German-born American Hudson River School Painter, 1830-1902 Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833. He studied painting with the members of the D??sseldorf School in D??sseldorf, Germany from 1853 to 1857. He taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself to painting. Bierstadt began making paintings in New England and upstate New York. In 1859, he traveled westward in the company of a Land Surveyor for the U.S. government, returning with sketches that would result in numerous finished paintings. In 1863 he returned west again, in the company of the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose wife he would later marry. He continued to visit the American West throughout his career. Though his paintings sold for princely sums, Bierstadt was not held in particularly high esteem by critics of his day. His use of uncommonly large canvases was thought to be an egotistical indulgence, as his paintings would invariably dwarf those of his contemporaries when they were displayed together. The romanticism evident in his choices of subject and in his use of light was felt to be excessive by contemporary critics. His paintings emphasized atmospheric elements like fog, clouds and mist to accentuate and complement the feel of his work. Bierstadt sometimes changed details of the landscape to inspire awe. The colors he used are also not always true. He painted what he believed is the way things should be: water is ultramarine, vegetation is lush and green, etc. The shift from foreground to background was very dramatic and there was almost no middle distance Nonetheless, his paintings remain popular. He was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 (possibly as many as 4000) paintings during his lifetime, most of which have survived. Many are scattered through museums around the United States. Prints are available commercially for many. Original paintings themselves do occasionally come up for sale, at ever increasing prices.  Related Paintings of Albert Bierstadt :. | Bierstadt Albert The Morteratsch Glacier | The Oregon Trail | In_the_Foothills | Bahama Cove | Farallon Islands, off San Francisco in the Pacific, Northern California |
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Vasco Fernandes
Vasco Fernandes (c.1475-c.1542), better known as Grão Vasco, was one of the main Portuguese Renaissance painters. Vasco Fernandes was probably born in Viseu, in Northern Portugal, where he began his career in the team of painters executing the main altarpiece of Viseu Cathedral (1501-1506). Between 1506 and 1511 he painted the main altarpiece of Lamego Cathedral. After working in the Santa Cruz Monastery of Coimbra, Vasco Fernandes returned to Viseu and executed a series of altarpieces for Viseu Cathedral, considered his main works. Most of his paintings hang nowadays in the Grão Vasco Museum, in Viseu.
Andre Derain
French Fauvist Painter and Sculptor.1880-1954
Thomas Pollock Anshutz
(1851-1912) was an American painter and teacher. He studied art at the National Academy of Design in New York City, and moved to Philadelphia in 1875 to study under Thomas Eakins at the Philadelphia Sketch Club. He entered the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1876, becoming Eakins's assistant there in 1878, and his successor in 1886. He later studied in Paris at the Academie Julian, 1892-93