search 7500+ artists, their works, museums, movements, countries, time periods, media, specializations
<<< ART 25 May
ANY DAY ...IN ART ...IN HISTORY ||| HISTORY “4” MAY 26 ||| ALTERNATE SITES
ART 27 May >>>
ART “4” “2”-DAY  26 MAY
DEATH: 1902 CONSTANT
BIRTHS: 1810 KØBKE — 1868 GRÜN — 1878 GORE
^ Born on 26 May 1810: Christen Schjellerup Købke, Danish Realist painter who died on 07 February 1848.
— He is the most internationally renowned Danish painter and, with his teacher, C. W. Eckersberg, was one of the leading artists of the Danish ‘golden age’ of painting in the 1830s and 1840s. He is most famous for his intimate depictions of familiar landmarks in Copenhagen and North Zealand, notably Frederiksborg Castle, near Hillerød. The skill with which he rendered architectural silhouettes and the light of the Danish sky has won him great acclaim. His charming and intimate portraits of family, fellow artists and friends are among the best examples of Nordic portrait painting.
— Lorenz Frølich was a student of Købke.
— LINKS
— The View of the Plaster Cast Collection at Charlottenborg Palace (1830) — Frederik Sødring (1832) — Frederiksborg Castle Seen from the Northwest (1836) — View of Lake Sortedam (1838) — View of Østerbro from Dosseringen (1838)
^ Born on 26 (25?) May 1868: Jules Alexandre Grün, French painter, illustrator, and poster artist who died on 15 February 1934.
— Grün was born in Paris, on 25 (26?) May 1868. He died of Parkinson's Disease, although the date of his death is debated. Some sources state that he died on 15 February 1934, while others, such as the Salon de Paris official documents claim 1938. Yet another source claims 1945. Grün was the pupil of Jean-Baptiste Lavastre, the famed theatrical decorator of the Paris Opera, and of Antoine Guillemet, a renowned landscape painter. Still life, portraits, and scenes of Parisian life were his favorite subjects. In 1890, his illustrations for Xanrof's Chansons sans Gêne (1890) and Chansons à rire (1891) made him the poet of the Bohemian element and the Montmartre atmosphere.
      His early life is virtually unknown, although we do know many of his accomplishments, as they are well documented in the annals of the Paris Salons and periodicals of the period. One turn of the century publication characterized him as follows: "Whoever sees Grün once will always re-examine it in his spirit: a Frenchman with a beard and a legendary baldness; eyes strangely clear and penetrating, and under the sensual curving nose, a mouth gushing forth with quick wit and good banter." For Grün, life and art merged; he was a painter because he liked the life, and because he needed to express his clear feelings, colored, alive of people and the things around them. As Théophile Gautier said, Grün was "a man for whom the visible world exists".
      In the mid-to-late 1930s, Grün became stricken with Parkinson's disease, which served to isolate him from society, and greatly diminished his artistic abilities. When he died one of the last of the great Belle Epoque poster artists was taken away from the world. His posters, full of life and of color, contributed largely to the rebirth of the lithography. With Chéret, whose name is inseparable in this field, Jules Alexandre Grün helped transform the scenic landscape of the Parisian streets at the turn of the century. Full and powerful, almost caricatural, and when he desired, delicate and exquisite. Grün, by his love of painting, and by the diversity of his gifts and subjects, was a complete artist.
— Fin de Souper (1913, 56x152cm) — 17 prints at Wet Canvas
^ Died on 26 May 1902: Jean-Joseph-Benjamin“-”Constant, French painter and printmaker born on 10 June 1845, specialized in Orientalism.
— Benjamin-Constant (as he called himself) was a leading painter of Oriental themes and a teacher of French academic painting. He spent his youth in Toulouse, where he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. A municipal scholarship enabled him to enter the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1866. By the following year he was a student in the Ecole de la Rue Bonaparte under the history painter Alexandre Cabanel, and he competed unsuccessfully for the Prix de Rome in 1868 and 1869.
      His first Salon exhibit, Hamlet and the King (1869), established his reputation as a colorist. Constant submitted a number of other traditional history paintings, such as Samson and Delilah (1872). During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), however, he traveled to Spain, visiting Madrid, Toledo, Córdoba and Granada, where he came under the influence of the Orientalist painter Mariano Fortuny y Marsal.
