Karl Feiertag | Genre painter

Karl Holiday (1874, Vienna - 1944, Weidling) was an Austrian painter.

Karl Urlaub studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna with Franz Rumpler, Kasimir Pochwalski and Josef Mathias Trenkwald.

He worked in Vienna and Munich for various advertising companies and moved to Weidling with his wife.

Luigi Pirandello | Sogno di Natale, 1896

Sentivo da un pezzo sul capo inchinato tra le braccia come l'impressione d'una mano lieve, in atto tra di carezza e di protezione. Ma l'anima mia era lontana, errante pei luoghi veduti fin dalla fanciullezza, dei quali mi spirava ancor dentro il sentimento, non tanto però che bastasse al bisogno che provavo di rivivere, fors'anche per un minuto, la vita come immaginavo si dovesse in quel punto svolgere in essi.

Era festa dovunque: in ogni chiesa, in ogni casa: intorno al ceppo, lassù; innanzi a un Presepe, laggiù; noti volti tra ignoti riuniti in lieta cena; eran canti sacri, suoni di zampogne, gridi di fanciulli esultanti, contese di giocatori. . . E le vie delle città grandi e piccole, dei villaggi, dei borghi alpestri o marini, eran deserte nella rigida notte. E mi pareva di andar frettoloso per quelle vie, da questa casa a quella, per godere della raccolta festa degli altri; mi trattenevo un poco in ognuna, poi auguravo:

- Buon Natale - e sparivo. . .

Tiziano Vecellio | La Madonna di San Niccolò dei Frari, 1533-1535

Salvatore Quasimodo | Natale / Christmas

Natale. Guardo il presepe scolpito,

dove sono i pastori appena giunti

alla povera stalla di Betlemme.

Anche i Re Magi nelle lunghe vesti

salutano il potente Re del mondo.

Jacopo Tintoretto | The Madonna of the Stars, c. 1575-1585 | National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Ellen Thesleff | Expressionist painter

Ellen Thesleff (5 October 1869 - 12 January 1954) was an expressionist Finnish painter, regarded as one of the leading Finnish modernist painters.

Thesleff was born in Helsinki, the eldest daughter of five siblings and her father was an amateur painter.

She took private lessons and then, in 1887, studied for two years at the Finnish Art Society Drawing School (now known as the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts) with Gunnar Berndtson.

Harriet Backer | Impressionist painter

Biography from: Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, Norvegia

Harriet Backer inspired a new generation of artists.

In Backer’s family, art and culture were part of how the children were raised.

Her older sister Agathe was musically gifted and wanted to become a pianist.

She had to go abroad to learn, and Harriet became her sister's traveling companion.

Asta Nørregaard | Portrait painter

Asta Nørregaard (13 August 1853 - 23 March 1933) was a Norwegian painter who is best known for her portraits.

Nørregaard was born in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway.

She was the daughter of Hans Peter Nørregaard (1818–1872) and Elise Jacobine Hesselberg (1821–1853).

Galileo Chini | Art Nouveau painter

One of the leading players in the Art Nouveau style, or Liberty style as it is known in Italy, the Tuscan painter Galileo Chini (1873-1956) - who was also a graphic artist and a ceramicist) - occupies a unique place in the panorama of Italian art.

Born in Florence, Galileo Chini pursued his artistic studies in a sporadic, desultory manner, attending the Scuola Libera di Nudo at the city's Accademia di Belle Arti for a while, but without ever gaining any kind of diploma from it, he was to break off his studies in order to work as an artisan in the workshop of his uncle, a restorer and decorator.

Giuseppe Amisani | Belle Époque painter

Italian portrait painter of the Belle Époque Giuseppe Amisani (1881-1941) was an important figure in his lifetime, though almost entirely forgotten today - his name is not included in the principal works of reference in the twenty-first century.

