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ART “4” “2”-DAY  13 MAY
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DEATH: 1695 MIGNARD
BIRTHS: 1867 BRANGWYN 1882 BRAQUE 1855 DEUTSCH — 1879 STELLA
^ Born on 13 (12?) May 1867: Sir Frank William Brangwyn, English painter and graphic artist who died on 11 June 1956. His students included Karl Albert Buehr and Bernard Leach.
— Largely self-taught, he helped his father, William Brangwyn, who was an ecclesiastical architect and textile designer in Bruges. After his family moved to England in 1875 Brangwyn entered the South Kensington Art Schools and, from 1882 to 1884, worked for William Morris. Harold Rathbone and Arthur Mackmurdo encouraged him to copy Raphael and Donatello in the Victoria and Albert Museum, complementing his already broad knowledge of Dutch and Flemish art.
— Frank Brangwyn, the son of an English architect, was born in Bruges, Belgium. When Frank was ten his family returned to London. He was apprenticed to William Morris for four years and afterwards traveled widely [and wildly?]. As well as working for The Graphic and The Idler, Brangwyn illustrated several books including Collingwood (1891), The Captured Cruiser (1893), The Wreck of the Golden Fleece (1893), Tales of Our Coast (1896), The History of Don Quixote (1898) and A Spiced Yarn (1899). By the early 20th century Brangwyn had a reputation for large pictures painted in a realistic style. He also designed furniture, carpets, textiles, ceramics, stained glass, metalwork and jewellery. During the First World War Brangwyn was an Official War Artist. In 1925 Brangwyn was commissioned to paint a set of wall paintings for the House of Lords. These were competed and rejected in 1930. This included the impressive war picture, Tank in Action. Offers for the murals came from all over the world but they were eventually installed in the Guildhall in Swansea.
Photo of Brangwyn
LINKS
Suzanna and the Elders (120x158cm) — The Empty Sepulchre (1920 color woodcut 16x14cm)
Le marché aux esclaves (1921) — Church of St. Nicholas, Paris (formerly Church Square) (52x63cm)
Windmill, Dixmuden (55x75cm) — The Rialto, Venice (20x15)
Tank in Action (1926, 366x376cm) _ The work of Brangwyn is that of an artist who made large formats and brutal realism his personal hallmark. Paying great attention to detail in his skillful stagings of attacks, he composed pictures whose dimensions and composition seek a spectacular effect. In 1924, he was commissioned to do a set of wall paintings for Westminster Palace, including this one, where his expressionism was found unacceptably morbid for the official building it was painted for.
56 prints at FAMSF
^ Died on 13 May 1695: Pierre Mignard I “le Romain”, French painter born on 17 November 1612. Brother of Nicolas Mignard “d'Avignon”.
— Pierre Mignard, influenced by training in Italy, became the most outstanding portrait painter of his generation; his career was to some extent hampered by the opposition of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris and Charles Le Brun, and reached its high point when he succeeded the latter as Premier Peintre du Roi.
— Pierre Mignard studied first under Jean Boucher in Bourges, then copied the 16th-century decorations at the château of Fontainebleau by Rosso Fiorentino, Francesco Primaticcio and other artists. He later went to Paris, where in 1633 he entered the studio of Simon Vouet, the most prominent representative of the Italian Baroque style in France. There he formed a lasting friendship with the painter and, later, writer Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy. Towards the end of 1635 Mignard left Paris for Rome, staying in Italy until October 1657. Monville, his first biographer, recorded several portraits painted in Italy, as well as some large religious compositions, including a Saint Charles Giving Communion to the Dying (1677). Only two portraits are known to survive, those of The Ambassador of Malta to the Holy See: Commandeur Des Vieux (1653) and A Man presumed to be Senator Marco Peruta, which was painted during Mignard’s stay in Venice in 1654. Both portraits already show the quality that was to make Mignard one of the outstanding portrait painters of his time: the ability to catch a vivid and natural likeness, in contrast to the stern stiffness of earlier 17th-century French portraiture.