      In 1872 Constant went to North Africa and stayed for two years, during which he was fascinated by the azure skies, colorful costumes and exotic beauty of the Moroccan people. Exotic harem women and dramatic quasi-historical subjects were the mainstay of Constant's output. — Constant's students included Ernest Leonard Blumenschein [26 May 1874 – 1960], Frank Dumond, William Horton, William Kendall, Caroline Lord, Granville Redmond, Guy Rose, Joseph Henry Sharp, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Sears Gallagher, Charles Courtney Curran, António Teixeira Carneiro, Carlos Baca Flor, Pedro Blanes Viale, Robert Brough, Józef Czajkowski, Paul Peel, Maurice Prendergast, Leo Putz, George Agnew Reid, José Veloso Salgado, Aurélia de Sousa, Henry Ossawa Tanner.— photo of Constant (1401x987pix, 144kb) — a later photo of Constant (846x651pix, 89kb)
— LINKS
— The Entry of Mahomet II into Constantinople (1876, 3390x2487pix, 4086kb)
— a different Entrance of Mohammed II into Constantinople (150x100cm, 2000x1319pix, 451kb)
— Arabian Nights (47x89cm; 528x1000pix, 111kb) — Contemplation (140x 93cm; 1000x648pix, 168kb) — Guarding the Chieftain (61x49cm; 1000x817pix, 260kb) — The Palace Guard with Two Leopards (100x62cm; 1000x585kb, 178kb) — L'Impératrice Théodora Au Colisée (157x133cm, 1189x1000pix, 232kb) — Herodiade (1881, 130x95cm; 1000x733pix, 203kb) — The Throne Room In Byzantium (101x74cm; 1440x1000pix, 247kb) — Portrait of a Moor (47x41cm; 630x540pix, 90kb)
— Drying Clothes (900x708pix, 39kb) _ Unusual for Constant is this everyday scene of domestic work, the subject of which is a lowly woman. Her direct gaze may be a reflection of changing social perceptions in this period, whereby peasants were portrayed as proud and honest folk. The soft warm tones create an exotic languor which charm the onlooker with a dream of Eastern promise.
^ Born on 26 May 1878: Spencer Frederick Gore, English painter who died of pneumonia on 27 March 1914.
Self-Portrait 1914, 41x31cm— He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London (1896–1899), where he met Harold Gilman, who became a close friend. In 1902 he visited Spain with another Slade contemporary, Wyndham Lewis, and two years later he visited Sickert in Dieppe. From that time on his work was influenced by French art, and Gore learnt much about Degas’s paintings through Sickert’s teaching. After Sickert’s return to London in 1905 Gore frequently accompanied him to music halls and made them the subject of several paintings, for example The Mad Pierrot Ballet, the Alhambra (1905) — [Any Gore gore to be seen?]
      As a founder-member of the Fitzroy Street Group, Gore came into contact with Lucien Pissarro, whose Impressionist method he adopted in his garden scenes and in The Cricket Match (1909). With Gilman and others he helped found the Allied Artists' Association and was also involved in the formation of the Camden town group in 1911. After seeing Roger Fry's Post-Impressionist exhibitions of 1910 and 1912, he was one of the first Camden Town artists to switch from an Impressionist-based technique to one that comes closer in appearance to stained glass. It is first seen in landscapes he painted at Letchworth in summer 1912, for instance in the insistent pattern-making in The Beanfield; he later gave way to the influence of Cézanne, employing a more complex orchestration of form following his move from Camden Town to Richmond, Surrey, in 1913. In 1912 he directed the mural decorations at the nightclub, ‘The Cave of the Golden Calf’.
— LINKS
— Inez and Taki (41x51cm) _ The title of this picture is the name of a double act Gore saw at the Alhambra Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square. The couple are playing lyre guitars, an instrument common in the early nineteenth century, but by this date an eccentric choice. Gore was fascinated by the magic of the music hall, and frequently chose unexpected routines as subjects. He went to the theatre several times each week, and made sketches from his seat in the audience. Each composition required many visits to capture the precise moment of the performance. The edge of a balcony is seen here framing the composition, and this unusual perspective increases the odd atmosphere of the scene.
— Rule Britannia (1910, 76x63cm) _ Gore was fascinated by the theatre, ballet and music hall, and from his seat in the audience he made sketchbook drawings on which he based paintings. Rule Britannia shows the finale of the immensely popular patriotic ballet Our Flag, which opened at the Alhambra Theatre of Varieties, Leicester Square, in December 1909. It starred the Danish ballerina Britta Petersen, shown here in her Union Jack tutu performing the final dance. Gore emphasises the unusual colors of the stage lighting, contrasted with the dullness of the auditorium.
— Ballet Scene (1911, 38x28cm) — Mornington Crescent (1911, 63x76cm)
— Applehayes (1909) — Houghton Place (1912, 51x61cm) — Letchworth (1912, 51x61cm)
^
Died on a 26 May:

