French Fauvist Painter and Sculptor, 1869-1954
Henri Matisse is considered the most important French artist of the 20th century and, along with Pablo Picasso, one of the most influential modernist painters of the last century. Matisse began studying drawing and painting in the 1890s. A student of the masters of Post-Impressionism, Matisse later made a reputation for himself as the leader of a group of painters known as Les Fauves. An ironic label given to them by a critic, the name reflected Matisse's aggressive strokes and bold use of primary colors. In 1905 Matisse gained sudden fame with three paintings, including Woman with the Hat, purchased by the wealthy American ex-patriot Gertrude Stein. Beyond painting, he worked with lithographs and sculpture, and during World War II he did a series of book designs. Later in his career he experimented with paper cutouts and designed decorations for the Dominican chapel in Vence, France. Along with Picasso, Related Paintings of Henri Matisse :. | A woman sitting | Flowers and ceramic | Dancers | Woman with a Hat | Greta Prozor (mk35) | Related Artists:
Arturo Michelena16 June 1863 - 29 July 1898) was a Venezuelan painter born in Valencia, Carabobo State. He began to paint at a young age under his father's tutelage. Traveled to Paris where he studied in the famous Academie Julian. He was the first Venezuelan artist to succeed overseas and, with Cristebal Rojas (1857-1890) and Marten Tovar y Tovar (1827-1902), one of the most important Venezuelan painters of the 19th century.
His first great success occurred in Paris at Le Salon des Artistes Français in 1887. Encouraged by his teacher Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921), Michelena presented a canvas titled L'Enfant Malade (The sick boy) which was awarded the Gold Medal, second class, the highest honor a foreign artist could receive at the salon. The painting was quickly considered a masterpiece and was acquired by the Astors in New York in the late 19th century. Later the painting traveled to South Florida when it was acquired by Owens Burns, a business partner of John Ringling, the circus magnate. After Burns' death the painting was stored in the Ringling Museum's vaults where it remained away from public view for more than 60 years. In 2004 Sotheby's rescued the canvas and arranged for it to be included in an auction of Latin American art.
Nicolas de StaelRussian Painter.1914-1955
was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. He also worked with collage, illustration and textiles Nocolas de Stael was born in the family of a Russian Lieutenant General, Baron Vladimir Stael von Holstein, (a member of the Stael von Holstein family, and the last Commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress) and his wife, Olga Sakhanskaya. De Stael's family was forced to emigrate to Poland in 1919 because of the Russian Revolution; Both, his father and stepmother, would die in Poland and the orphaned Nicolas de Stael would be sent with his older sister Marina to Brussels to live with a Russian family (1922). He eventually studied art at the Brussels Acad??mie royale des beaux-arts (1932). In the 1930s, he travelled throughout Europe, lived in Paris (1934) and in Morocco (1936) (where he first met his companion Jeannine Guillou, also a painter and who would appear in some of his paintings from 1941-1942) and Algeria. In 1936 he had his first exhibition of Byzantine style icons and watercolors at the Galerie Dietrich et Cie, Brussels. He joined the French Foreign Legion in 1939 and was demobilized in 1941.
Jean-Baptiste Oudry(17 March 1686 - 30 April 1755) was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game.
Jean-Baptiste Oudry was born in Paris, the son of Jacques Oudry, a painter and art dealer, and of his wife Nicole Papillon, who belonged to the family of the engraver Jean-Baptiste-Michel Papillon.
His father was a director of the Academie de St-Luc art school, which Oudry joined. At first, Oudry concentrated on portraiture, and he became a pupil and perhaps a collaborator of Nicolas de Largilliere from 1707 to 1712. He graduated at only 22 years of age, on 21 May 1708, at the same time as his two older brothers. The next year, he married Marie-Marguerite Froisse,[1] the daughter of a miroitier (a mirror-maker) to whom he gave lessons in painting.
Oudry became an assistant professor at Academie de Saint-Luc in 1714, and professor on 1 July 1717. He was inducted as a member of the prestigious Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1719, and was engaged as a professor there in 1743.
After producing mainly portraits, Oudry started to produce still life paintings of fruits or animals, aa well as paintings of religious subjects, such as the Nativity, Saint Giles, and the Adoration of the Magi.