Art History Archives – Page 6 of 16

Henri Cartier-Bresson: 1908 – 2004

August 22, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Born on August 22, 1908, in Chanteloup, Seine-et-Marne, near Paris, Henri Cartier-Bresson is considered by many to be the father of modern photo-journalism.

In 1927, Cartier-Bresson studied painting at the Lhote Academy in Paris under Cubist painter and sculptor André Lhote. He turned to photography in 1931 when he acquired a Leica 35mm camera – a camera that, unlike its bulky predecessors, was ideal for capturing action.

Cartier-Bresson preferred an unobtrusive (“a fly on the wall”) approach to photography. This approach helped to develop the real-life reporting (candid photography), that has influenced generations of photo-journalists.

Cartier-Bresson traveled the world photographing “the times” in Russia, China, Cuba, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Turkey, Europe, and the United States. He photographed events such as the funeral of Gandhi, the fall of Beijing, and the liberation of Paris. Cartier-Bresson’s main body of work however was of human activities and the institutions of society. In every country, he sought out market places, weddings, funerals, people at work, children in parks, adults in their leisure time, and other every-day activities.

During the Battle of France, in June 1940, Cartier-Bresson was captured by German soldiers and spent 35 months in prisoner-of-war camps doing forced labour under the Nazis. He escaped in 1943 and began working for MNPGD, a secret organization that aided prisoners and escapees. At the end of the war, Cartier-Bresson directed “Le Retour” (The Return), a documentary on the repatriation of prisoners of war and detainees.

In 1947, along with Robert Capa, David Seymour, William Vandivert, and George Rodger, Cartier-Bresson founded the co-operative agency “Magnum Photos”. The aim of Magnum was to allow photographers to “work outside the formulas of magazine journalism”.

In 1952, Cartier-Bresson published a book of his photographs entitled ” Images à la Sauvette” (images on the run), with the English title “The Decisive Moment”. In the 1960s he created 16 portraiture stories entitled “A Touch of Greatness” for the the London magazine “The Queen”. The stories profiled personalities such as Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Miller, Robert Kennedy and others.

In 1968, Cartier-Bresson left Magnum Photos and photography in general, focusing once again on drawing and painting. He retired from photography completely by 1975 and had his first exhibition of his drawings at the Carlton Gallery in New York in 1975.

From 1975 on, Cartier-Bresson continued to focus on drawing. In 1982 he was awarded the Grand Prix National de la Photographie in Paris, and in 1986, the Novecento Prize in Palermo, Italy. In 1988, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held an exhibition of his photographs, “Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Early Work”.

In 2003, Cartier-Bresson, along with his wife Martine Franck and their daughter Mélanie, launched the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, to provide a permanent home for his collected works and an exhibition space for other artists. Cartier-Bresson died peacefully on August 3, 2004 in Montjustin, Provence. He was buried in the cemetery of Montjustin, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France.

For a complete biography of Henri Cartier-Bresson, visit the HCB Foundation or for a good source of photos visit Magnum Photos.

Sources: Met Museum, HCB Foundation, Wikipedia

Gustave Caillebotte: 1848-1894

August 19, 2016 By Susan Benton

Gustave Caillebotte has only recently been recognized as a significant contributor to the Impressionist movement, more than seventy years after his death. His independent wealth, allowing him to be a major art collector and financial supporter of some of the most well-known Impressionist artists, overshadowed his own contribution to and impact on the art movement of his time. Art historians who have reevaluated his paintings and drawings now assert that his unusual use of varying perspective is particularly commendable and sets him apart from his more famous peers.

Caillebotte was born on August 19, 1848 to Martial Caillebotte and Celeste Daufresne. Gustave’s father had inherited the family’s military textile business and was also a judge at the Seine department’s Tribunal de Commerce. Gustave had two younger brothers Rene (1851-1876) and Martial (1853-1910). The family were well off and in 1860 purchased a summer home just south of Paris, in Yerres. Though Gustave didn’t spend much time focused on art as a child, it is believed that the summers spent at Yerres correspond with the time that Caillebotte began to draw and paint.

Caillebotte went to law school, earning his degree in 1868 and his license to practice in 1870. However, not long after he was drafted into the Garde Nationale Mobile de la Seine to fight in the Franco-Prussian war. Caillebotte was never to return to law. He began instead to study painting seriously, perhaps inspired by his visits to the studio of painter Leon Bonnat. He also attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1872, but did not stay long.

In 1874, he inherited his father’s fortune, followed by his mother’s in 1878, providing him with the opportunity to study art and paint without the need or burden to sell his work to support himself. The lack of sales of his paintings contributed to the lack of recognition of his work. In fact, many of his paintings are still owned by his heirs.

