Albert Bierstadt
German-born American Hudson River School Painter, 1830-1902
Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833. He studied painting with the members of the D??sseldorf School in D??sseldorf, Germany from 1853 to 1857. He taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself to painting.
Bierstadt began making paintings in New England and upstate New York. In 1859, he traveled westward in the company of a Land Surveyor for the U.S. government, returning with sketches that would result in numerous finished paintings. In 1863 he returned west again, in the company of the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose wife he would later marry. He continued to visit the American West throughout his career.
Though his paintings sold for princely sums, Bierstadt was not held in particularly high esteem by critics of his day. His use of uncommonly large canvases was thought to be an egotistical indulgence, as his paintings would invariably dwarf those of his contemporaries when they were displayed together. The romanticism evident in his choices of subject and in his use of light was felt to be excessive by contemporary critics. His paintings emphasized atmospheric elements like fog, clouds and mist to accentuate and complement the feel of his work. Bierstadt sometimes changed details of the landscape to inspire awe. The colors he used are also not always true. He painted what he believed is the way things should be: water is ultramarine, vegetation is lush and green, etc. The shift from foreground to background was very dramatic and there was almost no middle distance
Nonetheless, his paintings remain popular. He was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 (possibly as many as 4000) paintings during his lifetime, most of which have survived. Many are scattered through museums around the United States. Prints are available commercially for many. Original paintings themselves do occasionally come up for sale, at ever increasing prices. Related Paintings of Albert Bierstadt :. | Yellowstone Falls | The Rocky Mountains, Lander Peak | The_Wave | Seal Rock, California | Fishing Boats at Capri | Related Artists: Donna Schuster1883-1953 Adrian Scott StokesRA (1854-1935) was an English landscape painter. Born in Southport, Lancashire, he became a cotton broker in Liverpool, where his artistic talent was noticed by John Herbert RA, who advised him to submit his drawings to the Royal Academy. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1872 and exhibited at the Academy from 1876. In that year went to France where he lived for 10 years, settling back in England in 1886, at Carbis Bay and joining the artists' colony at St Ives.
Adrian Stokes was a landscape painter, concerned most with atmospheric effects, and later with decorative landscapes. He was the author of 'Landscape Painting' (1925). He became ARA in 1909 and RA in 1919, won medals at the Paris Exhibition and Chicago World Fair (1889), became first President of the St Ives Society of Arts (1890) and Vice President of the Royal Watercolour Society (1932).
He married Marianne Preindlesberger of Graz, Austria, in 1884, while living in France. She became a well known artist under her married name of Marianne Stokes. An obituary of Adrian Stokes was published in The Times Monday 2 December 1935
JACOBELLO DEL FIOREItalian Early Renaissance Painter, 1370-1439
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