1851 Bertrand-Georges de Bayle, French artist born on 22 October 1788.

1821 Marie-Françoise-Constance Mayer-Lamartinière, French Neoclassical painter born in 1775, in Paris, the daughter of a successful government official. She first studied under J.-B. Suvée (who left Paris in 1801) and Greuze, whose work she imitated closely. She exhibited principally portraits at the Salon 1796-1801. In 1802 she became the pupil of Prud'hon, to whom she dedicated the rest of her life, both as an artist and companion. She cared for his children (whose mother had become insane), while her work became inextricably involved with that of Prud'hon who would prepare compositions for her to paint and exhibit at the Salon under her own name. In 1810 (presumably on the death of her father from whom she inherited some 80'000 francs) she acquired a studio adjoining Prud'hon's in the Sorbonne. In 1821 the government requisitioned the Sorbonne and this threat to the ménage, combined with her highly-strung temperament, led her to take her own life in her studio on 26 May 1821. Prud'hon completed her last picture, Une famille dans la désolation, and showed it in the 1822 Salon under his name. When Prud'hon died in 1823 he was buried with her at Père-Lachaise. — LINKS — Sophie Fanny Lordon (1820) — Happy Mother

1785 Niccolo Guardi, Italian artist born on 09 December 1715. — Brother of Francesco Guardi [05 Oct 1712 – 01 Jan 1793] and of Gian Antonio Guardi [1698 – 23 Jan 1760]; first-cousin of Giandomenico Tiepolo [30 Aug 1727 – 03 March 1804].

1709 Bernardus van Schendel (or Schyndel), Dutch artist born in 1649.

1592 Dirck Barendsz, Amsterdam painter and draftsman born in 1534. He probably received his first training from his father Barend Dirckszoon van Brussel (or van Orley) [1488-1541], nicknamed ‘Doove’ (Deaf) Barend. In 1555 Dirck went to Rome and Venice, where he presumably worked for a while in Titian’s studio. Other Venetian artists, including Jacopo Bassano, also had an important influence on him. He returned to Amsterdam shortly before or during 1562, the year in which he married Agnies Florisdr., by whom he fathered at least eight children. He remained there for the rest of his life. He moved in cultivated circles and was an accomplished musician, mathematician and linguist. He introduced the Venetian style of painting to the Netherlands: strong colors and rapid, sketchy brushwork. Of his few surviving works there are two group portraits of members of Amsterdam’s civic guard: Fourteen Guardsmen of Squad G (1562) and The Perch Eaters (1566). Their lively compositions provide a welcome change from the stiff civic guard groups typically produced around that time in Amsterdam. The only dated portrait to survive is Dirck Jan Hendricksz. (1567).

