opened up new artistic vistas in the direction of Mannerism and the Baroque.”

Michelangelo was known to be a complicated man. “Arrogant with others and constantly dissatisfied with himself, he nonetheless authored tender poetry. In spite of his legendary impatience and indifference to food and drink, he committed himself to tasks that required years of sustained attention, creating some of the most beautiful human figures ever imagined.”

“He constantly cried poverty, even declaring to his apprentice Ascanio Condivi: ‘However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man’, yet he amassed a considerable fortune that kept his family comfortable for centuries. And though he enjoyed the reputation of being a solitary genius and continually withdrew himself from the company of others, he also directed dozens of assistants, quarrymen, and stonemasons to carry out his work.”

Michelangelo’s final work in marble, the “Rondanini Pietà,” was left unfinished. He died in Rome on February 18, 1564 at the age of 88.

Sources: The Getty Museum, Wikipedia, Michelangelo.syr.edu

Ansel Adams: 1902-1984

February 20, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Born in San Francisco, California on February 20, 1902, Ansel Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist known for his technical expertise and his stunning black-and-white photographs of the American Southwest, Yosemite National Park, and the California coast.

Considered a hyperactive child, Adams was unsuccessful in the schools he had attended and as a result, his father and aunt tutored him at home. Leading a somewhat solitary childhood, Adams spent much of his time in nature, exploring the beaches and the heights facing San Francisco Bay.

At the age of twelve Adams taught himself to play the piano and read music. Soon after, he began lessons and for the next twelve years he studied piano, intending to make his living as a concert pianist. Adams ultimately gave up piano for photography but these early studies “brought substance, discipline, and structure to his frustrating and erratic youth. Moreover, the careful training and exacting craft required of a musician profoundly informed his visual artistry, as well as his influential writings and teachings on photography.”

In 1916, Adams visited Yosemite National Park with his family. His father gave him a Kodak Brownie box camera with which he took his first photographs. The next year, Adams returned to Yosemite with a better camera and a tripod. That winter, he worked part-time for a San Francisco photo finisher where he learned basic darkroom techniques. Adams explored the High Sierra, in summer and winter, developing the stamina and skill needed to photograph at high altitudes and in difficult weather.

When he was 17, Adams joined the Sierra Club, a group dedicated to “preserving the natural world’s wonders and resources”. He was the custodian of the organization’s headquarters at Yosemite, for four years. Adams retained his membership throughout his lifetime and served on the board for 37 years.

Adams’ first photographs were published in 1921 and Best’s Studio in Yosemite Valley began selling his prints in 1922. In the mid-1920s, he experimented with soft-focus, etching, Bromoil Process, and other techniques of the pictorial photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz who attempted to produce photography on an equal artistic plane with painting by trying to mimic it. Adams eventually rejected the pictorial method for a more realist approach which relied on sharp focus, heightened contrast, precise exposure, and darkroom craftsmanship.

In the late 1920s, with the promotion of an arts-connected businessman Albert Bender, Adams’ first portfolio was a success and he began receiving commercial assignments to photograph the wealthy patrons who had purchased his portfolio. In 1928, Adams began working as an official photographer for the Sierra Club.

In 1930, Taos Pueblo, Adams’ second portfolio, was published with text by writer Mary Austin. Through a friend with Washington connections, Adams was able to hold his first solo museum exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in 1931.

In 1932, Adams and other photographers, including Willard Van Dyke and Edward Weston, founded the group f64, (a very small aperture setting that gives great depth of field), which maintained an interest in the technically perfect photographic print.

Adams developed the “zone system” as a way to explain exposure and development control and published his first book on how to master photographic technique in 1935. Over the next several years, Adams published a number of books and articles including “The Camera and the Lens” (1948), “The Negative” (1948), “The Print” (1950), “Natural Light Photography” (1952), and “Artificial Light Photography” (1956).

In the 1930s, Adams began to use his photographs to promote the cause of wilderness preservation. In 1938, he published “Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail”, with the Sierra Club, in an effort to secure the designation of Sequoia and Kings Canyon as national parks. The book and his testimony before Congress played a vital role in the success of the effort, and Congress designated the area as a National Park in 1940.