— Much better known than his elder brother Nicolas Mignard “d'Avignon”, [07 Feb 1606 – 20 Mar 1668], Pierre Mignard “le Romain” was the rival of Le Brun but an exponent of the same Academic theories. Like Le Brun he was a pupil of Vouet, but he went to Rome in 1636 and remained there until 1657, forming his style on the approved models of the Carracci, Domenichino and Poussin. He returned to Paris on the orders of Louis XIV and decorated the dome of the Val-de-Grâce (1663), but his principal importance was as portrait painter to the Court. He revived the earlier Italian type of allegorical portrait, and a good example is the Marquise de Seignelay as Thetis (1691). He was strongly opposed to the Académie Royale, and, in spite of his own stylistic origins, championed the Venetian or 'colorist' school; this, however, was probably only to oppose Le Brun. When Le Brun died in 1690 Mignard was at once made Premier Peintre, and, on the King's orders, the Academy had, in a single sitting, to appoint Mignard Associate, Member, Rector, Director, and Chancellor of the body he had so long opposed.
— Among his students were de Poilly, Jacques-Philippe Ferrand, Nicolas Vleughels.
LINKS
Clio (1689, 144x115cm) _ The Mignards followed the style of the Bolognese painters, especially that of Domenichino. On this painting Clio, the Muse of the historians, is a direct descendant of Domenichino's saints, in a somewhat more theatrical way.
Perseus and Andromeda (1679, 150x198cm) _ Ovid tells how Andromeda, daughter of an Ethiopian king, was chained to a rock by the seashore as a sacrifice to a sea-monster. Perseus (the son of Danaë whom Jupiter caused to conceive after turning himself into a shower of golden rain) flying overhead on Pegasus, the winged horse, fell in love at first sight. He swooped down just in time, slew the monster and released Andromeda. The picture represents the moment following the freeing of Andromeda.
The Marquise de Seignelay and Two of her Children (1691, 194x155cm) _ Pierre Mignard, known in his native France as Le Romain, lived in Rome from 1636 (visiting Venice and other northern Italian cities in 1654-5) until summoned home by King Louis XIV in 1657. His style was largely based on Annibale Carracci, Domenichino and Poussin. However, he pretended allegiance to Titian and Venetian colorism on his return to France, mainly to oppose his rival Lebrun, whom he succeeded in 1690 as First Painter to the King and Director of the Royal Academy. Despite all his years abroad, his work looks to us unmistakably French, at least as relating to the France of the Sun King's court: calculated and grand. Hogarth's xenophobic English judgment, half a century later, might apply to this superb portrait: 'insolence with an affectation of politeness'. But Mignard was doing no more than following the wishes of his sitter, the widow of Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Seignelay, Minister for the Navy.
      Catherine-Thérèse de Matignon, Marquise de Lonray, veuve de Seignelay, instructed Mignard to portray her as the sea-nymph Thetis, to whom was said (according to Ovid's Metamorphoses XI, 221-3): 'O goddess of the waves, conceive: thou shalt be the mother of a youth who, when to manhood grown, shall outdo his father's deeds and shall be called greater than he.' Past writers have attributed Mme de Seignelay's transformation into a sea goddess to her husband's office, but it was shown that this passage from Ovid is the key to the portrait. Like Thetis, Mlle de Matignon, of old Norman nobility, had been married off against her will to a social inferior: Colbert, her husband's father and the great Minister of the King, was the son of a draper. The goddess's husband, Peleus, had to rape Thetis to 'beget on her the great Achilles', the most celebrated Greek hero of the Trojan War. 'The hero's mother, goddess of the sea, was ambitious for her son' and by descending into the fiery crater of Etna, the volcano seen here smoking in the background, obtained for him armor made by Vulcan, the blacksmith god. This is the armor, 'work of heavenly art', worn in the guise of Achilles by Marie-Jean-Baptiste de Seignelay, the eldest son for whom Mme de Seignelay had just bought a military commission.
      The painting's brilliant effect depends in large measure on the vast expanse of Thetis' best ultramarine-blue cloak, contrasting wonderfully with the coral and pearls in her hair, and the mauves and greens of Achilles' garments. Ultramarine was the costliest of pigments, more expensive than gold itself and for that reason seldom used by this date, and never in such quantities. Thus did Mme de Seignelay confound the rumors put about by 'mauvaises langues' that she was bankrupt. And there is more: other rumors circulated that the noble widow either was, or wished to be, mistress to the king. The Cupid proffering a precious nautilus shell brimming over with a king's ransom in jewels publicizes the liaison as a fait accompli. Thus might a classical education, and the talents of a Roman-trained and responsive artist, be put to insolent use 'with an affectation of politeness'.
