German (Resident in Britain) 1734-1810 Johann Zoffany Galleries Painter of portraits, conversation pieces, and theatrical scenes, Zoffany was born in Germany and came to England about 1758 after studying in Italy. He began by painting clock faces and doing hack work, before turning to painting theatrical scenes, especially depicting David Garrick. He was favoured by the royal family. George III nominated him for the Royal Academy in 1769 and recommended him to the duke of Tuscany.  Related Paintings of Johann Zoffany :. | Herzog Franz Stephan I. von Lothringen | The Dutton Family | Queen Charlotte with her Two Eldest Sons | The children of Ferdinand of Parma | Portrait of Mrs. Oswald |
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LAWRENCE, Sir Thomas
English painter (b. 1769, Bristol, d. 1830, London). Thomas Lawrence was born in Bristol on May 4, 1769. At Devizes, where his father was landlord of the Black Bear Inn, Thomas's talents first became known. Fanny Burney, a prodigy herself, reports that in 1780 Sir Joshua Reynolds had already pronounced Lawrence the most promising genius he had ever met. When Thomas was 10, his father moved the family to Oxford and then to Bath to take advantage of the portrait skill of his son. At the age of 17 Lawrence began to paint in oil, all his previous work having been in pastel. In 1787 the family moved to London, and by 1789 he was challenging Reynolds. When Reynolds died in 1792, Lawrence was appointed to the lucrative post of painter in ordinary to the king. He soon became the foremost portrait painter in England, a position he maintained until his death. His portraits of women are models of beauty and elegance, whether the sitter be a tragic actress like Mrs. Siddons, a social figure like the Princess de Lieven, or a personal friend. At the close of the Napoleonic Wars, Lawrence was knighted and commissioned to paint the leading sovereigns and statesmen of Europe. When he returned to England in 1820, he was elected president of the Royal Academy; he handled the affairs of his office with tact and urbanity. He died on Jan. 7, 1830. Following the English masters of the 18th century, Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, and George Romney, Lawrence carried on the great tradition of society portraiture and raised it to new heights of dash and elegance, though not of psychological penetration. He was by no means an artist of the astonishing insight of Gainsborough, and he did not have the occasionally disconcerting originality of Reynolds. Lawrence had their faults: all were affected by the distorting demands of their fashionable clientele, and all succumbed to them. He had the least to say, and he reflected his sitters' own best views of themselves, yet even they must sometimes have been surprised at their own magnificence. Handsome his portraits undoubtedly are; all the women are strikingly beautiful, the men brave and distinguished. Lawrence enjoyed his great success. He lived for his work, never married, and was a prodigious worker. He was of an exceptionally generous nature, as an artist and as a man, with a rare talent for appreciating and encouraging the talents of others. He was an ardent collector of Old Master drawings; his collection, which was dispersed after his death,
Carl Johan Fahlcrantz
Swedish, 1774-1861, Swedish painter. He began his artistic training in Stockholm as a pupil of the theatre painters J. G. Brusell and E. Limnell (1764-1861). He also studied under the French landscape painter Louis Belanger (1736-1816). In 1805 he was awarded a scholarship to go to Italy, but he preferred to use it to travel within Sweden, as this corresponded more with his interest in painting his native landscape in a National Romantic style. Fahlcrantz settled permanently in Sweden, never travelling outside the Nordic countries. In 1819 he became a professor at the Royal Academy of Arts in Stockholm and in the 1820s Karl XIV commissioned a series of major works from him. Oscar I followed suit, as did numerous other buyers inside and outside Sweden. In this way, Fahlcrantz's paintings were distributed as far as Denmark, Bavaria, Russia and America.
pablo picasso
Pablo Diego Josee Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Mareea de los Remedios Cipriano de la Sant??sima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Rueez y Picasso (25 October 1881 C 8 April 1973) was an Andalusian-Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. As one of the most recognized figures in twentieth-century art, he is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles embodied in his work. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d Avignon (1907) and his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, Guernica (1937). Picasso was baptized Pablo Diego Josee Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Mareea de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santesima Trinidad Clito, a series of names honouring various saints and relatives. Added to these were Rueez and Picasso, for his father and mother, respectively, as per Spanish custom. Born in the city of Melaga in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was the first child of Don Josee Ruiz y Blasco (1838?C1913) and Marea Picasso y Lepez. Picassoes family was middle-class; his father was also a painter who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. For most of his life Ruiz was a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. Ruizes ancestors were minor aristocrats. The young Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age; according to his mother, his first words were epiz, pize, a shortening of lepiz, the Spanish word for epencile. From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. Ruiz was a traditional, academic artist and instructor who believed that proper training required disciplined copying of the masters, and drawing the human body from plaster casts and live models. His son became preoccupied with art to the detriment of his classwork. The family moved to La Coruna in 1891 so his father could become a professor at the School of Fine Arts. They stayed almost four years. On one occasion the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the precision of his sones technique, Ruiz felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him, and vowed to give up painting. In 1895, Picasso seven-year old sister, Conchita, died of diphtheria - a traumatic event in his life.After her death, the family moved to Barcelona, with Ruiz transferring to its School of Fine Arts. Picasso thrived in the city, regarding it in times of sadness or nostalgia as his true home. Ruiz persuaded the officials at the academy to allow his son to take an entrance exam for the advanced class. This process often took students a month, but Picasso completed it in a week, and the impressed jury admitted Picasso, who was still 13. The student lacked discipline but made friendships that would affect him in later life. His father rented him a small room close to home so Picasso could work alone, yet Ruiz checked up on him numerous times a day, judging his sones drawings. The two argued frequently. Picassoes father and uncle decided to send the young artist to Madrides Royal Academy of San Fernando, the foremost art school in the country. In 1897, Picasso, age 16, set off for the first time on his own. Yet his difficulties accepting formal instruction led him to stop attending class soon after enrollment. Madrid, however, held many other attractions: the Prado housed paintings by the venerable Diego Velezquez, Francisco Goya, and Francisco Zurbaren. Picasso especially admired the works of El Greco; their elements, like elongated limbs, arresting colors, and mystical visages, are echoed in Picassoes œuvre.