Mexican Social Realist Muralist, 1886-1957,Mexican muralist. After study in Mexico City and Spain, he settled in Paris from 1909 to 1919. He briefly espoused Cubism but abandoned it c. 1917 for a visual language of simplified forms and bold areas of colour. He returned to Mexico in 1921, seeking to create a new national art on revolutionary themes in the wake of the Mexican Revolution. He painted many public murals, the most ambitious of which is in the National Palace (1929 ?C 57). From 1930 to 1934 he worked in the U.S. His mural for New York's Rockefeller Center aroused a storm of controversy and was ultimately destroyed because it contained the figure of Vladimir Ilich Lenin; he later reproduced it at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. With Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, Rivera created a revival of fresco painting that became Mexico's most significant contribution to 20th-century art. His large-scale didactic murals contain scenes of Mexican history, culture, and industry, with Indians, peasants, conquistadores, and factory workers drawn as simplified figures in crowded, shallow spaces. Rivera was twice married to Frida Kahlo.   Related Paintings of Diego Rivera :. | Man universe,manipulator | Allegory of California | Rivera and Carlo | Portrait of Aomei | woman cleaning and eagle |
Related Artists:
Carl Joseph Begas
Carl Joseph Begas (September 30, 1794 - November 24, 1854), was a German historical painter born at Heinsberg near Aachen. His father, a retired judge, destined him for the legal profession, but the boy's tastes pointed definitely in another direction. Even at school he was remarked for his wonderful skill in drawing and painting, and in 1812 he was permitted to visit Paris in order to perfect himself in his art. He studied for eighteen months in the atelier of Antoine Jean Gros then began to work independently. In 1814 his copy of The Madonna della Sedia was bought by the king of Prussia, who was attracted by the young artist and did much to advance him. He was engaged to paint several large Biblical pictures, and in 1825, after his return from Italy, continued to produce paintings which were placed in the churches of Berlin and Potsdam. Some of these were historical pieces, but the majority were representations of Scriptural incidents. Begas was also celebrated as a portrait-painter, and supplied to the royal gallery a long series of portraits of eminent Prussian men of letters. At his death he held the post of court painter at Berlin.
Vassily Kandinsky
Russian-born French Expressionist Painter , 1866-1944 was a Russian painter, printmaker and art theorist. One of the most famous 20th-century artists, he is credited with painting the first modern abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow and chose to study law and economics. Quite successful in his profession??he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat??he started painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30. In 1896 he settled in Munich and studied first in the private school of Anton Azbe and then at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. He went back to Moscow in 1914 after World War I started. He was unsympathetic to the official theories on art in Moscow and returned to Germany in 1921. There he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933.
Joseph Denis Odevaere
1778-1830,Flemish painter. He attended evening classes at the Bruges Academie in 1794-5 and then went to Paris, where he entered the studio of the Bruges artist Joseph-Benoet Suvee. In 1801 he began training under Jacques-Louis David and in 1804 won the Prix de Rome for his Death of Phocion (Paris, Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.), in which he faithfully adhered to the principles of David's teaching. Before going to Italy he spent a year in Bruges carrying out portrait commissions, including the Marquis de Chauvelin (1805; Bruges, Groeningemus.). During his time in Rome (1805-12) he copied antique and Renaissance works, taking a particular interest in Raphael, who features in his wash drawing the Master of Urbino Introduced by Bramante to Julius II (1807; Bruges, Groeningemus.), a study for a lost painting. Around 1811 he was among the artists chosen to decorate the Palazzo del Quirinale for Napoleon's visit, although he never executed more than a sketch, Tanaquil Predicting the Future Greatness of Servius Tullius (c. 1811-12; Dijon, Mus. Magnin). Odevaere successfully exhibited in Paris in 1812 and then moved to Ghent, showing works at the Salon there two years later. After the union of the Low Countries in 1815 he became official painter to William I. As a result of this post he executed several works illustrating the history of the Dutch royal family, including the Prince of Orange Wounded at Waterloo (1817) and the Battle of Nieuwpoort (1820; both Brussels, Pal. Nation, on dep. Brussels, Pal. Justice). In 1815 he was commissioned to recover works of art taken from the Low Countries by the French. David's arrival in Brussels in 1816 coincided with the beginning of Odevaere's most ambitious composition, the Departure of the Athenians for Salamis (1816-25; Brussels, Mus. A. Anc.), inspired as much by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres as by David, although the latter frequently advised Odevaere on the painting. From 1825 to 1829 he worked on a series of paintings conveying his support of the philhellenic committees created during the Greek War of Independence.