1738-1820 Benjamin West Locations Benjamin West RA (October 10, 1738 ?C March 11, 1820) was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence. He was the second president of the Royal Academy serving from 1792 to 1805 and 1806 to 1820. In 1760, sponsored by Smith and William Allen, reputed to be the wealthiest man in Philadelphia, West traveled to Italy where he expanded his repertoire by copying the works of Italian painters such as Titian and Raphael. As painted by Gilbert Stuart, 1783-84West was a close friend of Benjamin Franklin, whose portrait he painted. Franklin was also the godfather of West's second son, Benjamin. In 1763, West moved to England, where he was commissioned by King George III to create portraits of members of the royal family. The king himself was twice painted by him. He painted his most famous, and possibly most influential painting, The Death of General Wolfe, in 1770, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1771. Although originally snubbed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the famous portrait painter and President of the Royal Academy, and others as over ambitious, the painting became one of the most frequently reproduced images of the period. In 1772, King George appointed him historical painter to the court at an annual fee of £1,000. With Reynolds, West founded the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768. He was the second president of the Royal Academy from 1792 to 1805. He was re-elected in 1806 and was president until his death in 1820. He was Surveyor of the King's Pictures from 1791 until his death. Many American artists studied under him in London, including Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale, Gilbert Stuart, John Trumbull, and Thomas Sully. [3] West is known for his large scale history paintings, which use expressive figures, colours and compositional schemes to help the spectator to identify with the scene represented. West called this "epic representation". He died in London.  Related Paintings of Benjamin West :. | The Death of Epaminondas (mk25) | The Departure of Regulus (mk25) | Pylades and Orestes Brought as Victims before Iphigenia | Death on a Pale Horse | Burghers of Calais |
Related Artists:
Maclise, Daniel
Irish Painter, 1806-1870 Irish painter, active in England. He grew up in Cork where his father had set up as a shoemaker after discharge from the British army. In 1822 Maclise went to the Cork Institute where he began to draw from the newly arrived collection of casts made after the antique sculpture in the Vatican, laying the foundation of the strong draughtsmanship that characterizes his mature work. Richard Sainthill, antiquary and connoisseur, encouraged Maclise and introduced him to local literary and artistic circles, which were influenced by the Romantic movement and interested in Irish antiquities and oral traditions. Maclise was a central figure in this early phase of the Irish revival, and maintained an interest in Irish subject-matter throughout his career; in 1833 he painted Snap Apple (Mrs Cantor priv. col.), and in 1841 contributed illustrations to Samuel Carter Hall's Ireland: Its Scenery and Character. When Sir Walter Scott visited Cork in 1825, Maclise made a sketch of him that was lithographed, and that inaugurated his public career.
Jaume Huguet
Spanish Early Renaissance Painter, C.1415-1492
Lesser Ury
1861 - 1931 was a German Impressionist painter and printmaker. He was born Leo Lesser Ury in Birnbaum, the son of a baker whose death in 1872 was followed by the Ury family's move to Berlin. In 1878 Lesser left school to apprentice with a tradesman, and the next year he went to D??sseldorf to study painting at the Kunstakademie. Ury spent time in Brussels, Paris, Stuttgart, and other locations, before returning to Berlin in 1887. His first exhibition was in 1889 and met with a hostile reception, although he was championed by Adolph von Menzel whose influence induced the Academie to award Ury a prize. In 1893 he joined the Munich Secession, one of the several Secessions formed by progressive artists in Germany and Austria in the last years of the 19th century. In 1901 he returned to Berlin, where he exhibited with the Berlin Secession, first in 1915 and notably in 1922, when he had a major exhibition. By this time Ury's critical reputation had grown and his paintings and pastels were in demand. His subjects were landscapes, urban landscapes, and interior scenes, treated in an Impressionistic manner that ranged from the subdued tones of figures in a darkened interior to the effects of streetlights at night to the dazzling light of foliage against the summer sky. Ury is especially noted for his paintings of nocturnal cafe scenes and rainy streets. He developed a habit of repeating these compositions in order to sell them while retaining the originals, and these quickly made and inferior copies have harmed his reputation.