1758-1810 British John Hoppner Galleries John Hoppner (April 4?, 1758 - January 23, 1810), English portrait-painter, was born in Whitechapel. His father was of German extraction, and his mother was one of the German attendants at the royal palace. Hoppner was consequently brought early under the notice and received the patronage of George III, whose regard for him gave rise to unfounded scandal. As a boy he was a chorister at the royal chapel, but showing strong inclination for art, he in 1775 entered as a student at the Royal Academy. In 1778 he took a silver medal for drawing from the life, and in 1782 the Academy's highest award, the gold medal for historical painting, his subject being King Lear. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy In 1780. His earliest love was for landscape, but necessity obliged him to turn to the more lucrative business of portrait painting. At once successful, he had throughout life the most fashionable and wealthy sitters, and was the greatest rival of the growing attraction of Lawrence. Ideal subjects were very rarely at tempted by Hoppner, though a "Sleeping Venus," "Belisarius," "Jupiter and Io," a "Bacchante" and "Cupid and Psyche" are mentioned among his works. The prince of Wales visited him especially often, and many of his finest portraits are in the state apartments at St. James's Palace, the best perhaps being those of the prince, the duke and duchess of York, of Lord Rodney and of Lord Nelson, Among his other sitters were Sir Walter Scott, the Duke of Wellington, Frere and Sir George Beaumont. Competent judges have deemed his most successful works to be his portraits of women and children. A Series of Portraits of Ladies was published by him in 1803, and a volume of translations of Eastern tales into English verse in 1805. The verse is of but mediocre quality. In his later years Hoppner suffered from a chronic disease of the liver. He was confessedly an imitator of Reynolds. When first painted, his works were much admired for the brilliancy and harmony of their colouring, but the injury due to destructive mediums and lapse of time which many of them suffered caused a great depreciation in his reputation. The appearance, however, of some of his pictures in good condition has shown that his fame as a brilliant colourist was well founded. His drawing is faulty, but his touch has qualities of breadth and freedom that give to his paintings a faint reflection of the charm of Reynolds. Hoppner was a man of great social power, and had the knowledge and accomplishments of a man of the world. The best account of Hoppner's life and paintings is the exhaustive work by William McKay and W Roberts (1909  Related Paintings of John Hoppner :. | Lady Caroline Capel Holding her Daughter Harriet | Portrait of the Frankland Sisters | The Bowden Children | Portrait of the Frankland Sisters | Portrait of the Frankland Sisters |
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Alexei Savrasov
Russian Painter, 1830-1897 was a Russian landscape painter and creator of the lyrical landscape style. Savrasov was born into the family of a merchant. He began to draw early and in 1838 he enrolled as a student of professor Rabus at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (graduated in 1850), and immediately began to specialize in landscape painting. In 1852, he traveled to Ukraine. Then, in 1854 by the invitation of the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna, President of the Imperial Academy of Arts, he moved to the neighborhood of St. Petersburg. In 1857, Savrasov became a teacher at the Moscow School of painting, sculpturing and architecture. His best disciples, Isaac Levitan and Konstantin Korovin, remembered their teacher with admiration and gratitude. The Rooks Have Come Back was painted by Savrasov near Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma.In 1857, he married Sophia Karlovna Hertz, sister of art historian K. Hertz. In their home they entertained artistic people and collectors including Pavel Tretyakov. Savrasov became especially close with Vasily Perov. Perov helped him paint the figures of the boat trackers in Savrasov's Volga near Yuryevets, Savrasov painted landscapes for Perov's Bird catcher and Hunters on Bivouac. In the 1860s, he traveled to England to see the International Exhibition, and to Switzerland. In one of his letters he wrote that no academies in the world could so advance an artist as the present world exhibition. The painters who influenced him most were British painter John Constable and Swiss painter Alexandre Calame. The Rooks Have Come Back (1871) is considered by many critics to be the high point in Savrasoves artistic career. Using a common, even trivial, episode of birds returning home, and an extremely simple landscape, Savrasov emotionally showed the transition of nature from winter to spring. It was a new type of lyrical landscape painting, called later by critics the mood landscape. The painting brought him fame. In 1870, he became a member of the Peredvizhniki group, breaking with government-sponsored academic art. In 1871,
Johann M Culverhouse
1821-1895
Gustav Wentzel
(7 October 1859 - 10 February 1927) was a Norwegian painter. He was best known for interiors and domestic and rural scenes. His artistic style was associated with Naturalism and noted for accurate observations and attention to detail. Gustav Wentzel was born in Christiania. He was a pupil of painter Knud Bergslien (1879-81) of and Frits Thaulow in 1883. He also studied for a time in Paris at the Academie Julian in 1884 and at Academie Colarossi with Leon Bonnat and Alfred Philippe Roll (1888-89). Wentzel first public painting was exhibited in Albert Cammermeyer bookstore during the autumn of 1879. His painting Snekkersvennen, which had been rejected by the Christiania Kunstforening, led to a lasting dispute and the establishment of an exhibition organized by the artists themselves, which eventually became an annual event called Autumn Exhibition (Høstutstillingen) in Oslo. Among his paintings at the National Gallery of Norway are I fiskernaustet from 1881, Frokost from 1882, and Dans i Setesdal from 1887. Wentzel was decorated Knight, First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav in 1908