— Mowbray was born in Alexandria, Egypt, son of John Henry Siddons and Eliza Fade. He was adopted by his uncle George Mowbray and his aunt Annie Fade Mowbray after the deaths of his parents. He attended the common schools of North Adams, Massachusetts, was appointed a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy in 1875, but left after one year and studied painting under Bonnat in Paris. He opened a studio in New York in 1885 and engaged in figure painting and decorating. He was elected a member of the Society of American Artists in 1886 and won the Clark prize at the National Academy of Design in 1888. He was elected a national academician in 1891. Among his paintings are: Aladdin; Evening Breeze; Last Favorite; Le Destin; Idle Hours; Iridescence; Persephone and Demeter; Lady in Black; mural decorations in Appellate Court House, Morgan Library, and University Club in New York; in the board room of the Prudential Life Insurance company at Newark NJ, and in private residences in New York City.
— LINKS
— The Calenders (1889, 24x46cm; 284x700pix, 66kb — ZOOM to 426x1050pix, 45kb) _ The Calenders was inspired by the translation by Edward Lane of a collection of traditional Arabic stories, dating back to the medieval period, called The Thousand and One Nights. Three princes disguised as Calenders (a Sufic order of wandering mendicant dervishes), who each had but one eye, shaven chins, and thin, twisted mustaches, entertain a group of Baghdad ladies with tales of their recent misfortunes [The Story of the First Royal Mendicant _ The Story of the Second Royal Mendicant _ The Story of the Third Royal Mendicant]. Mowbray also worked interchangeably with Greek, Oriental, and Italian Renaissance themes. Regardless of time or place, Mowbray sought to create an aesthetic ambience for his exotic subjects.
— Rose Harvest (1887, 38x51cm) _ Mowbray exemplifies the growing internationalism of US art during the waning years of the 19th century. This painting depicts a scene the book-length epic Lalla Rookh, an Oriental Romance by Irish poet Thomas Moore [1779 – 25 Feb 1852]. The image captures a scene after the marriage of an Indian princess when a group of young maidens has gathered to spray roses on the grounds in preparation for the princess's passage. Originally published in 1817, Moore's poem had been republished with illustrations by prominent artists (including John Tenniel [1820-1914] for an 1867 edition), then during the 1880s to much critical and popular acclaim. His work, along with Mowbray's, forms vital components in the 19th century obsession with the Orient, a term used in the period to define not Asia, but the region of North Africa, the Levant and even India. The style of the painting combines aspects of impressionism, tonalism and academic realism and further attests to the internationalism of the era.
Mowbray's painting was featured at the 1893 Chicago's World Fair, officially
known as the World's Columbian Exposition. The fair featured thousands of
paintings, thus showcasing the native talents of the host country. One of
the key themes to emerge from the art was the issue of race. While appearing
to be far from concerned with race (at least in our current use of the term),
Mowbray's work indeed presents a stereotypical view of foreigners. Languishing
among nature, these maidens are to be regarded as stereotypes of idle members
of a foreign culture. While Mowbray may place his scene within a foreign
land, a distant past and a literary context, it is unmistakable that this
work spoke to a myriad of contemporary concerns, such as immigration, foreign
policy and domestic racial and gender issues.— <<<Crystal Gazers (1895, 36x16cm) _ This haunting, evocative image reflects the influences of mural painting and the Symbolist movement. Mowbray's use of reflected light in the crystal ball and mirror and the lily motif in the wallpaper may symbolize the two young woman as virgins considering salvation within the mysteries of the Christian religion.
1977
Max Kaus, Berliner painter and printmaker, born on 11 March 1891. After
a practical training as a decorative artist, he attended the Kunstgewerbeschule
in Charlottenburg, Berlin. In 1914 a stay in Paris aroused his interest in fine
arts. Before he was able to develop in this field, World War I broke out; Kaus
worked as an ambulance driver in Flanders. In 1917 Erich Heckel became his military
superior in Ostend. The German painters Otto Herbig [1889–1971] and Anton Kerschbaumer
[1885–1931] also belonged to his division. The influence of these artists, particularly
Heckel, is clear in Kaus’s early work, for example Self-portrait I
(1919). His paintings are marked by brooding doubt and existential loneliness.
In 1920 he became a member of the Freie Sezession and met Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
and Otto Mueller. In the early 1920s he traveled by boat through the Brandenburg
Marshes, to Mecklenburg and the Baltic, producing paintings of landscapes and
bathers, such as Bathers in the Bay at Hiddensee (1922). He became a
teacher in 1926 at the Meisterschule für Kunsthandwerk in Berlin, and in 1933
he moved to the Vereinigte Staatsschulen. The Nazis disapproved of his work, and
in 1938 he had to give up his teaching post. In 1943 his studio was destroyed
in a bombing raid, as was his graphic work in 1945. In the latter year he became
a teacher at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Berlin, where he
taught until 1968. His subjects were closely connected to his life and to nature,
although in the years after 1945 his images were increasingly dominated by rhythmic
patterns coming close to abstraction, such as Temple Ruins II, Rome
(1957). — Freunde
- Interieur mit vier Personen (1917; 809x990kb, 50kb) —
Kanallandschaft II
(1920 lithograph, 38x49cm; 809x1000pix, 86kb)