The Heavenly Glory (1663) _ The Val-de-Grâce is one of the most important Baroque churches in Paris. It was designed by François Mansart, its dome follows the example of the St. Peter's in Rome. The circular fresco of the dome depicts the Trinity in Glory surrounded by saints, martyrs, and illustrious personalities. There are more then 200 figures in the composition including Queen Anne of Austria (the wife of Louis XIII), founder of the church.
Girl Blowing Soap Bubbles (1674, 132x96cm)
The Virgin of the Grapes (1645, 121x94cm) _ [compare Madonna and Child with Grapes (1537) by Lucas Cranach the Elder]
^ Born on 13 May 1882: Georges Braque, French Cubist and Fauvist painter, collagist, draftsman, printmaker, illustrator, and sculptor, who died on 31 August 1983.
— His most important contribution to the history of art was his role in the development of what became known as Cubism. In this, Braque’s work is intertwined with that of his collaborator Pablo Picasso, especially from 1908 to 1912. For a long time it was impossible to distinguish their respective contributions to Cubism, for example in the development of collage, while Picasso’s fame and notoriety overshadowed the quiet life of Braque.
— Braque spent his youth at Le Havre where he became an apprentice house painter and attended night classes in drawing; he then moved to Paris. His early paintings (1907) were in the Fauve style but he soon came under the influence of Cézanne. This led to a close friendship with Picasso and subsequently to the development of Cubism. The paintings of the two artists for the next years (1910~1914) were often quite similar.
      After serving in World War I, Braque returned to a less austere kind of Cubism. Toward 1920 the lingering geometric traits of Braque's Cubism began to be softened by elaborations of brushwork and looser drawing. Though he ocassionally did figure paintings, especially of ancient Greek subjects, and a few small landscapes of the Norman Coast, his best work was in still~life, particularly his paintings of the 1920s and 1930s.
      During World War II Braque's health suffered but there was still-life in him and he managed to paint many large canvases, somewhat looser in execution than his previous work. Braque also made prints, color lithographs, plaster reliefs, a few small sculptures and jewelry. In the 1950s he worked with the theme of birds in flight. After World War II his paintings became more colorful and impressionistic.
— One cannot speak of the Fauvist and Cubist movements in twentieth-century art without uttering the name of Georges Braque. Often seen as merely supplementing the project so loudly engaged by Picasso, Braque was in fact a crucial thinker of the modern aesthetics that influenced the work of Picasso and others. An examination of his life is at once a biographical investigation and an historical survey of the avant-garde.
      Georges Braque was born in Argenteuil, France, one of the centers of the Impressionist movement in the later half of the nineteenth century. Both his father and grandfather owned a prosperous house-painting business, and the young Braque would travel along on assignments, already gaining an awareness of the integral relationship between paint and space. At 15, after the family had relocated to nearby Le Havre, Georges enrolled in an evening course at the local academy of fine arts. This time spent after school, as well as on the job, pushed Braque to get an apprenticeship in house painting and interior decoration at the age of 17. From Le Havre, he moved to Paris and began a lifelong exploration of color and space, searching for the most beautiful combination of the two.
      In 1902, after a year of military service and with the financial support of his family, Braque made the decision to become an "artist." This meant enrolling first in a private art academy in Paris and then attending the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts. He spent two more years as an official student of art, regularly attending the Louvre for inspiration (mostly Egyptian and Greek classical sculpture) and exploring the different approaches to color and form used by the Impressionists and the post-Impressionists.
      1905, however, was a turning point in Braque’s career. At Paris’s Salon d’Automne exhibition, he witnessed for the first time the wildly explosive color of the aptly self-titled Fauves. Braque rapidly took as his own this style that seemed to privilege arbitrariness and violent display. During the next two years, Braque relocated several times, each time imbuing his new locale (be it Antwerp or the Mediterranean coast) with representations exploding in color. His confidence in style can best be seen in coastal works like The Port of La Ciotat and View from the Hôtel Mistral, L’Estaque.