In 1940, Adams organized “A Pageant of Photography”, the most important and largest photography show in the West to-date, attended by millions of visitors. Adams completed a children’s book with his wife Virginia Best and the “Illustrated Guide to Yosemite Valley” during 1940 and 1941. Adams also began teaching in 1941 at the Art Center School of Los Angeles and in 1945, he was asked to form the first fine art photography department at the California School of Fine Arts. In 1952, Adams was one of the founders of the magazine “Aperture”, a journal of photography showcasing its best practitioners and newest innovations. In June 1955, Adams began annual workshops, teaching thousands of students right up until 1981.

Until the 1970s, Adams was financially dependent on commercial projects. Some of his clients included Kodak, Fortune magazine, Pacific Gas and Electric, AT&T, and the American Trust Company. In 1974, he had a major retrospective exhibition at the “Metropolitan Museum of Art”. During the 1970s, much of his time was spent curating and re-printing negatives to satisfy the demand of art museums which had created departments of photography. He also spent a lot of his time writing about environmentalism, focusing mainly on the Big Sur coastline of California and the protection of Yosemite. President Jimmy Carter commissioned Adams to make the first official portrait of a president made by a photograph.

Ansel Adams died on April 22, 1984 from heart failure aggravated by cancer. “Adams’ lasting legacy includes helping to elevate photography to an art comparable with painting and music, and equally capable of expressing emotion and beauty. ” The Minarets Wilderness in the Inyo National Forest was renamed the Ansel Adams Wilderness in 1985 in his honor. Mount Ansel Adams, an 11,760 ft (3,580 m) peak in the Sierra Nevada, was named for him in 1985.

Sources: Ansel Adams Gallery, Wikipedia, Museum of Contemporary Photography

Franz Marc: 1880-1916

February 8, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Born on February 8, 1880 in Munich, Germany, Franz Marc was a principal painter of the German Expressionist movement. The son of a professional landscape painter, Marc chose to become an artist after a year of military service interrupted his plans to study philology. Marc studied at the Kunstakademie in Munich under Gabriel von Hackl and Wilhelm von Diez from 1900-1902. In 1903 and in 1907 he visited Paris where he was introduced to Japanese woodcuts and the work of Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, the Cubists, and the Expressionists. During this period, Marc also made a steady income by giving animal anatomy lessons to art students.

Marc had his first solo show at the Kunsthandlung Brackl, Munich in 1910. He supported the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (Munich New Artist’s Association), and became a member of the group early in 1911. After the split of the NKVM, Marc formed Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), artist circle with August Macke, Wassily Kandinsky, and other artists. The group’s first exhibition was held on December 1911 at Heinrich Thannhauser’s Moderne Galerie in Munich. “Der Blaue Reiter Almanac” was published with lead articles by Marc in May 1912.

Marc’s paintings were concerned with the need for harmony and union with nature. “Believing that animals achieved this harmony more successfully than human beings, he used them for the subject matter of his paintings. Early in his career he painted graceful and lyrical horses, cows, and deer inhabiting beautiful and peaceful landscapes. The scenes were painted with bright pure colors and filled with light.”

In 1912, Marc met Robert Delaunay, whose use of color and futurist method affected his work greatly. He became influenced by Futurism and Cubism, and his art became stark and abstract in nature.

Marc was conscripted during World War I and was sent to the front lines. The great loss of life deeply affected him, including the many animals that were killed in the war. One of his best known paintings, Tierschicksale (Fate of the Animals), was completed in 1913 when “the tension of impending cataclysm had pervaded society”. On the back of the canvas, Marc wrote, “Und Alles Sein ist flammend Leid” (“And all being is flaming agony”). Marc wrote to his wife of the painting, it “is like a premonition of this war – horrible and shattering. I can hardly conceive that I painted it.”

Franz Marc was killed on March 14, 1916 at the Battle of Verdun.

Sources: Guggenheim, Wikipedia, Albright-Knox Art Gallery,

Norman Rockwell: 1894 – 1978

February 3, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Born on February 3, 1894, in New York City, Norman Rockwell was one of the most popular and recognized American artists of his time.