His financial situation also allowed him to help fund Impressionist exhibitions and support his fellow artists and friends. He amassed a collection of more than seventy works, including masterpieces by Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, and Alfred Sisley. Interestingly, a self-portrait shows some of the works he had purchased in the background of his painting. Though he donated his personal collection to the Musée d’Orsay, only two of his own works were included, another contributing factor to his relative unidentified influence on Impressionist art.

Caillebotte was also able to explore other interests because of his freedom from financial obligations including stamp collecting (his collection is now in the British Museum), orchid horticulture, yacht building, and textile design.

Over a period of six years, Caillebotte participated regularly in and supported Impressionist exhibitions. In 1876 in the second such exhibition, Caillebotte showed eight of his own works. One of the works, Floor-scrapers (1875), now seen as an early masterpiece, was considered “vulgar” by some critics because if its subject of laborers working on a wooden floor. It has been suspected that that is the reason it was rejected by the Salon of 1875. Caillebotte’s subjects of his exhibited work were the people and places he saw in and around Paris. Featuring skewed perspectives and modern subjects, the canvases reflect the changing landscape of the capital following the devastating war and the necessary rebuilding, and the new vision of a modern city.

Caillebotte’s style is most closely linked to Realism but his work was also strongly influenced by his Impressionist associates, and his style and technique varies considerably among his works. Caillebotte painted many domestic and familial scenes, interiors, and portraits. Many of his paintings depict members of his family; scenes of boating, fishing, swimming, dining, card playing, piano playing, reading and sewing all done in an intimate, unobtrusive manner which observes the quiet ritual of upper-class life. Caillebotte also painted some still-life food and flowers, and a few nudes.

Caillebotte’s paintings of urban Paris are his most striking and most well-known: The Pont de l’Europe (Le pont de l’Europe) (1876), and Paris Street; Rainy Day (Rue de Paris; temps de pluie, also known as La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie) (1877). Photography was just coming into common use at the time, and Caillebotte may have used this new technology in planning and executing his works.

Caillebotte had purchased a home on the Seine River at Petit-Gennevilliers near Argenteuil, in 1881. He moved there permanently in 1888. Caillebotte’s stopped painting large canvases in the early 1890s and also stopped showing his work at just 34 years old – another factor in keeping his work in the background compared to that of his colleagues. He spent much of his time gardening, building and racing yachts with his brother, Martial, and visiting with his friend Renoir. Though Caillebotte did not marry, the fact that he left a large annuity to Charlotte Berthier, a woman eleven years his junior and of the lower class, seems to support other evidence that he had a long-term serious relationship with her.

Caillebotte died of pulmonary congestion while working in his garden in 1894, at age 45, and was interred at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Sources: gustavcaillebotte.org, bbc.com, nga.gov

Andy Warhol: 1928 – 1987

August 6, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Born Andrew Warhola on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Andy Warhol was a painter, printmaker, and filmmaker and a pivotal figure in the formation of the Pop Art movement.

Warhol was the son of working-class Slovakian immigrants. His frequent illnesses in childhood often kept him bedridden and at home. During this time, he formed a strong bond with his mother. It was what he described as an important period in the formation of his personality and skill set.

Warhol studied at the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (now Carnegie Mellon University), majoring in pictorial design. In 1949, he moved to New York City where he quickly became successful in magazine illustration and advertising, producing work for publications such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and the The New Yorker.

Much of Warhol’s work in the 1950s was commissioned by fashion houses and he became known for his whimsical ink drawings of I. Miller shoes. In 1952, Warhol’s illustrations for Truman Capote’s writings were exhibited by the Hugo Gallery in New York and he exhibited at several other venues in the 1950s including a 1956 group show at the Museum of Modern Art. Warhol received several awards during this decade from the Art Directors Club and the American Institute of Graphic Arts.

Warhol was enthralled with Hollywood celebrity, fashion, and style and by the early 1960s these interests were reflected in his artwork. Borrowing images from popular culture, Warhol’s “Pop Art” paintings were characterized by repetition of everyday objects such as soup cans, Coca Cola bottles, and 100 dollar bills. He also began painting celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Elizabeth Taylor.

Most of Warhol’s paintings were produced in his studio, he called “The Factory”, with the help of assistants. Photographic images were screen-printed on to painted backgrounds and mechanically repeated – a process that mimicked the manufacturing industry and parodied mass consumption. During the Factory years, Warhol associated with and “groomed” a variety of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities including Edie Sedgwick, Viva, writer John Giorno, and filmmaker Jack Smith.

