$60
MILLION CURTAIN, with pitcher and bowl
of fruit thrown in. |
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Baptized (as an infant)
on 10 May 1822: August Xaver Karl Pettenkofen,
Austrian painter who died on 21 March 1889. Pettenkofen studied in his native Vienna at the Academy under Kupelwieser. He was an illustrator and cartoonist but became best known for his realistic genre subjects, often of military scenes. In 1852 he first visited Paris where the works of Meissonier and Stevens influenced him greatly. He became a Professor at the Vienna Academy and was knighted in 1874. He died in Vienna. Robbers in a Cornfield (1852, 29x23cm) — Frau mit Topfpflanzen vor Bauernhaus aka Frau am Brunnen, or Frau mit Blumen (48x36cm) — Platz vor einem ungarischen Bauernhaus aka Zigeunerhütte in der Pußta, or ungarische Landschaft, or Bauernhof, or Bauernhaus (1854, 25x38cm) |
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Born on 10 May 1828:
James McDougal Hart, Scottish-born
US painter who died on 24 October 1901. — He was the father of Letitia
Bonnet Hart, brother of William
Hart and Julia
Hart Beers. — With his family, including his brother William Hart [1823-1894], James moved from Kilmarnock, Scotland to Albany NY in 1830. There he was apprenticed to a sign painter and developed an interest in art. In 1851 he went to Dusseldorf, Germany to study and remained for three years. He returned to Albany and opened a studio. In 1857 he moved to New York City. later moving to Brooklyn. After the 1870s, he and his brother William opened studios in Keene Valley, NY, in the heart of the Adirondacks. He became an associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1857, a full member in 1859, and served as vice-president for a time. Hart exhibited at the National Academy from 1862 to 1900. He also exhibited at the Brooklyn Art Association (1863-1883), the Boston Art Club (1873, 1875), the American Art Union, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1867-1883). He also exhibited at the Centennial Expo, 1876 (medal); Mechanics Institute, Boston (gold); and the Paris Expo, 1889 (medal). Sinclair Hamilton noted that James and his brother William "painted in a language intelligible for the artistically illiterate." His children, Robert, Mary , and Letitia were artists, as was his wife, Marie Thereas Gorsuch, and his sister, Julie Hart Beers Kempson. His last known address was Brooklyn, NY. An auction of his paintings was held at the Fifth Avenue Art Gallery in 1902, and 146 of his paintings were sold for a total of $20'287. LINKS An afternoon concert (1850, 99x136cm) Returning from harvest (1870, 51x87cm) — Presidential Range and Starr King Mountain from Lunenburg VT (11 Sep 1867, 37x61cm) — The Adirondacks _ James Hart's large, impressive landscapes painted during the 1860s are noted for their meticulous attention to detail, soft gentle colors, and light-filled skies. These idyllic scenes of nature (note the three frolicking bears) glorified the conception of the US wilderness and were eagerly sought by collectors. |
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Died on 10 May 1964: Mikhail
Fyodorovich Larionov, Moldovan~Russian French Cubist
painter, stage designer, printmaker, illustrator, draftsman, and writer,
born on 03 June (22 May Julian) 1881. Pioneer of pure abstraction in painting, he founded the avant~garde Rayonist movement (1910) with Natal'ya Sergeyevna Goncharova [16 Jun 1881 – 17 Oct 1962], whom he later married. Early work was influenced by Impressionism and Symbolism, but he later introduced a nonrepresentational style conceived as a synthesis of Cubism, Futurism, and Orphism. In the Rayonist manifesto (1913), he espoused the principle of the reduction of form in figure and landscape compositions into rays of reflected light. Both Larionov and Goncharova exhibited in the first Jack of Diamonds exhibition of avant-garde Russian art in Moscow (1910). In 1914 they went to Paris, where both achieved renown as designers for Sergey Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. During the 1920s they played a significant role within the École de Paris and continued to live and work in France until their deaths. LINKS Le Renard: costume sketch for Le Coq (1922, 49x32cm) Le Renard: Decor with three figures (32x43cm) Curtain design for the dance Le Soleil de Nuit (1915) Décor pour Le Soleil de Nuit (1915) The Golden Cockerel (1911) Soldier at Rest (1911) — Vladimir Tatlin (1911) |
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Born on 10 May 1886 (? or on 08 Feb = 27 Jan Julian):
Lev Samoylovich Rosenberg “Léon Nicolaevitch Bakst”,
Byelorussian Jewish theater costume and scenery designer who died on 28 (27?)
