1815-1905 German Adolph von Menzel Gallery His father was the headmaster of a school for girls, and intended to educate his son as a professor; but he would not thwart his taste for art. Left an orphan in 1832, Menzel had to maintain his family. In 1833 Sachse of Berlin published his first work, an album of pen-and-ink drawings reproduced on stone, to illustrate Goethe's little poem, Kunstlers Erdenwallen. He executed lithographs in the same manner to illustrate Denkw??rdigkeiten aus der brandenburgisch-preussischen Geschichte; The Five Senses and The Prayer, as well as diplomas for various corporations and societies. From 1839 to 1842 he produced 400 drawings, largely introducing to Germany the technique of wood engraving, to illustrate the Geschichte Friedrichs des Grossen (History of Frederick the Great) by Franz Kugler. He subsequently brought out Friedrichs der Grossen Armee in ihrer Uniformirung (The Uniforms of the Army under Frederick the Great), Soldaten Friedrichs der Grossen (The Soldiers of Frederick the Great); and finally, by order of the king Frederick William IV, he illustrated the works of Frederick the Great, Illustrationen zu den Werken Friedricks des Grossen (1843-1849). By these works Menzel established his claim to be considered one of the first, if not actually the first, of the illustrators of his day in his own line. Pencil drawing by Menzel, 1891.Meanwhile Menzel had set himself to study unaided the art of painting, and he soon produced a great number and variety of pictures, always showing keen observation and honest workmanship in subjects dealing with the life and achievements of Frederick the Great, and scenes of everyday life, such as In the Tuileries, The Ball Supper, and At Confession. Among the most important of these works are The Forge (1875) and The Market-place at Verona. Invited to paint The Coronation of William I at Koenigsberg, he produced an exact representation of the ceremony without regard to the traditions of official painting. In Germany he received many honors, and was the first painter to be given the Order of the Black Eagle in 1898 which included a title of nobility, becoming von Menzel.  Related Paintings of Adolph von Menzel :. | The Berlin Potsdam Railway | The Dinner at the Ball | Studio Interior with Casts | Living room and sister of the artist | Sister Emily Sleeping |
Related Artists:
Frederick Friesek
1874-1939 Frederick Friesek Galleries
Jan Polack
Jan Polack Johannes Po(l)lack (Hanns Polagk, Polegk), (Latin: Ioannes Polonus) (between 1435 and 1450 (possibly in Krakew) - 1519 in Munich) was a 15th-century painter. From his nickname it is assumed that he might have worked in Krakew. From the mid-1470s on, he lived and worked in Munich, having previously been in Franconia. He may have taken part in the 1475 festival of the Landshut Wedding of Jadwiga Jagiellon and George of Bavaria. In 1480 he opened his own shop in Munich. Starting in 1482 he is listed on the tax records of Munich, also as leader of the local painter guild. He visited with Michael Wohlgemuth and his art was influenced by him and by that of Veit Stoss and Hans Pleydenwurff as well as by collaboration with the woodcutter Erasmus Grasser. Documents mention many works of his which are now lost. His most important remaining work is the Weihenstephan altarpiece (1483 - 1485), now at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.
wyndham lewis
British painter and writer. He attended Rugby School and then studied painting at the Slade School of Art, London (1898-1901), where he earned a reputation both as a draughtsman and as a poet. His early artistic and intellectual mentors were Augustus John and Thomas Sturge Moore. From 1902 to 1908 Lewis travelled widely in Europe and studied in many of the major museums. He was one of the first British artists to be aware of, and interested in, Cubism and Expressionism, though little of his work before 1909 survives as evidence of his early development. In late 1908 Lewis settled in London and as well as painting began to publish satirical short stories that take a mechanistic view of human social behaviour, evident in the deliberately clumsy and grotesque figures in his art of the period 1909 to 1912. By 1910 he was including Cubist elements in his watercolour drawings (his preferred medium), and by 1912 he had developed his own linear vocabulary of forms, indebted to Cubist, Futurist and Expressionist forms, which gives an often ironic visual dimension to the themes of his fiction. Another important influence on his art was that of Japanese woodblock prints, as seen in the watercolour drawing later called The Vorticist (1912; Southampton, C.A.G.). By 1913 he was popularly seen as the leading British avant-garde artist.