Warhol worked prolifically in a range of media including painting, photography, drawing, sculpture, and film. Between 1963 and 1968 he produced more than 60 films and about 500 short “screen test” portraits of his studio visitors. His most popular and successful film was Chelsea Girls, made in 1966.

On June 3, 1968, Warhol and art critic/curator Mario Amaya, were shot by Valerie Solanas after she was turned away from the Factory studio. Warhol’s wound was almost fatal and would affect him physically and mentally for the rest of his life. (Amaya was released after treatment for bullet grazes across his back.)

The 1970s was a quieter decade for Warhol who concentrated more on portrait commissions for celebrities such as Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, and others. He founded Interview Magazine and in 1975 published “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol” which expressed the idea that “Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art.” During the 1970s Warhol was also involved in a number collaborations with young artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente and Keith Haring.

In general, Andy Warhol was consistently ambiguous on the meaning of his work and appeared indifferent and ambivalent. He denied that his artwork carried any social or political commentary.

Warhol died in New York City on February 22, 1987 of a cardiac arrhythmia while recovering from routine gallbladder surgery. In his will, almost his entire estate was dedicated to the “advancement of the visual arts”. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was founded in that same year and it remains one of the largest grant-giving organizations for the visual arts in the United States today.

Sources: MOMA, Guggenheim, National Gallery of Canada, Andy Warhol Foundation, Wikipedia

Tom Thomson: 1877-1917

August 5, 2016 By Susan Benton

Thomas John (Tom) Thomson, arguably Canada’s most intriguing, and perhaps its most iconic artist, was born on August 5, 1877 in Claremont, Ontario, the sixth child of ten to John and Elizabeth Thomson.

The Thomson Family

The Thomson clan who moved to a farm in Leith shortly after Tom’s birth, were a musical family and at an early age, Tom played both the violin and the mandolin, as well a number of other instruments. His childhood days were spent with his eight brothers and sisters (the ninth sibling had passed away at just 9 months old) fishing, sailing, swimming, reading, dancing and playing mandolin and coronet in the village band. A favourite pastime was drawing caricatures for the amusement of his friends.

A fun-loving and pleasant child by all accounts, Tom was, as are many children of large rural families, independent and adventurous. He was apt to find his own way rather than following the constructs of the Scottish family traditions he was born into. The family farm was located beside Georgian Bay and Tom was drawn to the vast, beckoning water and rugged landscape. Though he had health issues as a child, in adulthood, the wilderness seemed to bring out his strength and stamina.

Tom’s Early Career and Fellow Painters

Tom had a restless start to his adulthood. Unsuccessful at enlisting for the Boer War in 1899 due to health reasons, Tom apprenticed as a machinist at Wm. Kennedy and Son’s Foundry in Owen Sound, but lasted only 8 months before he quit. Still undecided on a career, he briefly attended business school in Chatham. In 1901, he moved to Seattle, Washington to join his brother George at his business college.

George Thomson had arrived in Seattle in 1899, had studied law and then operated The Acme Business College. His brother Henry had joined George shortly after, followed by brothers Tom and Ralph in 1901. Tom studied at Acme and enrolled in penmanship, but left after six months to begin his career as a commercial artist, responsible for designing, drawing and lettering advertisements. George also attended the college, but later returned east to study at The Art Student’s League in New York. He like Tom, eventually devoted himself to painting, and exhibited his entire life.

In the gold rush town of Seattle, Tom also met and was smitten with the beautiful young Alice Eleanor Lambert, who by some accounts only giggled when the ardent young Tom proposed causing him to abruptly return home to Canada in 1905.

His first job on returning home was to work as a senior artist at Legg Brothers, a photo-engraving firm in Toronto. He acquired the strong design skills evident in his art (Northern River, 1914-1915), in the Toronto commercial art world. Thomson joined Grip Limited, Engravers, in 1909, a prominent Toronto photo-engraving house. This position proved to be a turning point in his life. Grip’s senior artist was J.E.H. MacDonald (1873–1932), who encouraged his staff to foster their talents by painting outdoors in their spare time—in the city’s ravines and the nearby countryside. Over the next three years Albert Robson, Grip’s Art Director also hired Arthur Lismer (1885–1969) and Fred Varley (1881–1969), both fresh from England, and Franklin Carmichael (1890–1945). Through MacDonald, Thomson also met Lawren Harris (1885–1970) at the Arts and Letters Club, a meeting place for men interested in literature, theatre, architecture, and art. Thomson was encouraged to paint by his colleagues, who saw an unusual and burgeoning talent in their colleague. When Robson moved to Grip’s main competitor, Rous and Mann Limited, in the fall of 1912, most of his loyal staff, including Thomson, followed him.

