Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 19th Century artist of the Impressionist movement, Mary Cassatt [American, 1844-1926] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Cassatt_Mary

Mary Cassatt (b. May 22, 1844, Allegheny City, Pa., U.S. — d. June 14, 1926, Château de Beaufresne, near Paris, Fr.), American painter and printmaker who exhibited with the Impressionists.

The daughter of an affluent Pittsburgh businessman, whose French ancestry had endowed him with a passion for that country, she studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, and then travelled extensively in Europe, finally settling in Paris in 1874. In that year she had a work accepted at the Salon and in 1877 made the acquaintance of Degas, with whom she was to be on close terms throughout his life. His art and ideas had a considerable influence on her own work; he introduced her to the Impressionists and she participated in the exhibitions of 1879, 1880, 1881 and 1886, refusing to do so in 1882 when Degas did not.

She was a great practical support to the movement as a whole, both by providing direct financial help and by promoting the works of Impressionists in the USA, largely through her brother Alexander. By persuading him to buy works by Manet, Monet, Morisot, Renoir, Degas and Pissarro, she made him the first important collector of such works in America. She also advised and encouraged her friends the Havemeyers to build up their important collection of works by Impressionists and other contemporary French artists.

Her own works, on the occasions when they were shown in various mixed exhibitions in the USA, were very favourably received by the critics and contributed not a little to the acceptance of Impressionism there. Despite her admiration for Degas, she was no slavish imitator of his style, retaining her own very personal idiom throughout her career. From him, and other Impressionists, she acquired an interest in the rehabilitation of the pictural qualities of everyday life, inclining towards the domestic and the intimate rather than the social and the urban (Lady at the Teatable, 1885; Metropolitan Museum, New York), with a special emphasis on the mother and child theme in the 1890s (The Bath, 1891; Art Institute of Chicago). She also derived from Degas and others a sense of immediate observation, with an emphasis on gestural significance. Her earlier works were marked by a certain lyrical effulgence and gentle, golden lighting, but by the 1890s, largely as a consequence of the exhibition of Japanese prints held in Paris at the beginning of that decade, her draughtsmanship became more emphatic, her colors clearer and more boldly defined. The exhibition also confirmed her predilection for print-making techniques, and her work in this area must count amongst the most impressive of her generation. She lived in France all her life, though her love of her adopted countrymen did not increase with age, and her latter days were clouded with bitterness.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 20th Century artist of the Expressionist movement, Oskar Kokoschka [Austrian, 1886-1980] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Kokoschka_Oskar

Oskar Kokoschka (born 1886, Pöchlarn, Austria; died 1980, Montreux, Switzerland), was born March 1, 1886, in the Austrian town of Pöchlarn. He spent most of his youth in Vienna, where he entered the Kunstgewerbeschule in 1904 or 1905. While still a student, he painted fans and postcards for the Wiener Werkstätte, which published his first book of poetry in 1908. That same year, Kokoschka was fiercely criticized for the works he exhibited in the Vienna Kunstschau and consequently was dismissed from the Kunstgewerbeschule. At this time, he attracted the attention of the architect Adolf Loos, who became his most vigorous supporter. In this early period, Kokoschka wrote plays that are considered among the first examples of expressionist drama.

His first solo show was held at the Galerie Paul Cassirer, Berlin, in 1910, followed later that year by another at the Museum Folkwang Essen. In 1910, he also began to contribute to Herwarth Walden’s periodical Der Sturm. Kokoschka concentrated on portraiture, dividing his time between Berlin and Vienna from 1910 to 1914. In 1915, shortly after the outbreak of World War I, he volunteered to serve on the eastern front, where he was seriously wounded. Still recuperating in 1917, he settled in Dresden and in 1919 accepted a professorship at the Akademie there. In 1918, Paul Westheim’s comprehensive monograph on the artist was published.

Kokoschka traveled extensively during the 1920s and 1930s in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. In 1931, he returned to Vienna but, as a result of the Nazis’ growing power, he moved to Prague in 1935. He acquired Czechoslovak citizenship two years later. Kokoschka painted a portrait of Czechoslovakia’s president Thomas Garrigue Masaryk in 1936, and the two became friends. In 1937, the Nazis condemned his work as “degenerate art” and removed it from public view. The artist fled to England in 1938, the year of his first solo show in the United States at the Buchholz Gallery in New York. In 1947, he became a British national. Two important traveling shows of Kokoschka’s work originated in Boston and Munich in 1948 and 1950, respectively. In 1953, he settled in Villeneuve, near Geneva, and began teaching at the Internationale Sommer Akademie für Bildenden Künste, where he initiated his Schule des Sehens. Kokoschka’s collected writings were published in 1956, and around this time he became involved in stage design. In 1962, he was honored with a retrospective at the Tate Gallery, London. Kokoschka died February 22, 1980, in Montreux, Switzerland.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 19th Century artist of the Impressionist movement, Camille Pissarro [French, 1830-1903] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Pissarro_Camille

Camille Pissarro (b. July 10, 1830, St. Thomas, Danish West Indies — d. November 13, 1903, Paris), grew up on St. Thomas in the Antilles, where his parents, who had been born in France, ran a prosperous trading business. At the age of eleven, Pissaro was sent to Savary, a boarding school near Paris, where drawing was among the subjects he was taught. In 1851 he became acquainted with the young painter Fritz Melbye on St. Thomas and decided to go to Venezuela, where he remained until 1854, working hard on drawing. In 1855 he returned to Paris, where he became a pupil of the marine painter Anton Melbye.