Rockwell had an interest in art early in life and at age 14, he enrolled at The Chase School of Art (currently The New York School of Art). In 1910, he left high school and studied art at The National Academy of Design and then transferred to The Art Students League of New York.

Rockwell achieved success quickly and while still in his teens, was hired as the Art Director of “Boy’s Life” Magazine (Boy Scouts publication). When he was 21, Rockwell and his family moved to New Rochelle, New York where he shared a studio with cartoonist Clyde Forsythe and worked for magazines including Life, Literary Digest, and Country Gentleman. In 1916, Rockwell created his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post. During his early career, Rockwell was influenced greatly by popular illustrators including N.C. Wyeth, J.C. Leyendecker, Maxfield Parrish and Howard Pyle.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Rockwell developed further depth and character in his paintings and illustrations. “His use of humor became an important part of his work. It was a technique he used effectively to draw the viewer into the composition to share the magic. Rockwell was constantly seeking new ideas and new faces in his daily life. He painted not only the scenes and people close to him but, in a quest for authenticity, would approach total strangers and ask them to sit for him. His internal art of ‘storytelling’ became integrated with his external skills as an artist. What emerged was what we know today as an incredible facility in judging the perfect moment; when to stop the action, snap the picture…when all the elements that define and embellish a total story are in place.” (NMAI)

The 1930s and 1940s are considered the most successful decades of Rockwell’s career. In 1930 he married Mary Barstow, a schoolteacher, with whom he had three sons, Jarvis, Thomas, and Peter. In 1939, the family moved to Arlington, Vermont and Rockwell began to produce full canvas paintings depicting small-town American life.

During World War II, Rockwell became involved in the war effort to help boost the sale of savings bonds. The result was his extremely popular The Four Freedoms, at first rejected by the U.S. Government but then printed as posters to sell war bonds. “The works toured the United States in an exhibition that was jointly sponsored by The Post and the U.S. Treasury Department and, through the sale of war bonds, raised more than $130 million for the war effort.”

Unfortunately in 1943, a fire in Rockwell’s Arlington studio, destroyed numerous paintings and his collection of historic costumes and props. Rockwell would spend countless hours searching for the costumes and items to create his scenes, and the loss of this collection was particularly painful for the artist.

In the late 1940s and 1950s Rockwell continued to be one of the most prolific and recognized illustrators in the country. In his 47 years with The Saturday Evening Post, he created 322 covers. He also produced work for Ladies Home Journal, McCall’s, Literary Digest, and LOOK magazine.

In 1953, the Rockwells moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Six years later, Mary Barstow Rockwell died unexpectedly.

In 1960, Rockwell (in collaboration with his son, Tom), published his autobiography, My Adventures as an Illustrator. The Saturday Evening Post published parts of the best-selling book in a series of excerpts.

In 1961, Rockwell married Molly Punderson, a retired teacher. Two years later, he ended his 47-year affiliation with The Saturday Evening Post and began to work for Look magazine. During his 10-year relationship with Look, Rockwell’s work addressed American social issues including civil rights, poverty, and the exploration of space.

In 1962, Rockwell told Esquire magazine: “I call myself an illustrator but I am not an illustrator. Instead, I paint storytelling pictures which are quite popular but unfashionable. No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations. He’s got to put all of his talent, all of his feeling into them. If illustration is not considered art, then that is something that we have brought upon ourselves by not considering ourselves artists. I believe that we should say, ‘I am not just an illustrator, I am an artist’.” (NMAI)

In 1973 Rockwell established a trust placing his works under the custodianship of Stockbridge’s historic Old Corner House. The trust now forms the core of the permanent collection of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge. In 1976, Rockwell added his Stockbridge studio and all its contents to the bequest. In 1977, Rockwell received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for his “vivid and affectionate portraits of our country.”

Norman Rockwell died at his home in Stockbridge on November 8, 1978, at the age of 84.