Algonquin Beckons

Tom’s love of the wilderness had taken him on his first visit to Algonquin Park in the spring of 1912 with a sketch kit in hand. He returned again that fall for two months. Thomson encouraged his Rous and Mann colleagues to join him, where they painted together and became known informally as the Algonquin School. Unfortunately, the progress of this informal group of artists would be interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. They would not formally come together again until after Tom’s death to form Canada’s first national school of painting, the Group of Seven.

In May of 1913, Thomson went to Algonquin Park on his own and spent the spring and summer there. On his way back to Toronto, Thomson stopped in Huntsville and may have visited Winifred Trainor, whose family had a cottage on Canoe Lake, and who he may have spent time with in Algonquin Park. Later, she was rumoured to be engaged to Thomson for a marriage in the fall of 1917, but the records are not conclusive.

In 1913 Thomson also exhibited his first major canvas, A Northern Lake, at the Ontario’s Society of Artists exhibition. The Government of Ontario purchased the canvas for $250 a considerable sum at that time, considering Thomson’s commercial artist’s weekly salary was $35. That same year, Dr. James MacCallum, a prominent Toronto Ophthamologist and collector saw the “truthfulness” of Thomson’s early sketches and guaranteed Thomson’s expenses for a year (2014), enabling him to devote all his time to painting. MacCallum also introduced Thomson to A.Y. Jackson (1882–1974)—an artist who had recently returned from his third visit to France. Thomson would soon be sharing studios with A.Y. Jackson and then Franklin Carmichael at the Studio Building which Lawren Harris along with MacCallum were financial partners in the construction of to support a new movement in Canadian art – a new way of representing the ruggedness and wilderness of a relatively young country.

By 1914, Thomson had become enchanted with the north, preferring to spend his time fishing, painting and canoeing, sporadically acting as guide, firefighter or a park ranger (in subsequent years), in Algonquin Park, until the onset of winter would force his return to the city. He wintered in a fixed-up modest shack behind the Studio Building in the Rosedale area of Toronto. Working his sketches up into larger canvasses, he waited for early spring and the chance to return to Georgian Bay and Algonquin Park where he found a landscape which inspired him and offered the solitude he loved to paint in.

Thomson’s Work Gains Recognition

1914 was also a turning point for Thomson as an artist. The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, under new director Eric Brown (and advised by board member Lawren Harris), began to acquire Thomson’s work, first Moonlight, 1913–14, from the Ontario Society of Artists exhibition for $150; then Northern River, 1915, the following year for $500; and a year later Spring Ice, 1915–16, for $300. Such recognition was remarkable for an emerging, unknown artist, though the money he received was not sufficient to live on. Thomson, however, never paid much attention to managing his career. He didn’t even give titles to most of his paintings or date them.

Thomson’s work reflected his exposure to Arts and Crafts design, the work of his artist friends, and contemporary Scandinavian art, as seen by Lawren Harris and J.E.H. MacDonald in a Buffalo exhibition in January of 1913. His canoe trips resulted in many sketches of the light and seasons of Canada’s north. By late 1915, Thomson’s approach to landscape painting became more imagination-based. He often sought some natural feature corresponding to his pre-existing ideas, or painted landscapes in his Toronto studio from memory. Thomson’s design experience permeates his late canvases, which feature stylized tree branches and flat areas of strong colour (The Jack Pine, 1916-1917).

A Tragic End; An Incredible Legacy

On July 8, 1917, Thomson paddled across Canoe Lake and disappeared. His body was found 8 days later. Though ruled an accidental drowning, the cause of his death is surrounded by skepticism to this day.

When Thomson died, his iconic painting The West Wind, with its single tree bent against the strong prevailing winds, was found on his easel in his studio in Toronto. Some feel the painting is unresolved, unfinished, as was Thomson’s life. Others see it as representation of a determined, solitary spirit finding his place in the northern ruggedness of Canada.

In September of 1917, J.E.H. MacDonald, Dr. MacCallum and J.W. Beatty (another painter and friend) built a stone memorial cairn on Hayhurst Point, overlooking Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park. The cairn’s inscription was composed by Thomson’s friend, painter J. E. H. MacDonald, and reads:

TO THE MEMORY OF TOM THOMSON ARTIST, WOODSMAN AND GUIDE WHO WAS DROWNED IN CANOE LAKE JULY 8TH, 1917

HE LIVED HUMBLY BUT PASSIONATELY WITH THE WILD

IT MADE HIM BROTHER TO ALL UNTAMED THINGS OF NATURE

IT DREW HIM APART AND REVEALED ITSELF WONDERFULLY TO HIM

IT SENT HIM OUT FROM THE WOODS ONLY TO SHOW THESE REVELATIONS THROUGH HIS ART AND IT TOOK HIM TO ITSELF AT LAST.