He was a close contemporary of Umberto Boccioni and of Pablo Picasso, but completely ignored currents such as Futurism and Cubism which changed the face of fine art in the twentieth century, preferring to satisfy the tastes of his clients, who were the noble, rich and the famous of his time.

His reputation was for elegance and for the fresh colours of his palette.

A retrospective exhibition of his work at the Castello Sforzesco of Vigevano in the province of Pavia in 2008 was the first dedicated to him in fifty years.

Robert Armetta | Classical realist painter

Armetta has studied extensively throughout the United States and Europe, at schools including Columbus College of Art and Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Barnstone Studios, Atelier Lack, the Florence Academy of Art, the New York Academy of Art 1998 the Water Street Atelier.

He has exhibited widely, in both solo and group exhibitions, across the United States, at venues including the National Academy of Design, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, the Susquehanna Museum of Art, Sotheby’s, the State University of New York at Farmingdale, St. John’s University, Messiah College, Arcadia Fine Art, John Pence Gallery, Century Gallery, and Seraphin Gallery.

La Belle Époque

La Belle Époque is a period of French and European history, usually considered to begin around 1871-1880 and to end with the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

Occurring during the era of the Third French Republic, it was a period characterised by optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity, colonial expansion, and technological, scientific, and cultural innovations.

In this era of France's cultural and artistic climate (particularly within Paris), the arts markedly flourished, with numerous masterpieces of literature, music, theatre, and visual art gaining extensive recognition.

Jean Béraud | Seaside Café, 1884 | The Clark Art Institute

Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant | Orientalist painter

Biography from: Christie's

Born in Paris into a Languedoc family, Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant (1845-1902) trained in Toulouse at the local Academie before moving to Paris in 1866.

He enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts and completed his training under the academic master Alexandre Cabanel.

His studies were interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War and the young artist never resumed his formal training.

Instead, in the early 1870s he travelled to Spain, and fell under the spell of the Mudejar architecture of Andalucia.

Fanny Fleury | Academic painter

Fanny Laurent Fleury, known as Madame Fanny (1846-1923) was a French painter.

Fleury was born in Paris, France, and trained with Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran, Marie Durand and Jean-Jacques Henner.

She developed a reputation as a talented portraitist and painter of figure studies.

She also painted genre scenes and still life, which she exhibited at the Salons of Saint-Etienne and Dijon.

Jean-Jacques Henner | Academic painter

Jean-Jacques Henner (5 March 1829 - 23 July 1905) was a French painter, noted for his use of sfumato and chiaroscuro in painting figures, religious subjects and portraits.

Henner was born at Bernwiller (Alsace). He began his studies in art as a pupil of Michel Martin Drolling and François-Édouard Picot.

In 1848, he entered the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, and took the Prix de Rome with a painting of Adam and Eve finding the Body of Abel in 1858.

In Rome, he was guided by Flandrin, and painted four pictures for the gallery at Colmar among other works.

Juana Romani | Belle Époque painter

Biography from: Sotheby's

Born in Velletri, Italy, Joana Carolina Carlessimo, called Juana Romani, moved with her family as a young girl to Paris, where she first encountered painting as an art school model.

At age nineteen, Romani began her training as the pupil of Jean-Jacques Henner before becoming a student of Ferdinand Roybet, and later, his mistress.

Like Roybet, she chose historical subjects and painted many portraits of young, mysterious women in costume.

Ottilie Roederstein | Portrait painter

Ottilie Wilhelmine Roederstein (22 April 1859 - 26 November 1937) was a German-Swiss painter.

She was the long-time companion of Elisabeth Winterhalter, one of the first female doctors in Germany.

Roederstein was born in Zürich, Switzerland.

Gottardo Segantini | Divisionist painter

Biography from: The British Museum

Gottardo Guido Segantini (1882-1974) - Painter and etcher. The eldest son of the painter Giovanni Segantini.