Sources: Norman Rockwell Museum, Saturday Evening Post, PBS, National Museum of American Illustration

Norman Rockwell on Amazon

Paul Cézanne: 1839-1906

January 19, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Born on January 19, 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, France, Paul Cézanne is considered by many to be one of the most important painters of the second half of the 19th century. From 1849 – 1852, he studied at the Ecole Saint-Joseph and from 1852 to 1858 at the Collège Bourbon. In 1857 he attended the Ecole Municipale de Dessin in Aix-en-Provence, where he studied under Joseph Gibert. In 1859, to satisfy his father’s wishes, he began to study law at the Université d’Aix. He also attended the Ecole Municipale de Dessin again from 1858 – 1861. In 1861 Cézanne abandoned his law studies and moved to Paris to pursue his career as a painter.

In 1862 Cézanne met Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir with whom he formed lasting friendships. In 1863, his paintings were shown in the Salon des Refusés, which exhibited works rejected by the Paris Salon. The Salon rejected all of Cézanne’s submissions between 1864 to 1869.

With the onset of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Cézanne returned to Aix-en-Provence and then L’Estaque, where he continued painting. In the 1870’s he was influenced by Impressionism, particularly the work of Camille Pissarro. Like the Impressionists, Cézanne considered the study of nature essential to painting, however, he opposed many aspects of the Impressionist aesthetic. “Believing colour and form to be inseparable, he tried to emphasize structure and solidity in his work, features he thought neglected by Impressionism. For this reason he was a central figure in Post-impressionism.” In 1874, he participated in the first Impressionist Exhibition, as well as the third in 1877.

In 1882 the Salon accepted his work for the first and only time. Beginning in 1883 Cézanne lived in the South of France, returning to Paris occasionally. Cézanne’s first solo show was held at Ambroise Vollard’s gallery in Paris in 1895. Following that exhibition, his recognition increased, and in 1899 he participated in the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. In 1900 he participated in the Centennial Exhibition in Paris and, in 1903, the Berlin and Vienna Secessions. In 1904 he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne, Paris and had a solo exhibition at the Galerie Cassirer in Berlin.

Between 1883 and 1895, Cézanne’s paintings accented mass and structure, and his composition therefore became more architectural. His move away from Impressionism stemmed from his belief that a painter must interpret as well as record the scene before him. His brushstrokes became broader and thicker, and the use of a palette knife was sometimes evident.

In the final years of Cézanne’s life, many of his landscapes “emphasized the rough appearance of sites, mixing wild vegetation with rocks in unusual, asymmetric framing. His composition became less serene and his colour more violent.” In several works, parts of the canvas were left bare and were painted with highly diluted oils. His fascination with nature continued but “the objective sought is no longer to describe reality but to express a spiritual concept”.

Cézanne rarely dated and often did not sign his paintings making it difficult to determine the chronology of his works with any precision. In his last years his work began to influence many younger artists, including the Fauvists and the Cubists. His influence reached well into the 20th century as well.

Paul Cézanne died of pneumonia on October 22, 1906. He was buried in his hometown of Aix-en-Provence.

For a more detailed biography of Cézanne, visit the MoMA website.

Paul Cézanne on Amazon

Sources: Guggenheim Collection, MoMA, Wikipedia

Berthe Morisot: 1841-1895

January 14, 2017 By Wendy Campbell

Born to a prosperous family on January 14, 1841, in Bourges, Cher, France, Berthe Morisot was a central member of the Paris Impressionists. Morisot, as well as her sisters, were encouraged at an early age to pursue art and studied with neoclassical painter Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne. In 1858 she and her sister Edma studied at the studio of Joseph-Benoît Guichard, and through him met the leading landscape painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot who encouraged the siblings to paint outdoors.

Morisot exhibited at the Salon from 1864 to 1873. Around 1867, she met Édouard Manet with whom she developed a close friendship. Morisot modeled for Manet numerous times and in 1874 she married his brother, Eugène. That same year she refused to show her work at the Salon and instead participated in the first independent show of Impressionist paintings. In 1878, Morisot had a daughter Julie who became a main source of inspiration for her paintings.

Morisot painted her daily experiences and reflected 19th century cultural expectations of her class and gender. Her works included landscapes, family and domestic life, portraits, garden settings and boating scenes. She avoided urban and street scenes as well as the nude figure. Morisot worked with pastels, watercolors, and oil, and in her later years, she experimented with lithography and drypoint etching.

