German painter (b. 1497, Augsburg, d. 1543, London). Hans Holbein the Younger, born in Augsburg, was the son of a painter, Hans Holbein the Elder, and received his first artistic training from his father. Hans the Younger may have had early contacts with the Augsburg painter Hans Burgkmair the Elder. In 1515 Hans the Younger and his older brother, Ambrosius, went to Basel, where they were apprenticed to the Swiss painter Hans Herbster. Hans the Younger worked in Lucerne in 1517 and visited northern Italy in 1518-1519. On Sept. 25, 1519, Holbein was enrolled in the painters' guild of Basel, and the following year he set up his own workshop, became a citizen of Basel, and married the widow Elsbeth Schmid, who bore him four children. He painted altarpieces, portraits, and murals and made designs for woodcuts, stained glass, and jewelry. Among his patrons was Erasmus of Rotterdam, who had settled in Basel in 1521. In 1524 Holbein visited France. Holbein gave up his workshop in Basel in 1526 and went to England, armed with a letter of introduction from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More, who received him warmly. Holbein quickly achieved fame and financial success. In 1528 he returned to Basel, where he bought property and received commissions from the city council, Basel publishers, Erasmus, and others. However, with iconoclastic riots instigated by fanatic Protestants, Basel hardly offered the professional security that Holbein desired. In 1532 Holbein returned to England and settled permanently in London, although he left his family in Basel, retained his Basel citizenship, and visited Basel in 1538. He was patronized especially by country gentlemen from Norfolk, German merchants from the Steel Yard in London, and King Henry VIII and his court. Holbein died in London between Oct. 7 and Nov. 29, 1543. With few exceptions, Holbein's work falls naturally into the four periods corresponding to his alternate residences in Basel and London. His earliest extant work is a tabletop with trompe l'oeil motifs (1515) painted for the Swiss standard-bearer Hans Baer. Other notable works of the first Basel period are a diptych of Burgomaster Jakob Meyer zum Hasen and his wife, Dorothea Kannengiesser (1516); a portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach (1519); an unsparingly realistic Dead Christ (1521); a Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Saints (1522); several portraits of Erasmus, of which the one in Paris (1523 or shortly after), with its accurate observation of the scholar's concentrated attitude and frail person and its beautifully balanced composition, is particularly outstanding; and woodcuts, among which the series of the Dance of Death (ca. 1521-1525, though not published until 1538) represents one of the high points of the artist's graphic oeuvre. Probably about 1520 Holbein painted an altarpiece, the Last Supper, now somewhat cut down, which is based on Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting, and four panels with eight scenes of the Passion of Christ (possibly the shutters of the Last Supper altarpiece), which contain further reminiscences of Italian painting, particularly Andrea Mantegna, the Lombard school, and Raphael, but with lighting effects that are characteristically northern. His two portraits of Magdalena Offenburg, as Laïs of Corinth and Venus with Cupid (1526),   Related Paintings of HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger :. | Darmstadt Madonna (detail) sf | The Passion | Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam sg | Portrait of Henry VIII dg | Portrait of Sir William Butts sg |
Related Artists:
Marx Reichlich
1460-1520 German Marx Reichlich Gallery Austrian painter. His name, which first appeared in records of Salzburg citizens in 1494, has been linked (Semper) to an artist who signed some of his paintings with the initials M R. The earliest of the initialled panels, the Adoration of the Magi with the Donor Heinrich Mentlberger (1489; Innsbruck, ex-Wilten Abbey Church; Innsbruck, Tirol. Landesmus.), suggests that Reichlich had trained with the Tyrolean artists Friedrich Pacher and Michael Pacher. The latter lived in Salzburg from 1495 to 1498, and the stylistic association with him visible in the Perckhamer Altarpiece (c. 1495-8; Austria, priv. col., see Oberhammer, nos 1-12) may account for Reichlich's having become a citizen in Salzburg. The connections with both Pachers and the fact that Reichlich received several commissions in Neustift (Novacella, nr Bressanone) suggest that his origins were in that region. According to a receipt dated 1499, he painted a panel (untraced) for the Benediktinerstift of St Lambrecht in Styria. In 1508 Emperor Maximilian I commissioned him to restore the frescoes (in situ) in Schloss Runkelstein near Bozen (Bolzano). The latest panels signed with the initials M R make up part of a double-winged altarpiece (Heiligenblut, St Vincent) that was completed by one 'Wolffgang Maller' in 1520, perhaps because Reichlich was no longer living. Also attributed to Reichlich on stylistic, technical and circumstantial grounds are eight portraits (c. 1519-20) formerly assigned to a 'Master of the Angrer Portrait' whose name was derived from the riveting bust-length portrait of Canon Gregor Angrer of Brixen (1519; Innsbruck, Tirol. Landesmus.).
El Lissitzky
Russian 1890-1941 He was an important figure of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the former Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus and constructivist movements, and he experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th century graphic design. El Lissitzky's entire career was laced with the belief that the artist could be an agent for change, later summarized with his edict, "das zielbewußte Schaffen" (goal-oriented creation). A Jew, he began his career illustrating Yiddish children's books in an effort to promote Jewish culture in Russia, a country that was undergoing massive change at the time and that had just repealed its anti-semitic laws. When only 15 he started teaching; a duty he would stay with for most of his life. Over the years, he taught in a variety of positions, schools, and artistic media, spreading and exchanging ideas. He took this ethic with him when he worked with Malevich in heading the suprematist art group UNOVIS, when he developed a variant suprematist series of his own, Proun, and further still in 1921, when he took up a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Weimar Germany, working with and influencing important figures of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements during his stay. In his remaining years he brought significant innovation and change to typography, exhibition design, photomontage, and book design, producing critically respected works and winning international acclaim for his exhibition design. This continued until his deathbed, where in 1941 he produced one of his last works ?? a Soviet propaganda poster rallying the people to construct more tanks for the fight against Nazi Germany.
Cornelis van Cleve
painted Portrait of Jan Wyts in 16th century