(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 :. | Lion | Reclining Woman | Healer on a Donkey | The White Restaurant | Still-Life |
Related Artists:
Vincenzo Foppa
1427-1516 Italian Vincenzo Foppa Locations Italian painter. Giving new life to the art of the Lombard school, he exercised a great influence upon northern Italian art until the advent of Leonardo da Vinci. He settled (c.1456) in Pavia. There and in Milan he executed many important frescoes, most of which have been destroyed. He painted religious subjects exclusively, ranging from powerful renditions of the Crucifixion (Bergamo) to poignant depictions of the Madonna (Milan; Johnson Coll., Philadelphia; Davis Coll., Newport, R.I.; National Gall. of Art, Washington, D.C.). His large altarpiece of the Madonna and Child with Saints (Brera, Milan) is a notable example of his technical skill and variety of characterization.
JORDAN, Esteban
Spanish painter/sculptor (1534-1600)
Ferdinand von Piloty
painted King Ludwig II of Bavaria in generals' uniform and coronation robe in 1865