Born in Pusiano near Brianza in the province of Como.Gottardo SegantiniHe moved with his family to Savognin in Switzerland in 1882 and to Maloja in 1894.

In 1899 Gottardo Segantini spent a few months at the Accademia di Brera before going on to Zurich to study engineering at the Technical University (now ETH) where he learnt the technique of etching, and began painting in 1902.

Jan Brueghel the Elder | Baroque painter

Biography from: The National Gallery, London

Jan Brueghel the Elder was born in Brussels in 1568, the son of Pieter Brueghel the Elder.

He is said to have been taught in Antwerp by Pieter Goetkint and to have visited Cologne.

From 1589-1596 he worked in Italy, mainly in Naples, Rome, and Milan where he met one of his most important patrons, Cardinal Federico Borromeo, who remained a lifelong friend.

Anselm Kiefer, 1945 | Neo-expressionist painter / sculptor

"Art is difficult, it is not entertainment!" - Anselm Kiefer, German painter and sculptor.

Biography from: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Anselm Kiefer was born in Donaueschingen, Baden-Württembürg, Germany, and raised near the east bank of the Rhine in the region of the Black Forest.

Kiefer was named after the nineteenth-century classical painter Anselm Feuerbach and planned from childhood to become an artist.

After studies at the university in Freiburg and the academy in Karlsruhe, he studied informally in the early 1970s with the artist Joseph Beuys on occasional visits to Düsseldorf.

Anselm Kiefer | Die fruchtbare Halbmond / La Mezzaluna fertile | Sammlung Essl Museum

Dora Hitz | Impressionist / Symbolist painter

Dora Hitz (30 March 1856, Altdorf bei Nürnberg - 20 November 1924, Berlin) was a Court Painter to the Romanian Royal Family, a member of the November Group and co-founder of the Berlin Secession.

Dora Hitz mainly painted figures, especially portraits of women, girls and mothers, sometimes in the style of symbolism.

Since her stay in France she has painted oil paintings, gouaches and watercolors in the Impressionist style.

When she was six years old, her family moved to Ansbach and at thirteen she was sent to Munich to study at the "Damenmalschule der Frau Staatsrat Weber", an art school for young women, where she studied with Wilhelm von Lindenschmit the Younger.

Otolia Kraszewska (1859-1945)

Otolia Gräfin Kraszewska (February 15, 1859 in Żytomierz - March 3, 1945 in Munich) was a Polish cartoonist, illustrator and painter.

Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg with Ivan Aivazovsky.

Around 1890, she left for Munich and settled there permanently, becoming involved with the Polish colony centered around Józef Brandt.

Gustave François Barraud (Swiss, 1883-1964)

Gustave François Barraud (Geneva, 1883-1964) was an Swiss painter, illustrator and designer.

Is particularly well known for his still lifes, flowers, landscapes, portraits, female figures, wood engravings and lithographs.

Leopold Müller | Orientalist painter

Leopold Carl Müller (9 December 1834 - 4 August 1892) was an Austrian genre painter noted for his Orientalist works.

Biography

Born in Dresden to Austrian parents, he was a pupil of Karl von Blaas and of Christian Ruben at the Academy in Vienna.

Obliged to support his family after his father's death, he worked eight years as an illustrator for the Vienna Figaro.

Johann Victor Krämer | Orientalist painter

Johann Victor Krämer (23 August 1861 in Adamsthal - 6 May 1949 in Vienna) was an Austrian painter and photographer, working generally within the Orientalist genre.

He was a founding member of the Vienna Secession, and received many awards through his life.

Eilif Peterssen | Skagen painter

Hjalmar Eilif Emanuel Peterssen (4 September 1852 - 29 December 1928) was a Norwegian painter.

He is most commonly associated with his landscapes and portraits.

Biography

Hjalmar Eilif Emanuel Peterssen was born in Christiania, now Oslo, Norway.

He was the son of Jon Peterssen (1814-1880) and Anne Marie Andersen (1812–1887).