Thomson’s death was a tragedy for his fellow artists – they lost an inspiring colleague, a great friend and their guide to the north woods. This untimely loss prompted a clarification of their vision for Canadian art; it strengthened their resolve and gave rise to the formation of The Group of Seven in 1920. Though, Tom Thomson did not live to see the birth of the Group, his name became synonymous with the radical group of painters who would create and reflect a unique Canadian identity through painting.

Sources: TomThomson.org, TomThomsonArt.ca, McMichael Canadian Art Collection , Art Canada Institute, National Gallery of Canada, Tom Thomson, The Silence and The Storm, Published by McClelland and Stewart Limited, McMichael Canadian Art Collection

Henry Moore: 1898 – 1986

July 30, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Widely recognized as one of the most important British sculptors of the 20th century, Henry Spencer Moore was born on July 30, 1898, in Castleford, Yorkshire. Moore had an early interest in sculpting, however he began his career as a teacher in Castleford. After serving in the military during World War I, Moore studied at Leeds School of Art on an ex-serviceman’s grant. In 1921, he won a Royal Exhibition Scholarship to study sculpture at the Royal Academy of Art in London. Between 1924 and 1931, Moore was an Instructor of Sculpture at the Royal Academy. His first solo exhibition was held at the Warren Gallery, London, in 1928.

“Throughout his life Moore’s appetite for the history of world sculpture was insatiable. Drawings of sculptures in his early sketchbooks indicate that Palaeolithic fertility goddesses, Cycladic and early Greek art, Sumerian, Egyptian and Etruscan sculpture, African, Oceanic, Peruvian and Pre-Columbian sculpture particularly interested him. Moore believed passionately in direct carving and in ‘truth to materials’, respecting the inherent character of stone or wood. Almost all of his works from the 1920s and 1930s were carved sculptures, initially inspired by Pre-Columbian stone carving.” (MoMa)

Moore married Irina Radetsky in 1929. A student of painting at the Royal College, she would be Moore’s model for a series of life drawings over a six year period.

Moore’s sculpture of the 1930s was influenced by the work of Picasso, Hans Arp and Alberto Giacometti. “The subject-matter of Moore’s work of 1932 to 1936 is, in some cases, no longer readily identifiable, although the human, psychological element informs even the seemingly abstract work of the 1930s.”

In the 1930s Moore was a member of Unit One, a group of artists lead by English landscape painter Paul Nash. From 1932 to 1939, he taught at the Chelsea School of Art. Moore was “an important force in the English Surrealist movement, although he was not entirely committed to its doctrines; Moore participated in the International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries, London, in 1936.”

In 1940, Moore was appointed an official war artist and was commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee to execute drawings of life in underground bomb shelters. From 1940 to 1943, he focused almost entirely on drawing. His first retrospective took place at Temple Newsam, Leeds, in 1941 and he was given his first major retrospective in the United States by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1946. Moore won the International Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale of 1948.

Moore’s bronze Reclining Figure commissioned by the Arts Council for the Festival of Britain in 1951 was key in Moore’s development. “Previously the holes in his sculptures were dominated by the solid forms surrounding them but here ‘the space and the form are completely dependent on and inseparable from each other’ His work became less frontal and more completely three-dimensional. The reclining figure and the mother and child remained the dominant subjects of his sculpture.”

After the mid-1950s, many of Moore’s sculptures were made from natural objects including bones, shells, pebbles and flint stones.

Until the mid-1950s, Moore made numerous preparatory drawings for his sculptures as well as pictorial studies of interiors and sculptures in landscape settings. He drew little between 1955 and 1970, but during the last 15 years of his life he devoted more of his time to drawing for pleasure, independent of his sculpture. He first made prints in 1931, and he experimented with a process he called collograph. By the end of his life Moore had produced 719 prints.

“Moore executed several important public commissions in the 1950s, among them Reclining Figure, 1956–58, for the UNESCO Building in Paris. In 1963, the artist was awarded the British Order of Merit. In the 1970s, there were many major exhibitions of Moore’s work, the finest being at Forte di Belvedere, overlooking Florence (1972). The Henry Moore Sculpture Centre in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, opened in 1974. It comprises the world’s largest public collection of Moore’s work, most of it donated by the artist himself between 1971 and 1974. In 1977, the Henry Moore Foundation was established at Much Hadham, and Moore presented 36 sculptures to the Tate Gallery in 1978.”

