1826-1900 Frederick Edwin Church Galleries Frederic Edwin Church (May 4, 1826 ?C April 7, 1900) was an American landscape painter born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a central figure in the Hudson River School of American landscape painters. While committed to the natural sciences, he was "always concerned with including a spiritual dimension in his works". The family wealth came from Church's father, Joseph Church, a silversmith and watchmaker in Hartford, Connecticut.(Joseph subsequently also became an official and a director of The Aetna Life Insurance Company) Joseph, in turn, was the son of Samuel Church, who founded the first paper mill in Lee, Massachusetts in the Berkshires, and this allowed him(Frederic) to pursue his interest in art from a very early age. At eighteen years of age, Church became the pupil of Thomas Cole in Catskill, New York after Daniel Wadsworth, a family neighbor and founder of the Wadsworth Atheneum, introduced the two. In May 1848, Church was elected as the youngest Associate of the National Academy of Design and was promoted to Academician the following year. Soon after, he sold his first major work to Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum. Church settled in New York where he taught his first pupil, William James Stillman. From the spring to autumn each year Church would travel, often by foot, sketching. He returned each winter to paint and to sell his work. Between 1853 and 1857, Church traveled in South America, financed by businessman Cyrus West Field, who wished to use Church's paintings to lure investors to his South American ventures. Church was inspired by the Prussian explorer Alexander von Humboldt's Cosmos and his exploration of the continent; Humboldt had challenged artists to portray the "physiognomy" of the Andes.   Related Paintings of Frederick Edwin Church :. | Le caur des Andes | Details of Le caur des Andes | Niagara Falls | Our Banner in the Sky | Niagara |
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Adam Pynacker
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1622-1673
Jan van den Hecke
(1620-1684) was a Flemish Baroque painter. According to Houbraken he painted landscapes, which he populated with animals and other figures himself. He also made flower and fruit still lifes and could paint gold, silver, crystal, and porcelain quite well. He spent a long period travelling and working in Italy, which is noticeable in his landscapes. According to the RKD he was registered in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as an apprentice in 1636 and learned to paint from Abraham Hack, who also taught his contemporary, the flower painter Hieronymus Galle. In 1641 Van den Hecke was registered as a master of the guild. From 1653-1658 he was in Italy, but somewhere in the mid-50's he went back and forth to Belgium, since he is also registered in Brussels during that period. He died the same year as his wife Maria Adriana Heijens; when they died they left three children; Jan (II), aged 24, Maria, aged 21, and Peeter, aged 20. Van den Hecke's pupil Peeter de Clerc eventually became a master painter in the guild. Van den Hecke's son Jan van den Hecke II became a popular flower painter.
Gerard Hoet
(1648 - 1733), was a Dutch Golden Age painter. Gerard Hoet trained with his father and brother who were glass painters, and Warnard van Rijsen, who lived in Zaltbommel, and who himself was a pupil of Cornelis van Poelenburgh in Utrecht. In 1672 Hoet moved to The Hague, but when the Count of Salis bought paintings at his mother's house in Zaltbommel, he returned to paint for him. He accompanied him to Rees, Germany, where he met the Utrecht painters Jan van Bunnik, Justus Nieuwpoort and Andries de Wit.With De Wit he returned to Utrecht, where he worked for Frederick Nassau de Zuylestein briefly before visiting the Hague and Amsterdam. He then travelled to France on the promise of a Marquis who wanted to give him a commission, but this promise falling through, he made some engravings of paintings by Francisque Millet.He then wanted to travel to England, but having written to his compatriot Lucas Vorsterman, he received word that there was more work to be had in Paris. Hoet travelled to Paris where he spent more than a year, before returning to the Netherlands via Brussels.In Brussels he met the painter Adriaen Frans Boudewyns, who convinced him to stay a while. After eight months, Hoet returned to Utrecht, where he worked for William Nassau de Zuylestein, 1st Earl of Rochford. He married and settled in Heemstede (Utrecht), where he found work for the lord of the castle there