(born Niko Pirosmanashvili; May 5, 1862-1918) was a Georgian primitivist painter. Pirosmani was born in the Georgian village of Mirzaani to a pleasant family in the Kakheti province. His family owned a small vineyard. He was later orphaned and put in the care of his two elder sisters. He moved with them to Tbilisi in 1870. In 1872 he worked as a servant for wealthy families and learned to read and write Russian and Georgian. In 1876 he returned to Mirzaani and worked as a herdsman. Pirosmani gradually taught himself to paint. One of his specialties was painting directly into black oilcloth. In 1882 he opened a workshop in Tbilisi which was unsuccessful. In 1890 he worked as a railroad conductor, and in 1895 worked creating signboards. In 1893 he co-founded a dairy farm in Tbilisi which he left in 1901. Throughout his life Pirosmani, who was always poor, was willing to take up ordinary jobs including housepainting and whitewashing buildings. Although his paintings had some local popularity (about 200 survive) his relationship with professional artists remained uneasy; making a living was always more important to him than abstract aesthetics.  Related Paintings of Niko Pirosmanashvili :. | Tatar - Camel Driver | Reclining Woman | Kakhetian Epos - Alasan Valley | The Russian-Japanese War | The Ferry at Didubeh |
Related Artists:
BORRASSA, Lluis
Spanish Gothic Era Painter, 1350-1424
Metcalf, Willard Leroy
American Impressionist Painter, 1858-1925 American painter and illustrator. His formal education was limited, and at 17 he was apprenticed to the painter George Loring Brown of Boston. He was one of the first scholarship students admitted to the school of art sponsored by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and took classes there in 1877 and 1878. After spending several years illustrating magazine articles on the Zuni Indians of New Mexico, he decided to study abroad and in 1883 left for Paris. There he studied at the Acad?mie Julian under Jules Lefebvre and Gustave Boulanger. During the five years he spent in France he became intimately acquainted with the countryside around the villages of Grez-sur-Loing and Giverny. He returned to America in 1888
George Spencer Watson
R.O.I., R.P., A.R.A., R.A. (8 March 1869, London - 11 April 1934, London) was an English portrait artist of the late romantic school who sometimes worked in the style of the Italian Renaissance. He studied at the RA Schools from 1889, exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1891. He won Royal Academy Schools Silver Medals in 1889 and 1891, and the Landseer Scholarship in 1892. He was elected R.O.I. in 1900, R.P. in 1904, A.R.A. in 1923, and a Member of the Royal Academy (R.A.) in 1932. He married Hilda, a dancer and mime artist, and follower of the actor Edward Gordon Craig. They had a daughter, Mary Spencer Watson (1913 - 2006), who became a sculptor. In 1923 he bought Dunshay Manor in the hills of the Isle of Purbeck, after already have spent holidays in Swanage. He died in London and a memorial exhibition was held at the Fine Art Society in the same year. There is a memorial to him in the north vestibule of St James's Church, Piccadilly, London. Some of his works are held at Tate Britain, the Harris Art Gallery, Preston and collections in Bournemouth, Liverpool, Plymouth and the National Gallery of Canada. Born in London, Watson studied at the Royal Academy from 1889; he exhibited there from 1891 and also at the Paris salon. Retrospective exhibitions were held at the Galerie Heinemann, Munich in 1912, and at the Fine Art Society in 1914. His work A Lady in Black (1922) is owned by the Tate Collection.