Henry Moore died in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, on August 31, 1986.

Sources: Guggenheim, MoMA, Wikimedia Commons (images), Tate, Oval With Points Photo by Maia C

Beatrix Potter: 1866-1943

July 28, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Born on July 28, 1866 in South Kensington in London, England, Beatrix Potter is best known for her illustrated children’s books. She was an author, illustrator, mycologist, farmer, and conservationist. Potter came from a wealthy family and although her father was a barrister, he devoted much of his time to his passions of art and photography. He and Beatrix’s mother Helen were socially active associating with many writers, artists, and politicians.

Potter had a lonely childhood and was educated at home by a governess. By the age of eight, she was filling sketchbooks with drawings of animals and plants and her artistic endeavors were encouraged, especially by her father.

In her teens, Potter spent most of her time studying, and painting and sketching. “Although she got her Art Student’s Certificate for drawing, Beatrix reached the age of 21 having had little real education. Like many adult daughters of the rich, she was appointed ‘household supervisor’ – a role that left her with enough time to indulge her interest in the natural sciences.”

In her 20s, Potter developed into a talented naturalist, made studies of plants and animals at the Cromwell Road museums, and learned how to draw with her eye to a microscope. She began to focus more on drawing and painting and began to earn a small income from her illustrations. She had also begun to write illustrated letters to the children of her former governess, Annie Moore. Peter Rabbit was born in a letter she wrote in September 1893 to Annie’s son, Noel.

Six publishers rejected “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” before Potter decided to publish her own edition of the story. Having seen the edition, publisher Frederick Warne decided to publish Peter Rabbit, and within a year had to produce six editions to meet demand. “This success marked the start of a life-long relationship between Beatrix and Warne who proposed marriage in 1905. ” Although she accepted him – defying her parents, who saw that being a ‘trade’, a publisher was an unthinkable match for their daughter – Norman unexpectedly died less than a month later of a blood disorder.”

Potter continued writing and produced one or two new books each year for the next eight years. In 1909, she met and befriended a local solicitor, William Heelis. After a period of having to battle her parents’ objections to her relationship Beatrix married William in 1913.

After her marriage, Potter dedicated herself to the role of lady farmer and became an expert in breeding Herdwick sheep. From 1920, and due to failing eyesight, Potter did less and less creative work and her books had to be pieced together from sketches and drawings done years earlier. Her last major work, “The Tale of Little Pig Robinson”, was published in 1930.

In the final part of her life, Potter concentrated on her other passion – conservation which was inspired by her friendship with Canon Rawnsley, one of the founder members of the National Trust. “Her expanding estate, funded by revenue from book sales, gave her the opportunity to fulfil an ambition to preserve not only part of the Lake District’s unique landscape but the area’s traditional farming methods.”

Beatrix Potter died on December 22, 1943. She left 14 farms and over 4,000 acres to the National Trust, land that it still owns and protects against development today.

She wrote and illustrated a total of 28 books, including the 23 Tales, the ‘little books’ that have been translated into more than 35 languages and have sold over 100 million copies. Her stories have been retold in various formats including a ballet, films, and in animation.

Sources: V&A Museum, BibliOdyssey

Beatrix Potter’s love of animals may have meant that she would have appreciated this little pair of owls.

Alphonse Mucha: 1860-1939

July 24, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Alphonse Maria Mucha was born on July 24, 1860 in Ivančice, Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic) and is known for his prominent role in shaping French Art Nouveau. Mucha loved art as a child but studied on a choral scholarship at the Church of St Peter in Brno, the capital of Moravia. In 1875, Mucha returned to Ivančice where he worked as a court clerk.

After his rejection from the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in 1878, Mucha traveled to Vienna to work as a scene painter for the firm of Kautsky-Brioschi-Burghardt. In 1881, he left Vienna and moved to Mikulov (Moravia) where he paintied portraits. It was there that he met Count Khuen Belasi who commissioned him to decorate his castle at Emmahof and where the Count’s brother became his patron, enabling him to study at the Munich Academy of Art in 1885 and at the Acadamie Julian and the Academie Colarossi in Paris from 1887 to 1889.

Between 1890 and 1896, Mucha lived in a studio above Madame Charlotte’s cremerie and began illustrating for the theatre magazine “Le Costume au Theatre”. He met Paul Gauguin (who later shared his studio), and also began working for publisher Armand Colin. In 1894, Mucha designed a poster for actress Sarah Bernhardt for the play “Gismonda” which led to a five-year contract to create more posters and stage and costume designs for her, as well as designs for magazines, book covers, jewellery and furniture for others.