Pissaro visited the Paris Exposition and was particularly impressed by the work of Delacroix, Courbet and Corot. He met Corot not long afterwards and followed his advice to paint from nature. The fruits of this approach were naturalistic landscapes in dark tones revealing the strong influence of Corot. In 1859 Pissarro was represented for the first time in the Salon and, at the Académie Suisse, he became acquainted with Monet and Cézanne. Thenceforth ties of friendship linked the three painters, which in the 1870s would lead to their establishing an artists’ collective.

In 1863 Pissarro became a member of the “Société des Aquafortistes” and began to etch. In 1866 he met Manet and the Café Guerbois circle of artists — to which Renoir, Monet, Sisley, Zola et al belonged. Working in close association with Monet and Renoir, Pissarro began to lighten his palette and detach himself from the style of his teacher, Corot. The Franco-Prussian War made him flee to London, leaving almost all his pictures behind, which fell victim to the depredations of the German forces. In London Pissarro married his mistress of many years, Julie Vellay, with whom he had five children.

Returning to France in 1871, Pissarro worked with Monet and Cézanne in the years that followed. Now a member of the avant-garde, he was a driving force behind the first Impressionist Exhibition in 1874. He was the only artist to have participated in all eight Impressionist exhibitions up to 1882. In the 1880s, Pissarro, always a landscapist, turned to unemotional descriptions of peasant life and ended by changing his style, joining forces with the young painters Seurat and Signac to found the Neo-Impressionist movement.

The last decade of Pissarro’s, during which his reputation was at its height with earnings to match, saw him take productive trips to London, Paris, Rouen and Dieppe. They brought forth urban landscapes in a “more moderate style,” informed by optimism and the endeavor to render movement and atmosphere in visual terms.

Pissarro’s œuvre comprises more than 2000 paintings and just as many drawings and prints.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 20th Century artist of the American Scene movement, Charles Burchfield [American, 1893-1967] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Burchfield_Charles

Charles Burchfield grew up in Ohio where he enjoyed nature’s company in the woods which surrounded his home. He attended the Cleveland School of Art and later moved to New York. In 1929, he retired from designing wallpaper and devoted his time to painting, supporting himself off the sales of his paintings.

Burchfield is best known for his expressionistic large-scale watercolor paintings of the “American Scene” genre, although he did not consider himself a Regionalist painter. Other motifs in his work include fantastical scenes of memories from his youth as well as mystical scenes.

Burchfield’s thick and heavy stroke creates substance and vitality in his watercolors. Brooding Earth reveals earth’s anticipation of an oncoming storm on the horizon. The solitary tree on the left produces a feeling of loneliness or even melancholy. The earth itself fills the majority of the picture as the pale crest of the hill draws the eye upwards and to the left.

The earthly foreground seems quiet when compared to the dark storm brewing on the skyline. The forms are simplified, the brushwork is elegant, and the colors are monochromatic; these qualities help create the mood which Burchfield was seeking.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 19th Century artist, I Hiroshige [Japanese, 1797-1858] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Hiroshige_I

Hiroshige (1797-1858), Japanese painter and printmaker, known especially for his landscape prints. The last great figure of the Ukiyo-e, or popular, school of printmaking, he transmuted everyday landscapes into intimate, lyrical scenes that made him even more successful than his contemporary, Hokusai.

Ando Hiroshige was born in Edo (now Tokyo) and at first, like his father, was a fire warden. The prints of Hokusai are said to have first kindled in him the desire to become an artist, and he entered the studio of Utagawa Toyohiro, a renowned painter, as an apprentice. In 1812 Hiroshige took his teacher’s name (a sign of graduation), signing his work Utagawa Hiroshige. His career falls roughly into three periods. From 1811 to about 1830 he created prints of traditional subjects such as young women and actors. During the next 15 years he won fame as a landscape artist, reaching a peak of success and achievement in 1833 when his masterpiece, the print series Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (scenes on the highway connecting Edo and Kyoto), was published. He maintained this high level of craftmanship in other travel series, including Celebrated Places in Japan and Sixty-nine Stations on the Kiso Highway. The work he did during the third period, the last years of his life, is sometimes of lesser quality, as he appears to have hurriedly met the demands of popularity. He died of cholera on October 12, 1858, in Edo.