^
Born on a 26 May:

1898 Max Gubler, Swiss painter who after 1957 suffered from mental disease, stopped painting after the death of his wife in 1961, and died on 29 July 1973, having spent his last years in a hospital. — I had wondered whether he ever painted a turkey. Searching for examples of his artwork on the Internet had turned out to be a wild goose chase for me, so I didn't know whether there is a Gubler gobbler. But Urs and Eva Wild e-mailed me from Zürich on 14 September 2003: “Not a turkey but many Pheasants !!!!!! : http://www.maxgubler.ch/large/max_gubler_l_2155.jpg ”. Well, judge for yourself; if you think that it is a turkey, wild or not, you are entitled to your opinion.
     The Wilds also indicated the Gubler web site. It includes a biography and images of many paintings, from Landscape (Burghoelzli) (1917, 59x74cm; 473x592pix, 26kb) to Hanging Pheasant (1957, 114x118cm; 592x450pix, 35kb) — Lying Pheasant (1957, 88x116cm; 420x592pix, 30kb) — Lying Pheasant (1957, 97x130cm; 444x597pix, 48kb) — Lying Pheasant (1957, 50x61cm; 444x552pix, 50kb). In my opinion, those lying pheasants are not lying about being pheasants, nor is the hanging one; but, again, if you want to call them wild turkeys, that is your privilege.

1893 Vilhelm Henry Lundstrom, Danish artist who died in 1950.

1874 Ernest Leonard Blumenschein, US painter who died in 1960, specialized in the US West. He studied under Benjamin-Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens [Did he give a bluish tinge to his portraits, thinking that blue men shine?] — LINKS — The Lake (61x69cm)

1850 Amélie Helga Lundahl, Swedish French artist who died on 20 August 1914.

1846 Eduard von Grützner, German artist who died in 1925.

1840 Alfred Wordsworth Thompson, US artist who died on 18 August 1896. —Life on the Towpath (1881)

1814 Albertus Steenbergen, Dutch artist who died in 1900.

1787 Franz Steinfeld, Austrian artist who died on 05 November 1868.

1759 John-Nost Sartorius, British artist who died in 1828. — LINKS — untitled (horse in snow next to a house) (1792, 36x43cm)

^
Happened on a 26 May:

1573 On the inland lake of Haarlemmermeer the Dutch and Spanish navies meet in battle. It is in the middle of the Dutch Revolt against Spain. Much later, Battle of Haarlemmermeer, 26 May 1573 (1621, 190x268cm) is painted by the Haarlem artist Hendrick Vroom [1563 – 02 Feb 1640 buried], a specialist in portrayals of ships and naval engagements. The Spanish ships — identified by the flags with a red cross — are sailing before the wind from the right. Meanwhile, the ships of the Sea Beggars are approaching from the left. They were badly equipped and were eventually forced to retreat. That battle occurs during the Eighty Years War (1568-1648) in which the Dutch fought off Spanish rule and which led to the foundation of the Dutch Republic, which comprised the seven northern United Provinces of the Netherlands (Friesland, Gelderland, Groningen, Holland, Overijssel, Utrecht, Zeeland), the Southern Netherlands remaining loyal to the Spanish king. The division of the Netherlands also led to a religious split. While the south remained Catholic, the northern provinces tolerated different denominations, with the Protestant Dutch Reformed Church as the official church of the Republic.

updated Monday 15-Sep-2003 18:41 UT
TO THE TOP
PLEASE CLICK HERE TO WRITE TO ART “4” MAY
http://h42day.0catch.com/art/art4may/art0526.html
http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/all42day/art/art4may/art0526.html
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/42day/art/art4may/art0526.html
safe site site safe for children safe site