Mucha’s illustrations are characterized by their mosaic backgrounds and influenced by Byzantine art. In contrast with poster makers of the time, he used paler pastel colours. His romantic female figures wear garments that are decorated with precious gems and are often flamboyantly posed and surrounded by lush flowers.

Mucha moved to a new studio in 1896 at rue du Val-de-Grace and his decorative panels “Les Saisons” were published by the Champenois firm, who he would sign an exclusive contract with around 1897. Between 1897 and 1899, he had several solo exhibitions including shows at the Bodiniere Gallery and the Salon des Cent, in Paris, and the Topic Gallery in Prague. As well, Mucha participated in the first exhibition of the Vienna Secession.

From 1904 to 1910, Mucha traveled and lived in America, visiting New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philidelphia. While there, he painted society portraits and met Charles Crane, who would later sponsor his work on the Slav Epic project. From 1905 to 1907, he worked on commissions and taught at art schools in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. In June 1906, he married Maruška Chytilová (a former art student in Prague), with whom he had daughter Jaroslava, and son Jiri.

Mucha, Maruška, and their daughter returned to Prague in 1910 where he would spend the next 18 years working on his Slav Epic project – a series of twenty paintings depicting the history of the Slav people. In 1928, the completed series was officially presented to the Czech people and the City of Prague and was shown at the city’s Trade Fair Palace. In 1931, Mucha was commissioned to design a stained glass window for the St. Vitus Cathedral, in Prague, donated by the Slavia Bank.

With the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939, Mucha was one of the first to be arrested by the Gestapo. He was questioned and eventually released, but having suffered from pneumonia in the Autumn of 1938, his health was weakened by the ordeal. Alphonse Mucha died on July 14, 1939 and is buried at Vysehrad cemetery. Over 100,000 Czechs attended the funeral despite the Nazi ban.

Sources: Mucha Foundation, Mucha Museum, Wikipedia

Edward Hopper: 1882-1967

July 22, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Born on July 22, 1882 in Nyack, New York, Edward Hopper is considered to be one of America’s greatest realist painters of the twentieth century.

Hopper studied illustration with the Correspondence School of Illustrating in New York City in 1899 and then at the New York School of Art between 1900 and 1906. He studied painting a year later with William Merrit Chase and then Kenneth Hayes Miller and Robert Henri.

In 1906 Hopper traveled to Paris, London, Haarlem, Amsterdam, Berlin and Brussels to study works by European artists. Returning to New York in 1907, he painted and worked part-time as an illustrator for fiction and trade magazines.

Hopper’s first exhibition was a group show, held at the Harmonie Club building in New York in March 1908.

From 1910, Hopper spent his summers painting in rural New England, in Gloucester and Cape Anne, Massachusetts, and Maine. In 1913 he moved to Washington Square, in the Greenwich Village area of New York City, which remained his permanent base. Hopper’s subject matter was derived from two main sources: first, everyday American life such as restaurants, gas stations, theaters, railroads, and street scenes; and second, seascapes and rural landscapes.

Initially, Hopper was more successful as an illustrator and with his etchings, in both sales and exhibitions. In January 1920, he held his first solo exhibition of 16 paintings at the Whitney Studio Club, but was discouraged by the failure to achieve either sales or critical attention. In 1923, with the encouragement of artist Josephine Verstille Nivison (whom he married in 1924), Hopper began painting in watercolour. In 1924, he had his second solo exhibition at the Frank K. M. Rehn Gallery, which was a critical and commercial success.

From 1930, Edward and Josephine (Jo) began to spend their summers painting in Truro on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where they built a home in 1934. Hopper was an intensely private person and led a somewhat reclusive life, two characteristics that are reflected in his paintings. Images of loneliness and detachment pervade Hopper’s works where he often depicted solitary figures (mostly women) who are often occupied with their own thoughts.

Hopper was very productive through the 1930s and early 1940s, producing many of his most important works. In the late 1940’s however, his health was poor and he underwent several prostate surgeries. Hopper was active again in the 1950s and early 1960s, producing several more major works.

Both the art world and pop culture have been influenced by Hopper’s work. Many artists have cited him as influential, including Willem de Kooning, Jim Dine, and Mark Rothko. His cinematic compositions and use of light and dark made him popular with filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho), Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), and Sam Mendes (New York Movie) to name a few.