He grew up in the neighborhood of Hegdehaugen in the district of Frogner.

Hans Gude | Romantic painter

Hans Fredrik Gude (March 13, 1825 - August 17, 1903) was a Norwegian romanticist painter and is considered along with Johan Christian Dahl to be one of Norway's foremost landscape painters.

He has been called a mainstay of Norwegian National Romanticism.

He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.

Gude's artistic career was not one marked with drastic change and revolution, but was instead a steady progression that slowly reacted to general trends in the artistic world.

Betsy Westendorp de Brias, 1927 | Homage to life

Betsy Westendorp de Brias is a Spanish contemporary painter.

Westendorp is best known for her cloudscapes, her flowers, and her high-society portraits, including those of Spain’s Royal Family - she painted the now-King Felipe VI and his sisters as a child.

In 2021 the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, in partnership with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, De La Salle University Publishing House, and Pioneer Insurance, is honoring Betsy Westendorp de Brias with the artist’s major retrospective entitled, "Passages: Celebrating the Artistic Journeys of Betsy Westendorp".

Ettore Roesler Franz | Vanished Rome / Roma sparita

Ettore Roesler Franz, painter and watercolorist, son of Luigi and Teresa Biondi, was born in Rome on May 11, 1845 and here died on March 26, 1907.

Founder and President of the Society of Watercolor Artists in Rome, he is among the Italian painters of the nineteenth century who most exposed and have established himselves in Italy and abroad.

He can be considered as one of the most valuable examples of the late nineteenth century of Realism genre and among the best Italian watercolourists ever.

Maurice Barraud (Swiss, 1889-1954)

Maurice Barraud (born on February 20, 1889 in Geneva and died on 11 novembre 1954 in the same city), was a Swiss painter and illustrator.

At a young age, Maurice Barraud, together with his brother, Gustave François, who later also established himself as a painter, led a studio for advertising graphics.

He also studied painting and modeling at the École des Beaux-Arts.

In 1914, he moved to painting and, together with his brother, Émile Bressler, Gustave Buchet and others, founded the artist group "Le Falot".

Gustave Buchet | Futurist painter

Gustave Louis Buchet (1888-1963) was a painter from the canton of Vaudv - Swiss Confederation, active in Paris during the interwar period, marked by Futurism and then Purism.

Gustave Buchet began his artistic training with four years of study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva, where he was particularly influenced by Eugène Gilliard.

From 1910-11 he attended, for four months, the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris and then returned back to Geneva.

Frederick Sandys | Pre-Raphaelite painter

From: Tate Gallery

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Sandys, born Anthony Frederick Augustus Sands at Norwich, studied under his father Anthony Sands, a drawing master and portrait and subject painter.

He was educated at Norwich Grammar School and at the Government School of Design at Norwich.

An early patron was the Revd James Bulwer, Rector of Stody and a former pupil of Cotman.

Sandys made architectural and antiquarian drawings for him and etched his drawings.

Georg Achen | Naturalist painter

Georg Nicolai Achen (23 July 1860 - 6 January 1912) was a Danish painter.

One of the more accomplished Naturalists of his generation, from the 1890s he specialized in portraits.

Born in Frederikssund and moved with his family to Copenhagen in 1871, he was the younger brother of the architect Eggert Achen.

Achen first studied painting under Vilhelm Kyhn before attending the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1877 to 1883.

Thereafter he studied under P.S. Krøyer at Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler.

He first exhibited at Charlottenborg in 1883 and at Den Frie in 1896.

In the 1880s, he painted mainly landscapes but from the 1890s, he became one of Denmark's most popular portraitists, creating especially artistic paintings of members of his family.

Under the influence of Vilhelm Hammershøi, his interiors with a dark female figure in pink, grey and brownish hues testify to his simple, aesthetic approach.

One of his most appreciated works is Drømmevinduet (The Dream Window), an oil painting of a maid peering out of one of the windows in Liselund Slot, painted in 1903.

