1776-1857 Russian painter. He was born a serf and in 1790 was apprenticed to a pastrycook in St Petersburg. From 1793 he attended classes at the Academy of Art there, in 1799 becoming a pupil of the portrait painter Stepan Shchukin (1762-1828). In 1804 he was sent to work as a pastrycook and manservant on an estate in the Ukraine owned by his master, General Morkov. Tropinin's Ukrainian period (1804-21) was interrupted by frequent, often protracted, visits to Moscow. During these years he copied a great deal, drew landscapes from nature and also painted religious subjects. His early style is painterly and distinguished by freedom of execution and skill in the use of colour, but the compositions are derivative and the drawing weak: The Spinner (1820s), The Lacemaker (1823), Wedding in the Village of Kukavka, Podolsky Province and Girl with a Bird (all Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.). Portraiture, however, began to take on a more important place in his work; the best of this period is the Portrait of Arseny, the Artist's Son (1818; Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.), especially notable for its use of colour. Tropinin captured perfectly the child's spontaneous vision of the world, his sensitive spirit and openness. While in Moscow from 1813 to 1818, he portrayed a series of important cultural figures that brought him great popularity. He was freed from serfdom on 8 May 1823 and shortly thereafter he became a nominee to the Academy for his paintings The Lacemaker  Related Paintings of Vasily Tropinin :. | Portrait of Nikolay Karamzin, | Konstantin Ravich, | Ustym Karmeliuk, | The Lace Maker, | Self-Portrait by a Window with a View on the Kremlin |
Related Artists:
MONNOYER, Jean-Baptiste
French Baroque Era Painter, ca.1634-1699
James Sharples
(1751 or 1752 in Lancashire - 26 February 1811 in New York ) was an English portrait painter and pastelist, who moved to the United States in 1794. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1779. James was first intended for the Catholic priesthood, but became an artist instead.Sharples headed a family of successful portrait artists, including his third wife Ellen Sharples. He had four children, George by his first wife, Felix Thomas Sharples from his second marriage (c. 1786- after 1823), and James Sharples Jr.(c. 1788-1839) and daughter Rolinda Sharples (1793-1838) with this third wife, Ellen. Felix, James Jr. and Rolinda joined the family enterprise at ages 17, 15, and 13 respectively. Before marrying Ellen Wallace, James had been active in Bristol, Liverpool and Bath, where he taught drawing. Ellen was a lady of French extraction who had relations in America. The family left for the United States in 1796, but, according to Ellen's diaries, their ship fell into the hands of the French, and for seven months the family spent time in Brest, near Cherbourg. Landing in New York, James quickly became popular for his small portraits in pastel and his miniatures. From 1796 to 1801 he worked mainly in Philadelphia and New York, securing portrait commissions. The family traveled throughout New England region as itinerant portrait painters, looking for work and making inexpensive copies from the originals portraits they had made of popular and well-known figures, such as George Washington and James Madison.
Max Kurzweil
Maximilian Franz Viktor Zdenko Marie Kurzweil (12 (13?) October 1867 Bisenz - 9 May 1916 Vienna) was an Austrian painter and printmaker. He moved near Vienna in 1879.