Morisot became an important member of the Impressionist group. Painters and writers would meet at her home including Renoir, Degas, and Mary Casssatt. Morisot was never commercially successful in her lifetime. At the time however, her paintings sold for slightly higher prices than those of Renoir, Monet, and Sisley.

Berthe Morisot died of pneumonia on March 2, 1895 in Paris at the age of 54. She was interred in the Cimetière de Passy.

Sources: Wikipedia, Cleveland Museum of Art, Biography.com

Henri Matisse: 1869-1954

December 31, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Painter, sculptor, printmaker, designer, draughtsman, and writer, Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse was born on December 31, 1869 in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France. Before studying art, Matisse worked as a solicitor’s clerk in Saint-Quentin and took a law degree from 1887 to 1889 in Paris.

Matisse studied drawing at Ecole Quentin Latour and began painting in the winter of 1889 while recovering from appendicitis. He gave up law to study painting at the Académie Julian in 1891 under painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and took drawing and perspective courses at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs. Matisse joined the studio of Gustave Moreau in 1892 and passed the entrance examination of Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1895. In 1898, he married Amélie Parayre with whom he had two sons.

Matisse’s early works were essentially based on the study of the Old Masters “firmly based on reality, in a restricted tonal palette influenced above all by his copies after Dutch masters and Chardin and by exhibitions he had seen of the work of Jean Baptiste Camille Corot and Edouard Manet.”

Matisse exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1901 and had his first solo show at the Galerie Vollard in 1904.

Matisse, along with André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck became one of the principal figures of Fauvism, which has its base in Impressionism. “In reviving the study of the nude human figure, Matisse’s work was partially a reaction against what he perceived as Impressionism’s neglect of this traditional subject.”

Like other avant-garde artists in Paris at the time, Matisse was interested in influences beyond the realist tradition. In 1904 and 1905, he spent summers painting in the Mediterranean which resulted in his abandonment of the traditional Impressionist palette in favour of what would become his characteristic style of “flat, brilliant colour and fluid line”.

From 1906 to 1910, Matisse became increasingly successful and his art began to be exhibited and published outside of France. Writer and art collector Gertrude Stein, as well as art collectors Etta and Claribel Cone, began acquiring Matisse’s work. During this time, he was also introduced to Picasso with whom he would have an “intermittent rivalry”.

“Matisse’s work during this period falls into three categories: figure compositions, still-lifes and interiors, and portraits. He moved away from the Fauve style and experimented with a new language of the human figure stimulated primarily by Gauguin’s primitivism, but also by Cézanne’s compositions of bathers, by classical decorations, by African tribal sculpture and by the challenge of Picasso.” (MoMA)

Between 1010 and 1917, Matisse created what many critics say are the best works of his career. Inspired by his travels to Spain, Russia, Morocco, his further response to Cubism was to create larger, more exotic and colourful paintings.

In 1918, Matisse relocated to Nice, France where creatively he focused on the female form, landscapes, interiors, still-lifes of flowers, and light itself. During this period, he maintained a habit of working outdoors but this production did not result in major works. In 1925, Matisse traveled to Italy and Sicily after which he painted fewer canvases and seemingly gave himself the “task of resolving in drawings, sculptures, prints and paintings the articulation and balance of mass of the seated and reclining female nude.”

Matisse virtually gave up painting in 1929 to focus on a series of over 200 etchings, drypoints and lithographs. “Drawing was essential to Matisse’s paintings of the later 1930s, as was an expressive distortion of the female form in order to capture the mood or personality of the model, for example by exaggerating the length of her body in languid repose.”

In 1928, Matisse moved to Cimiez, a suburb above Nice. In 1941, surgery for a tumor left him disabled and unable to travel. This led to his grand interior paintings between 1946 and 1948, the decoration of the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence from 1948 to 1951, and to his final works – a series of paper cut-outs.

Matisse died of a heart attack on November 3, 1954 at the age of eighty-four. He is buried at the cemetery of the Monastère Notre Dame de Cimiez, near Nice.

For an in depth biography, visit the MoMA website.

Sources: MoMA, Guggenheim, Wikipedia (images)