      Upon his return to Paris in 1907, Braque found himself a commercial success. His exhibition at the Paris Salon des Indépendants generated sales for much of his work and attracted a prominent dealer, Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler. Kahnweiler’s small gallery in Paris would, with Braque’s work always displayed prominently, shape the evolution of the modern aesthetic. And it was through Kahnweiler that Braque met Pablo Picasso. After exchanging a few superficial remarks about painting, Braque, nary seven months Picasso’s junior, expressed severe criticism of the master’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Braque is remembered as declaring, “In spite of your explanations, your painting looks as if you wanted to make us eat tow, or drink gasoline and spit fire.” It was exactly this kind of critical honesty from an artistic peer that the young Picasso craved, and the two formed one of the tightest, most influential relationships in the history of art.
      Braque and Picasso worked together for years, feverishly trading ideas back and forth. This tight collaboration produced hundreds of works almost indistinguishable from one another, making it difficult to determine whether Picasso or Braque initiated this revolutionary movement. We can surmise from stylistics, however, that Picasso probably give birth to the groundbreaking and liberating idea, while Braque provided the movement with its geometrical tendencies (see Houses at L’Estaque). By the middle of 1908, the style was crystallized. During one of Braque’s shows at Kahnweiler’s gallery, the esteemed Paris critic Louis Vauxcelles commented on the performance of the "cubes". Cubism was officially born.
      By 1911, Braque’s style had become more hermetic and used complicated, analytical notions to explode the flat image outward. Man with a Guitar, exemplary of the period, combines the flat, pictorial space with multiple viewpoints and light sources, creating numerous simultaneously overlapping images. In 1912, after courting his wife-to-be, Marcelle, Braque began a lengthy experiment in collage and overlay, using three pieces of wallpaper to extend his drawing Fruit Dish and Glass into three-dimensional space.
      In 1914, Braque entered the war as an infantry sergeant and was decorated twice for his bravery in the field. However, he suffered a serious head wound the year after, and was sent to a convalescent home at Sourges. Without much energy to paint or sculpt, Braque began recording the main aphorisms he thought of when he was painting. Some examples of these aphorisms include: “Il faut se contenter de découvrir, mais se garder d'expliquer.” "L'ombre intérieure revêt la plupart des formes naturelles des objets qui sont la sphère, le cône, le cylindre". "Je cherche à rendre la perspective uniquement par la couleur". "Je pense en formes et en couleurs". "Travailler sur la nature c'est improviser", "J'aime la règle qui corrige l'émotion", "Les senses déforment, l'esprit forme." These and many other sayings were collected by his friend Pierre Reverdy and published as Pensées et Réflections sur la Peinture.
      After several years of convalescence, the artist rejoined the increasingly popular Cubist movement. His companions were enveloped in the "synthetic phase" in which more color and larger shapes were employed. With the spirit of a rediscovery, Braque joined them, painting such works as Woman Musician and Still Life with Playing Cards.
      In 1922, Braque relocated to an exquisite house on Paris’s left bank and allowed his notoriety to find most of his commissions. These included stage designs for the ballets of Russian composer Sergey Diaghilev. In addition, Braque did many works on canvas, though at this point the subject matter was almost wholly devoted to the still life (see his cheminées). By 1931, Braque had devoted almost all his energy to a new medium: white drawings reminiscent of the ancient Greek works he so loved as a youth.
      Braque’s later works, especially after the Second World War, often cope with the need for cubist study; first billiard tables, then studio interiors, then lastly grotesque birds. While his later pieces never had the critical appeal of the older works, Braque nonetheless spent his last years as an honored member of French society, with his cubist works given numerous showings around the world. In 1961, he became the first living artist to have his works exhibited in the Louvre. Braque died away as a rich and famous artist, a position only his friend Picasso could rightly understand.
LINKS
Paysage à l'EstaqueAnvers — Port en Normandie (1909, 96x96cm) — Viaduct à l'Estaque (1908, 72x59cm) — Château de la Roche~Guyon (1909) — Le Violoniste — Le Portugais (1912, 117x81cm) — Absinthe — Poissons Noirs (1942, 33x55cm) — Nature Morte: le Jour (1929)
Nature Morte Avec Bananes (1924) — Job (1911) — Deux Citrons (1962) — Doris (Plate from Hesiode, 1930) — L'Oiseau blanc (1961) — Fenêtres: Oiseaux Gris (1962) — Oiseau de passage (1962) — Fruit Dish (1912) — Still Life with Mandolin II (1940) — Grand Nude
^ Born on 13 May 1855: Ludwig Deutsch, Austrian French painter who died in 1935, specialized in Orientalism.