December 1924. Born Lev Samoilovich Rosenberg. Student at the Academy of St. Petersburg. Began calling himself Léon Bakst (mother’s maiden name), in the late 1890s. Established himself in Moscow and adhered to the Russian academic tradition, taking his subjects from popular life. However, little by little he began to stray from the traditional, profoundly influenced by modern French art. A proponent of the new style in Russia, he founded the group "Mir Iskousstva" ("Artistic World"), but soon left Moscow and St. Petersburg for Paris (1893). Played a considerable role during the years preceding World War I as a costume decorator and designer for the famous Russian ballets directed by Serge de Diaghileff. A bold colorist, possessing a heightened sense of an art in service to rhythm and subject to variations in lighting, Bakst realized a bold and pleasing fusion of the elements of Russian popular art and the values of modern French art, influenced notably by Aubrey Beardsley, as well as by Greek vase painting and the Fauvism of Henri Matisse. Established legal residence in Paris in 1912. Bakst was born in a middle class Jewish family in Grodno, Belarus, and died in Paris. He was educated at the gymnasium in St. Petersburg and then at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts, from where he was expelled after painting a too realistic Pietà. He started his artistic career as an illustrator for magazines but changed his mind when he met Aleksandr Benois. He travelled through Europe and came in contact with European artists. After his return to St Petersburg, he began to gain notoriety for his book designs and his portraits. In 1898, together with Benois and Serge Diaghilev, he founded the group Mir Iskusstva. In 1906 he became a teacher of drawing in Yelizaveta Zvantseva's private art school where, among other students, he taught Marc Chagall. Bakst's greatest achievements are related to theater. He debuted with the stage design for the Hermitage and Aleksandrinskii theatres in St. Petersburg in 1902-3. Afterwards, he received several commissions from the Marinskii theater (1903-4). In 1909 he began his collaboration with Diaghilev, which resulted in founding of the Ballets Russes, where he became the artistic director. His stage designs quickly brought him international fame. Most notable are his costume designs for Diaghilev's Shéhérazade (1910) and L'Après-Midi d'un Faune. He settled in Paris in 1912, after being exiled because of his Jewish origins. LINKS Bacchante Minister of State — Nymph in red Nymph in blue — The Faun [Nijinsky] 17 theatrical designs at FAMSF |
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Died on 10 May 1670: Claude
Vignon, French painter and engraver born on 19 May 1593.
[Il manquait d'er pour être vigneron.] Vignon was born in Tours and active mainly in Paris. His richly eclective style was formed mainly in Italy, where he worked c. 1616-1622, and his openness to very diverse influences was later fuelled by his activities as a picture dealer. Paradoxically, in view of his varied sources of inspiration, his style is the most distinctive of any French painter of his generation - highly colored and often bizarrely expressive. Elsheimer and the Caravaggisti were strong influences on his handling of light, and his richly encrusted brushwork has striking affinities with Rembrandt, whose work he is known to have sold. Vignon is said to have fathered more than twenty children by his two wives, and his sons Claude the Younger (1633-1703) and Philippe (1638-1701) were also painters. LINKS Esther before Ahasuerus (1624, 80x119cm) _ Vignon's passion for over-elaboration is seen in this picture. It seems that he enjoyed painting awkward human situations like this when Esther confronts Ahasuerus. The picture has also been identified as depicting Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Croesus Receiving Tribute from a Lydian Peasant (1629, 105x149cm) After his return from Rome to Paris in 1624, Vignon became enormously prolific; a huge number of pictures, several hundred in all, were documented at the time of his death. As he matured in Paris and lightened his palette a little, Vignon still maintained his sense of drama. For example, in his Croesus Receiving Tribute from a Lydian Peasant, there is a lessening of interest in bizarre surface texture, and the poses of the figures round the table show a return to the conventions of Caravaggism. There is some doubt about the identification of the main figure as Croesus, but the story fits enough. The moral is clear - great wealth is amassed by cruel methods. The Young Singer (1623, 95x90cm) _ The earliest Mannerist influences on Vignon, which probably occurred before he left for Rome, must have been submerged while he was in Italy. That Vignon's Caravaggism was perfectly competent is shown by the fact that his work effectively merged with that of his contemporaries. This had led to great difficulties in defining his Roman oeuvre. |
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Born on 10 May 1827:
David Johnson, US Hudson
River School painter who died on 30 January 1908. — Born and raised in New York City, David Johnson surprisingly did not avail himself of local opportunities for a formal education. He was self-trained, having painted in the company of such artists as John Kensett and Jasper Cropsey, refining his natural abilities through their examples. As did other members of the first and second generations of the Hudson River School painters, he spent his summers in the popular rural locales of the Northeast. Although Johnson is known to have painted with Cropsey in New Jersey in 1850, this painting does not appear to be the work of a beginning artist. He also painted in New Jersey in 1877 and again in 1880. Schooley's Mountain probably dates from one of those visits. By the early 1870s Johnson's method of painting had evolved into a tightly controlled technique. That hard-edged realism was tempered in the late 1870s by his use of poetic light and atmospheric haze, revealing an interest in the Barbizon School. This wedding of the poetry of that school with the precision of the Hudson River School would become his hallmark. Yet in reviews of the time he was noted for his exact brushwork, which always remained dominant. Using a fine brush and minute, almost invisible strokes, he created richly detailed and delicate vistas. Johnson's fondness for painting rocks, which began in the 1850s, is apparent in the foreground of this work, the largest boulder becoming a focal point within the composition. Instead of being painted with the geological accuracy one might find, for example, in a major work by Frederic Church, the rocks are treated here as an important pictorial element, a strikingly textured surface upon which to explore the effects of light and shadow. Although there is no visible human presence in Schooley's Mountain, it is a typically hospitable scene despite the rugged terrain of the foreground. Water was Johnson's other frequently chosen theme, which, along with rock formations, showed up early in his career and persisted throughout his life. Schooley's Mountain is an unusual, imbalanced composition, with the heavy cluster of trees on the left side in stark contrast with the comparative weightlessness of the right side with its open field and the lake. It may have been an attempt at a less contrived scene and possibly a further exploration of an earlier lake composition of 1870, in which Johnson attempted to break from his formulaic rut of a foreground river bank, middle ground of water, and mountain background. — photo of Johnson LINKS — Old Kate's Bridge, Ulster County, New York (1872, 46x77cm) — Brook Study at Warwick (1873, 66x102cm) View of Dresden, Lake George (1874, 37x62cm) — Schooley's Mountain, New Jersey (1878, 45x61cm) |