Edward Hopper died on May 15, 1967 in his studio in New York City. Jo, who died 10 months later, left their collection of over three thousand works to the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Sources: MOMA, National Gallery of Art, Wikipedia

Edgar Degas: 1834-1917

July 19, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas was born on July 19, 1834, to a wealthy banking family in Paris, France. Educated in Latin, Greek, and ancient history at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, Degas initially intended to study law, briefly attending the Sorbonne’s Faculté de Droit in 1853.

In 1855, he studied painting at the École des Beaux-Arts with Louis Lamothe, learning the traditional Academic style with its emphasis on line and the importance of draftsmanship. Degas was also influenced by the paintings and frescoes he saw during several trips to Italy in the late 1850s.

Degas exhibited his history painting “The Misfortunes of the City of Orléans “ at the Salon in 1865, but following that he began focusing on painting scenes of modern life. He favoured themes of ballet dancers, laundresses, milliners, horse racing and other every day scenes. His interest in ballet dancers increased in the 1870s and he produced over 600 works on the subject. In his later years, Degas created works of women bathing, entirely without self-consciousness and un-posed.

From the late 1860s onward, Degas also produced many small sculptures in wax. He concentrated on the subjects seen in his paintings–horses, dancers and women washing. His interest in this medium increased in the mid-1880s in part as a result of his failing eyesight.

Before 1880, he generally used oils for his completed works, which were based on preliminary studies and sketches made in pencil or pastel. After 1875, he began using pastels more frequently, even in finished works, and by 1885, most of his more important works were done in pastel. In the mid-1870s Degas returned to the medium of etching and began experimenting with printmaking media such as lithographs and monotypes.

Degas saw his work as “Realist” or “Independent” and did not like being labeled an “Impressionist” even though he was considered to be one of the group’s founders, an organizer of its exhibitions, and one of its core members. Like the Impressionists, his aim was to capture moments of modern life, yet he had little interest in painting plein air landscapes and his use of clear, hard outlines, set his works apart from the other Impressionists. An observer of everyday scenes, Degas captured in his works, natural positions and movement of the human body.

Degas continued working until about 1912, when he was forced to leave his long-time studio in Montmartre. He never married and any emotional relationships he may have had, remain uncertain. Edgar Degas died on September 27, 1917, at the age of 83.

Sources: MET Museum, MOMA, Wikipedia

Berenice Abbott: 1898-1991

July 17, 2016 By Wendy Campbell

Born on July 17, 1898 in Springfield, Ohio, Berenice Abbott is best known for her powerful black-and-white photographs of New York City in the 1930’s. Her pictures of buildings, houses, trains, warehouses and store fronts, provide an incredible record of New York City during that period.

Abbott studied briefly at Ohio State University before traveling first to New York and then, in 1921, to Europe to study sculpture and drawing. Her interest in photography began when she arrived in Paris in 1923 to work as a darkroom assistant for the American Surrealist Man Ray. In 1925, she took up portrait photography and opened her own studio in 1926. She quickly achieved success with her compelling portraits of artists and writers such as James Joyce, Janet Flanner and Jean Cocteau.

Abbott’s first major photographic project, began in 1929, shortly after she returned from Paris. Her documentation of New York, a growing and changing city, is some of Abbott’s best work. Many of her well-known New York images were taken as part of The Federal Art Project from 1935 to 1939 (a collection that was later published as “Changing New York”). She continued to photograph New York City for over 27 years.

In 1939, Abbott began what many consider to be her most ambitious project and which spanned more than twenty years. Believing science to be a valid subject for artistic statements, she set out to illustrate that photography was the medium uniquely qualified to unite art with science. During this period, Abbott produced thousands of photographs as well as designing and patenting scientific equipment, including two cameras. In 1958, she was recognized by the Physical Science Study Committee of Education Services, in Cambridge, Massachusetts and worked with them for three years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to create a physics text book.

Throughout her career, Abbott recorded the American scene in other states as well, such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and in the Deep South. In 1953, she photographed her journey from Fort Kent, Maine, to Key West, Florida, and back, documenting a changing America from along the Route One Highway.

Abbott was also known as the person responsible for the present-day fame of the French photographer Eugene Atget, whom she met in Paris two years before his death in 1927. Abbott purchased his works, brought them with her to New York, and arranged exhibitions, print sales and the publication of several books. Atget’s photographs, which documented the architecture and street scenes of Paris, had a significant influence on the development of American photography.

In 1966, Abbott moved permanently to Maine, but maintained a connection to New York through her collaboration with the New York Public Library, which sponsored a major retrospective exhibition of her work in 1989. Berenice Abbott died in Maine on December 9, 1991 at the age of 93.

Sources: New York Times, Commerce Graphics

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