— Deutsch, a painter of incredible skill is much more appreciated now than he was in his own lifetime. He studied first in Vienna and then, under Jean-Paul Laurens, in Paris, becoming a citizen of France in 1919. He made numerous trips to the Middle East and spent some time in Cairo. He painted scenes of both ordinary and religious life.
— Deutsch, né autrichien, sera naturalisé français en 1919. Il étudie la peinture d'histoire auprès de Feuerbach. Il tente en 1877 d'entrer dans la classe de Leopold Carl Müller qui le refuse. Il rejoint alors à Paris d'autres peintres de sa génération comme Rudolf Ernst. Il rompt alors tout contact avec l'Autriche. Il étudie avec Laurens et participe au Salon de 1879. Vers 1885 il possède plusieurs ateliers à Paris. Sa production est intense. Il peint aussi bien des sujets de groupe que des personnages isolés dans la manière naturaliste. Médaille d'Or au Salon de 1900, il accumule les récompenses. Il n'a quasiment pour seul ami que Rudolf Ernst auquel, dit-on, il rend visite chaque jour jusqu'à la mort de Ernst. Il fait plusieurs voyages en Egypte en 1886, 1890 et 1898 dont les scènes quotidiennes l'inspirent presque exclusivement pour ses tableaux orientalistes mais il en a probablement effectué d'autres, peut-être pendant la première guerre mondiale, époque pendant laquelle il disparaît de Paris. Ses tableaux montrent une minutie dans les détails (décors, costumes, tissus, etc...) particulièrement poussée, il s'aide en cela de photographies réalisées par des ateliers établis au Caire.
The Chess Game (1896, 55x42cm)
The Palace Guard (1892, 133x84cm) _ detail _ auctioned at Christie's in New York on 01 November 1999 for $3'192'500. (Un tel tableau, peint à la croisée de l’orientalisme et du style pompier, n’aurait valu que quelques centaines de milliers de francs il y a une vingtaine d’années.)
A Nubian Guard (1895, 50x33cm) — At PrayerThe Scribe — (Stepping Down) — Le musicien, (55x39cm)
The Prayer at the Tomb (1898). _ This image attests to Deutsch's beautiful color palette and attention to detail. The setting is a tomb within the Blue Mosque in Cairo, dating back to 1346. As with many of the Orientalists Deutsch recorded the beautiful architecture of the Middle East.
^ Born on 13 May 1879 (1877?): Joseph Stella, Italian-born US painter and collagist who died on 05 November 1946.
— He arrived in New York in 1896. The following year he enrolled briefly in the Art Students League and then in the New York School of Art (1898), where his ability was recognized by William Merritt Chase. The Lower East Side subject-matter of Stella’s early work was similar to that of his contemporaries of the New York Ashcan school. In place of their dark-toned Impressionism, however, Stella’s early style was academic in the manner of late 19th-century Italian painting. His first important commission was to depict the industrial workers in Pittsburgh for Survey, a social reform journal.
LINKS
Old Brooklyn Bridge (1941, 194x174cm) _ New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, completed in 1883 and hailed as an engineering marvel, spans the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan. When Stella emigrated from Italy to Brooklyn in 1916, the borough’s most famous landmark became a recurrent image in his work—a symbol of the dynamism and promise of the modern American city. Here, Stella shows the bridge at night: cables soar overhead, traffic signals and headlights flash through the darkness, and the bridge’s Gothic arches rise in the background like those of a skyscraper or a church. The bridge, to Stella, was a “shrine containing all the efforts of the new civilization of AMERICA.”