Georg Achen died in Frederiksberg on 6 January 1912.

Awards

In 1890, Aachen was awarded the Thorvaldsen Medal for Min Moders Portræt, a portrait of his mother. | Source: © Wikipedia

Georg Nicolai Achen (23 luglio 1860-6 gennaio 1912) è stato un pittore Danese.

Uno dei Naturalisti più affermati della sua generazione. Dal 1890 si specializzò in ritratti.

Nato a Frederikssund e trasferitosi con la famiglia a Copenaghen nel 1871, era il fratello minore dell'architetto Eggert Achen.

Achen studiò pittura per la prima volta con Vilhelm Kyhn prima di frequentare la Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts dal 1877 al 1883.

Successivamente studiò con P.S. Krøyer al Kunstnernes Frie Studieskoler.

Espone per la prima volta a Charlottenborg nel 1883 ea Den Frie nel 1896.

Nel 1880 dipinse principalmente paesaggi, ma dal 1890 divenne uno dei ritrattisti più famosi della Danimarca, creando dipinti particolarmente artistici dei membri della sua famiglia.

Sotto l'influenza di Vilhelm Hammershøi, i suoi interni con una figura femminile scura in tonalità rosa, grigie e marroni testimoniano il suo approccio estetico semplice.

Una delle sue opere più apprezzate è Drømmevinduet (La finestra dei sogni), un dipinto ad olio di una cameriera che sbircia da una delle finestre di Liselund Slot, dipinto nel 1903.

Georg Achen morì a Frederiksberg il 6 gennaio 1912.

Premi

Nel 1890 Aachen ricevette la medaglia Thorvaldsen per Min Moders Portræt, un ritratto di sua madre. | Fonte: © British Wikipedia

Emma Sandys | Pre-Raphaelite painter

Emma Sandys (born Mary Ann Emma Sands) (1843-1877) was a 19th-century British Pre-Raphaelite painter.

Emma Sandys was born in Norwich, where her father, Anthony Sands (1806-1883), gave her some early art lessons.

In 1853 the family added a ‘y’ to their surname.

Leonardo Bazzaro | Pittore naturalista

Considerato uno dei principali esponenti del naturalismo lombardo, al pari di Eugenio Gignous e Filippo Carcano, la produzione artistica di Leonardo Bazzaro (1853-1937) è maggiormente concentrata su soggetti paesaggistici dove viene esaltata la rappresentazione del quotidiano familiare.

Nei primi anni di attività, Bazzaro si orienta su vedute prospettiche di interni di chiese e di noti palazzi milanesi, con un'impronta verista di matrice sei-settecentesca derivata dal maestro Giuseppe Bertini: gli ex compagni di Brera gli attribuiscono il soprannome piccolo Velasquez, ad attestare la forte intensità espressiva raggiunta in queste prima fase.

Thomas Benton | Regionalist painter

From: National Gallery, Washington D.C.

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Named after his great-uncle, a five-term senator, Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) was born on April 15, 1889, in Neosho, Missouri.

His father, Maecenus Eason Benton, was a lawyer and a United States representative from 1896-1904, so the young Benton spent his early years in both Washington, DC, and southwest Missouri.

Benton dropped out of high school at 17 and started working as a cartoonist for the Joplin American newspaper.

His mother, Elizabeth Wise Benton, was supportive of his artistic ambitions, but Benton’s father enrolled him in the Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois, in 1906 before agreeing to allow him to attend the Art Institute of Chicago in 1907.

The Amsterdamse Joffers / Le Signore dell'Post-impressionismo Olandese

The Amsterdamse Joffers were a group of women artists who met weekly in Amsterdam at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

They supported each other in their professional careers.

Most of them were students of the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten and belonged to the movement of the Amsterdam Impressionists.

Each one became a successful artist.

Thérèse Schwartze (1851-1918)