French Symbolist Painter, 1840-1916 Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon (April 20, 1840 ?C July 6, 1916) was a Symbolist painter and printmaker, born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France. Odilon was a nickname derived from his mother, Odile. Redon started drawing as a young child, and at the age of 10 he was awarded a drawing prize at school. At age 15, he began formal study in drawing but on the insistence of his father he switched to architecture. His failure to pass the entrance exams at Paris?? Ecole des Beaux-Arts ended any plans for a career as an architect, although he would later study there under Jean-L??on Gerôme. Back home in his native Bordeaux, he took up sculpture, and Rodolphe Bresdin instructed him in etching and lithography. However, his artistic career was interrupted in 1870 when he joined the army to serve in the Franco-Prussian War. At the end of the war, he moved to Paris, working almost exclusively in charcoal and lithography. It would not be until 1878 that his work gained any recognition with Guardian Spirit of the Waters, and he published his first album of lithographs, titled Dans le R??ve, in 1879. Still, Redon remained relatively unknown until the appearance in 1884 of a cult novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans titled, À rebours (Against Nature). The story featured a decadent aristocrat who collected Redon's drawings. In the 1890s, he began to use pastel and oils, which dominated his works for the rest of his life. In 1899, he exhibited with the Nabis at Durand-Ruel's. In 1903 he was awarded the Legion of Honor. His popularity increased when a catalogue of etchings and lithographs was published by Andr?? Mellerio in 1913 and that same year, he was given the largest single representation at the New York Armory Show. In 1923 Mellerio published: Odilon Redon: Peintre Dessinateur et Graveur. An archive of Mellerio's papers is held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2005 the Museum of Modern Art launched an exhibition entitled "Beyond The Visible", a comprehensive overview of Redon's work showcasing more than 100 paintings, drawings, prints and books from The Ian Woodner Family Collection. The exhibition ran from October 30, 2005 to January 23, 2006.   Related Paintings of Odilon Redon :. | Self Portrait 55 | Mystical Knight | The Predestined Child | Paul Gauguin (mk06) | Beatrice |
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BENSON, Ambrosius
Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1495-1550 South Netherlandish painter of Italian birth. In 1518 he acquired Bruges citizenship, and in 1519 he was admitted to the guild of painters and saddlemakers there as an independent master, with the comment that he was 'from Lombardy'. He may have been from Ferrara, although he was originally called Ambrogio Benzone, taking his first name from the patron saint of Milan, the capital of Lombardy. He was probably attracted to Bruges by its commercial and artistic reputation. Initially he worked in the studio of Gerard David, by whom he was profoundly influenced, but after a few months the relationship went wrong and the younger painter brought a case against David. Benson's first marriage was to Anna Ghyselin, who bore him two sons, Willem Benson (1521/2-1574) and Jan Benson (before 1530-before 1581), both of whom became artists. From his second marriage, to Josyne Michiels, a daughter Anna was born, and he had two other daughters from various extra-marital relationships. Benson was an affluent and successful man: he owned several houses, for one of which he gave eight paintings in half payment (which gives some idea of the value of his works at the time). Benson twice received commissions from city magistrates to decorate their new county hall and was a member of the city council on three occasions; he also held important offices within the painters' guild, including dean (1537-8 and 1543-4) and governor (1540-41). His pupils included his two sons, and Joachim Spaers (1541) and Jacob Vinson (Fynson; 1549).
Giuseppe Abbati
Italian, 1836-1868 Abbati was born in Naples and received early training in painting from his brother Vincenzo. He participated in Garibaldi 1860 campaign, suffering the loss of his right eye at the Battle of Capua. Afterwards he moved to Florence where, at the Caffe Michelangiolo, he met Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega, and the rest of the artists who would soon be dubbed the Macchiaioli. While his early paintings were interiors, he quickly became attracted to the practice of painting landscapes en plein air. His activity as a painter was interrupted during 1866 when he enlisted again in the army for the Third Independence War, during which he was captured by the Austrians and held in Croatia. Returning to civilian life at the end of the year, he moved to Castelnuovo della Misericordia and spent the final year of his life painting in the countryside. Abbati died at the age of thirty-two in Florence after his own dog bit him, infecting him with rabies. Giuseppe Abbati, The Tower of the Palazzo del Podesta, 1865, oil on wood, 39 x 32 cm.His paintings are characterized by a bold treatment of light effects. He often painted a luminous landscape scene as seen through the doorway of a darkened interior, as in the View from the Wine Cellar of Diego Martelli (1866). Some of his late landscapes are in the greatly elongated horizontal format often favored by the Macchiaioli.
Carl Johan Fahlcrantz
Swedish, 1774-1861, Swedish painter. He began his artistic training in Stockholm as a pupil of the theatre painters J. G. Brusell and E. Limnell (1764-1861). He also studied under the French landscape painter Louis Belanger (1736-1816). In 1805 he was awarded a scholarship to go to Italy, but he preferred to use it to travel within Sweden, as this corresponded more with his interest in painting his native landscape in a National Romantic style. Fahlcrantz settled permanently in Sweden, never travelling outside the Nordic countries. In 1819 he became a professor at the Royal Academy of Arts in Stockholm and in the 1820s Karl XIV commissioned a series of major works from him. Oscar I followed suit, as did numerous other buyers inside and outside Sweden. In this way, Fahlcrantz's paintings were distributed as far as Denmark, Bavaria, Russia and America.