With Hokusai, Hiroshige dominated the popular art of Japan in the first half of the 19th century. His work was not as bold or innovative as that of the older master, but he captured, in a poetic, gentle way that all could understand, the ordinary person’s experience of the Japanese landscape as well as the varied moods of memorable places at different times. His total output was immense, some 5400 prints in all.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 16th Century artist, Lucas Cranach the Elder [German, 1472-1553] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Cranach_the_Elder_Lucas

Cranach, Lucas the Elder (1472-1553). German painter. He takes his name from the small town of Kronach in South Germany, where he was born, and very little is known of his life before about 1500-01, when he settled in Vienna and started working in the humanist circles associated with the newly founded university. His stay in Vienna was brief (he left in 1504), but in his period there he painted some of his finest and most original works. They include portraits, notably those of Johannes Cuspinian, a lecturer at the university, and his wife Anna (Reinhart Collection, Winterhur), and several religious works in which he shows a remarkable feeling for the beauty of landscape characteristic of the Danube school. The finest example of this manner is perhaps the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Staatliche Museen, Berlin), which shows the Holy Family resting in the glade of a German pine forest. It was painted in 1504, just before Cranach went to Wittenberg as court painter to Frederick III (the Wise), Elector of Saxony.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 16th Century artist, Palma Vecchio [Italian, 1480?-1528] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Negretti_Jacopo

Palma Vecchio (1480 – July 1528), born Jacopo Palma or known as Jacopo Negretti, was an Italian painter of the Venetian school born at Serina Alta near Bergamo. He is called Palma Vecchio in English (“Old Palma” — in Italian Palma il Vecchio) to distinguish him from Palma Giovane, his great-nephew.

When Palma arrived in Venice early in the 16th century, he reputedly was a companion and competitor of Lorenzo Lotto, and to some extent a pupil of Titian. He may also have taught Bonifazio Pitati and influenced Giovanni Busi. Palma’s earlier works betray the influence of the Bellini.

Palma’s work demonstrates superior richness of color, but he did not excel with regard to invention nor vigorous draughtsmanship.

His paintings frequently feature his (so-called) daughter Violante, of whom Titian was said to be enamoured. Famous works by Palma include a composition of six paintings in the Venetian church of Santa Maria Formosa, with St Barbara in the centre, under the dead Christ, and to right and left SS. Dominic, Sebastian, John Baptist and Anthony. A second work is in the Dresden Gallery, representing three sisters seated in the open air; it is frequently named The Three Graces. A third work, discovered in Venice in 1900, is a portrait supposed to represent Violante. Other leading examples are: the Last Supper in Santa Maria Mater Domini; a Madonna, in the church of San Stefano in Vicenza; the Epiphany, (Brera Gallery, Milan); the Holy Family with a young shepherd (Louvre, Paris), The Holy Family with St. Catherine, St. John and Donor (Beli Dvor, Belgrade ), St Stephen and other Saints, Christ and the Widow of Nain and the Assumption of the Virgin, (Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice), and Christ at Emmaus (Pitti Palace).

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 19th Century artist, François Ferrière [Swiss-French, 1752-1839] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Ferriere_Francois

François Ferrière (1752–1839), was a Swiss miniaturist painter of portraits in oil and pastel, and an engraver practicing in landscape, genre scenes and trompe l’oeil. He was active in Geneva, London and St. Petersburg.

François Ferrière was born in Geneva and studied in Paris. He moved to Britain in 1793, exhibiting miniatures in London until 1804, when he traveled to St Petersburg and Moscow. He came back to Britain in 1817, exhibiting his strongly characterized portrait miniatures at the Royal Academy and the British Institution. Five years later he returned to Geneva, where he lived for the rest of his life. A respected portraitist, Ferrière included a number of Scots amongst his clients.

Featured Artist at the e.Gallery this week is a 19th Century artist of the Impressionist movement, Gustav Caillebotte [French, 1848-1894] Link: https://fineart.elib.com/fineart.php?dir=Alphabetical/Caillebotte_Gustav

Gustave Caillebotte, b. Aug. 19, 1848, d. Feb. 21, 1894, was a French painter and a generous patron of the Impressionists, whose own works, until recently, were neglected.

He was an engineer by profession, but also attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He met Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Pierre Auguste Renoir in 1874 and helped organize the first impressionist exhibition in Paris that same year. He participated in later shows and painted some 500 works in a more realistic style than that of his friends. Caillebotte’s most intriguing paintings are those of the broad, new Parisian boulevards. The boulevards were painted from high vantage points and were populated with elegantly clad figures strolling with the expressionless intensity of somnambulists, as in Boulevard Vu d’en Haut (1880; private collection, Paris). Caillebotte’s superb collection of impressionist paintings was left to the French government on his death. With considerable reluctance the government accepted part of the collection.