The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme _ another image of same (1939, 178x107cm) _ Stella first saw the Brooklyn Bridge when he arrived in New York from a small town in southern Italy. He was struck by the dazzling industry of the city. But life in New York as a recent immigrant was also a struggle. Many nights, Stella sought refuge on the vast expanse of the bridge's walkway where, he said, "I felt deeply moved, as if on the threshold of a new religion." The Brooklyn Bridge was really a ground-breaking suspension bridge. It was designed by John Roebling, the civil engineer, who wanted to connect Brooklyn and New York, which were then separate cities across the East River. Stella's perspective is essentially the impression you get as you walk along the bridge. The cables that dominate this picture are the suspension cables. The elevated walkway is cradled in these cables, so you're caught in this net of cables and wires and it's really a very spectacular setting. The Brooklyn Bridge walkway provides one of the classic walks in the world. To walk across the bridge and to approach Manhattan at a walking pace is something that is hard to reproduce anywhere else. It gives you ample time to reflect upon the magnitude of the city, the achievements of the engineers and architects who made the city what it is. The ever-changing nature of the city. The people walking on the walkway coming towards you, walking with you,also remind you of the real diversity of the city. It's just a spectacular, spectacular experience.
City Buildings, New York _ another image of same (1917)
Battle of Lights, Coney Island, Mardi Gras (1914, 193x216cm) — Abstraction (1914)
Flowers (1925) _ Although Stella is well-known for working in the style of the Italian Futurists, and his early renditions of sites in and around New York City are regarded as the most important US paintings indebted to this art movement, it is the delicate floral works, mainly in pastel, crayon and silverpoint, which most collectors treasure. It seems hard to believe that these finely wrought drawings were done by the same artist who produced the bold and meaty works celebrating the bridges and tunnels of New York. Yet today they are among the most beautiful and tender drawings of flowers and birds ever to be produced by a US artist. It is difficult to find any trace of his having studied under William Merritt Chase, yet in his search for beauty there is a link to the work of this master. Stella, like Chase, exalted the beautiful.
Tropical Flowers (1925) — Orange Gladiola (1915) — Purissima (1927, 193x145cm)
Strength: The New Stock (1908) — Abstraction Mardi Gras (1914, 21x29cm)
^
Died on a 13 May:


1625 Anton Mozart, German artist born in 1573. — [What a shame that I can't find any example of his art on the internet! I bet it would have been music for sore eyes.] — Mozart, Anton (b ?Augsburg, 1573; d Augsburg, 13 May 1625). German painter and draughtsman. The son and pupil of Christoph Mozart II (d c. 1590), a craftsman painter, he may have visited Venice and Treviso in the 1590s. The stylistic proximity to the Frankenthal school or Frederik van Valckenborch (c. 1570–1623) of his earliest landscape, the Sermon of John the Baptist (1602; Augsburg, Schaezlerpal.), is due more to common period factors than to any direct influence. In 1598 Mozart became a master in Augsburg, where he remained except for short journeys. He painted small-format cabinet pictures and repository pieces, mostly on copper or wood, occasionally on alabaster or lapis lazuli. His verified works comprise only about 25 paintings and miniatures, a similar number of drawings and a few pages for dynastic albums, often with the distinctive monogram A under M, and the date.

^
Born on a 13 May:


1896 Auguste Mambour, Belgian artist who died in 1968.

1886 Carl Mense, German artist who died on 11 August 1965. — [There was a German artist named Mense, / and he was just a little bit dense: / His paints were few but his canvas immense, / and of no use except as a fence.] [There may be rhyme, but there is no reason to believe the preceding statement]

1857 Delphin Enjolras, French artist who died in 1945.

1853 Adolf Richard Hölzel, German painter who died on 17 May 1934 (and thus avoided the worst of another, later Austrian-born painter named Adolf). While still at school he became familiar with lithography and printing methods with the intention of joining his father’s thriving publishing firm. His later decision to study art eventually met with his father’s approval, and from 1876 until 1879 he trained at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna. In 1879 he transferred to the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, where until 1881 he continued his training under Carl Barth and Wilhelm von Diez [1839–1907]. After a study tour with the German painter Arthur Langhammer [1854–1901] he returned to Munich to paint. — Among his students were Willi Baumeister, Camille Graeser, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, Theodor von Hörmann, Johannes Itten, Otto Meyer-Amden, Oskar Schlemmer, and Emil Nolde [07 Aug 1867 – 13 Apr 1956], who also did his early work, to 1912, in Hölzel's studio.

1830 Edouard Alexandre Sain, French artist who died on 27 June 1910 (not in the way mentioned next). — [There was a French artist named Sain / who of critics had enough, / so he went to the Pont-Neuf, / jumped off, and thus died in Seine.]

