1869-1952 was an American painter. Gray was born into a San Francisco family endowed with a broad literary and artistic background. He studied under Arthur Frank Mathews at the San Francisco School of Design and later under William Merritt Chase. While he had some early Impressionistic tendencies, his primary expression was under the Tonalism Mathews had brought back from Paris. He is known for his extraction of beauty from the Northern California landscape. Alexander Gray, Percy's father, was born in England, but found his way to a successful insurance business in San Francisco. As the byproduct of a childhood illness, Percy realized he had talents in art. From 1886 to 1888 he attended the California School of Design, then led by Mathews. From there he went on to become a newspaper illustrator, obtaining a job with the New York Journal. In New York he also studied at the Art Students League. He was dispatched from New York to cover the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but decided to remain in his native city where he would then take up his painting career. Gray's first pieces, headland seascapes, were exhibited in 1907; soon thereafter he addressed in watercolor eucalyptus groves and fields of California wildflowers. These subjects would become signatures of his work. Originally Gray's works were oils; however, he eventually developed an allergy to oil paints, and therefore switched to using watercolors as his primary medium. [1] From early on the critics marvelled at his ability to infuse realistic depictions of nature with a mystical and poetic quality. He was clearly applying the precepts of his mentor William Merritt Chase in exaggeration of light and color. From 1912 to 1923 Gray lived in Burlingame, California about twenty miles south of San Francisco, while keeping his studio in the city itself. At the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition he won a bronze medal for his watercolor Out of the Desert, Oregon. Having been a bachelor for 53 years, Gray surprised his friends by marrying. He and his bride moved to the Bonificio Adobe in Monterey, where seascapes and cypress dominated his later works.   Related Paintings of Percy Gray :. | Casa Serrano (mk42) | Antumn Dunes (mk42) | Mandaro Posing as a Plainsman (mk42) | Cows in a Redwood Glade (mk42) | Monterey Dunes (mk42) |
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Hugh Ramsay
Australian portrait painter , 1877 - 1906 was an Australian artist. Ramsay was born in Glasgow, Scotland, son of John Ramsay. He moved with his family to Melbourne in 1878. He was educated at Essendon Grammar School, and joined classes at the National Gallery of Victoria at age 16 under Lindsay Bernard Hall and became one of the most brilliant students ever trained there. He won several first prizes, and at the competition for the travelling scholarship held in 1899 was narrowly beaten by Max Meldrum, another student of unusual ability. Ramsay went to Europe in September 1900 and was fortunate in finding a kindred spirit, George Washington Lambert, on the same vessel. Arriving at Paris he entered Acad??mie Colarossi and was soon recognized as a student of great potential. He sent five pictures to the 1902 exhibition of La Soci??t?? Nationale des Beaux Arts and four of these were accepted and hung together. No greater compliment could have been paid to a young student. Another Australian student whose studio was in the same building, Ambrose McCarthy Patterson (nephew of Nellie Melba, then at the height of her fame). Ramsay was introduced to Melba, who gave him a commission for a portrait and would no doubt have been able to help him in his career. Unfortunately Ramsay became ill in Paris, and it became necessary for him to return to the warmer climate of Australia and the opportunity to paint Melba was missed. Before leaving Europe he had exhibited four pictures at the British Colonial Art Exhibition held in London at the Royal Institute galleries. Returning to Australia, in spite of failing health, Ramsay succeeded in doing some remarkable work including "The Sisters" now in the Sydney gallery, the "Lady with a Fan" (possibly his most famous painting), the portrait of David Scott Mitchell, and his own portrait now in the Melbourne gallery. He gradually became weaker and died on 5 March 1906.
Rupert Bunny
Australian Painter, 1864-1947 Australian painter. After studying in Melbourne under G. F. Folingsby (d 1891), he moved to Europe in 1884 and studied in London under P. H. Calderon and in Paris under Jean-Paul Laurens, who introduced him to the Societe des Artistes Francais in 1887. His early works consisted mainly of mythological subjects and graceful images of pleasant Symbolist landscapes; he defected to the New Salon in 1901 and produced some less decorative works, including images of biblical subjects. A long series of paintings of women followed, but his style again changed abruptly when in 1913 he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne a series of images of dancers, The Rite, that shows the influence of Primitivism. Although not attracted to the avant-garde, Bunny showed an adventurous spirit in his unusual sense of colour, sense of rhythm and witty use of his subjects' poses. He continued to live in Paris and London until 1933.
AVERCAMP, Hendrick
Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1585-1634 1634). He was the first artist in the northern Netherlands to paint winter landscapes. Before him only a few Flemish artists, among them Pieter Bruegel I and his sons, and Jacob Grimmer, had made winter scenery the main subject of their work. Avercamp created a new genre of Dutch painting by combining the panoramic scope, bright colours and high vantage point of these Flemish models with an emphasis on anecdotal detail.