1813 Karl Girardet, Swiss painter and engraver who died in 1871. He was the son of engraver Charles-Samuel Girardet [1780–1863] and the brother of the painters and engravers Édouard-Henri Girardet [31 Jul 1819– 05 Mar 1880] and Paul Girardet [1821–1893]. Karl Girarded studied painting in Paris. In 1844 he and his brother Édouard were commissioned by the Musées Nationaux de Versailles to travel to Egypt to paint a historical scene from the Crusades.
^
1768 Willem-Bartel van der Kooi
, Dutch artist who died on 14 July 1836. — [If he had changed his last letter from i to l, that would've been Kool.] — Kooi, Willem Bartel van der (b Augustinusga, 13 May 1768; d Leeuwarden, 14 July 1836). Dutch painter and teacher. He came from a family of civil servants, but from an early age he showed an interest in drawing and painting. At 12 he took lessons with local house painters, and after 1783 his father sent him to Johannes Verrier, an amateur painter in Leeuwarden who had been a pupil of Jan Maurits Quinkhard. After the revolution of 1795 van der Kooi, a patriotic supporter of the Batavian Republic, was elected Representative of the People of Friesland. In 1798 he was appointed the first Lecturer in the Art of Drawing at Franeker University, although drawing had been part of the university’s programme since 1744—mainly for the benefit of students of medicine and mathematics. He reorganized the drawing classes according to the traditional academic pattern, and he seems to have taken considerable trouble to make the latest French prints available to his students. However, his attempts to establish a full-scale art academy were unsuccessful. In 1804 he visited the Academy of Art and Elector’s Gallery in Düsseldorf, where he made copies after Anthony van Dyck and Domenico Fetti. In 1808 van der Kooi won the prize for the best genre painting, which Louis-Napoleon offered at the first National Art Exhibition in Amsterdam, with his Lady Taking a Letter from her Servant (1808), and through this award he became known outside Friesland.

1597 Cornelis Schut I, Flemish artist who died on 29 April 1655. — [Is identification of his works an “oh pun” and Schut case?] — Schut, Cornelis, I (b Antwerp, 13 May 1597; d Antwerp, 29 April 1655). Flemish painter, draughtsman and etcher, active in Italy. In 1618/19 he became a member of the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp. The influence of Abraham Janssen is evident in the early Adoration of the Magi (Caen, Mus. B.A.), but whether Schut was a pupil of Janssen is open to question. From 1624 to 1627 he was in Rome, where he was a founder-member of the Schildersbent (the group of Netherlandish artists active in Rome at that time). Schut worked there under the patronage of the Flemish merchant Pieter de Vischere, whose country house at Frascati Schut decorated with mythological scenes. Schut must also have belonged to the circle of Vincenzo Giustiniani in Rome; two of his early works, the Adoration mentioned above and the Massacre of the Innocents (Caen, Mus. B.A.) were in Giustiniani’s collection. During these years Schut also painted small-scale works depicting allegorical and mythological themes, perhaps intended for the open market. In 1628 he was in Florence, where he designed tapestries for the Arazzeria Medicea. Schut adopted, and retained throughout his career, the new High Baroque style of painting, developed in Italy after 1625 under the influence of such artists as Pietro da Cortona. Features of this style include a strong sense of animation and pathos, in which light and colour play a major role. Elements of late Mannerism are also evident, and Schut’s style, which is characterized by fierce foreshortening, sharp light contrasts and extreme facial expressions, bears some affinity with the work of Federico Barocci, which was important in the evolution of Baroque painting.
Malevich, left, with Khardzhiev

Happened on a 13 May:


2003 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York opens an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Kasimir Severinovich Malevich [26 Feb 187815 May 1935], Ukrainian avant-garde Cubist artist who was persecuted by the Soviet Government. This artwork had been among the Russian avant-garde artwork and writings collected by Nikolai Khardzhiev [1903-1996], which, when he left the Soviet Union in 1993, was plundered by corrupt officials, confidence men, and crooked art dealers. Malevich died in poverty in Amsterdam, where the Stedelijk Museum has the best collection of his work, acquired, as by other museums and collectors, under questionable circumstances.
[1933 photo: Malevich, left, with Khardzhiev, in Moscow >]

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