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ERICH HECKEL Heckel was born in 1883 in Döbeln near Dresden, Germany. As a child he met Karl Schmidt-Rottluff in Chemnitz. Heckel originally set out to become an architect and studied in Dresden at the Technische Hochschule. Through his brother Manfred Heckel met Ernest Ludwig Kirchner. Along withanother self-taught artist Fritz Bleyl, Heckel, Kirchner and Schmidt-Rottluff founded Kunstlergruppe Brücke in June 1905. All four were architecture students. Heckel worked as a draf...tsman and project manager for an architect for a few years after the founding of Die Brücke Die Brücke saw itself as a bridge from the past to the present. They wanted to break through the boundaries they felt were holding back art. Heckel and the other members of Die Brücke believed themselves to be artistic innovators. They valued authenticity, candor, and advocated a youth movement. The members of Die Brücke considered woodcuts the pre-eminent medium. They believed woodcuts were an ancient and indigenous German art form fundamental to German artistic expression. Die Brücke held its first group exhibit in 1906. Their work was popular and they had many more exhibits in rapid succession. Many of these shows took on an ideological character. Heckel took onthe role ofhead of communications for Die Brücke,and was the organizer and manager of the group’s activities. Die Brücke favored the use of two-dimensions and vivid colors. They saw aBerlin exhibit of work by Henri Matisse in 1908, which profoundly affected them.They considered asking Matisse and other Fauves to join Die Brücke. It was part of Die Brücke’s philosophy to create works collaboratively. Heckel often worked with Kirchner and Max Pechstein on summer vacations at the Moritzberger Lakes. In 1911, Kirchner, Bleyl and Heckel moved to Berlin.In Berlin, Die Brücke met and mixed with members of other avant-garde German art groups. During World War I, Heckel was a volunteer for military service. He was deployed to a medical division, in which the artist Max Beckmann also served, and for which the chiefofficer was the art historian Walter Kaesbach.In the 1920s, Heckel joined the Novembergruppe. During this time, Heckel helped establish Arbeitstrat für Kunst. During World War II, Heckel’s work was labeled degenerate. He abandoned Berlin and sought refuge in Carinthia.After World War II, Heckel went back to Berlin but found his studio destroyed. He moved to Lake Constance, where he painted and taught art. In his final years, Heckel created many landscape watercolors. Heckel died in Radofzell near Konstanz in January 1970. #erichheckel #heckel https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/erich-heckel/

JOAQUÍN TORRES-GARCIÁ Torres-Garciá was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1874, His father was Catalan and the family moved back to Spain when Joaquín was a child. He studied at the Academia Baixas in Barcelona, where he worked with Antoni Gaudi. Torres-Garciá was commissioned to create frescoes in Barcelona’s Saló de Sant Jordi, which is in the Palau de la Generalitat. These stirred controversy. In response to the controversy, Torres-Garciá secluded himself in rural Tarrasa, Sp...ain where he started painting landscapes and street scenes. Torres-Garciá moved to New York in 1920. He exhibited with Stuart Davis at the Whitney. In New York, he not only made and taught art, he started designing toys and established a toy factory. Torres-Garciá and his family went back to Europe in 1922. He was one of the founders of Constructivism. Torres-Garciá and Piet Mondrian established the Constructivist group Cercle et Carré in 1929. They believed there was a fundamental geometry undergirding all forms. In the early 1930s, Torres-Garciá lived in Spain, exhibiting and lecturing on art theory. After forty-three years away, he went back to Uruguay in 1934. Torres-Garciá created sculptures and installation pieces. He painted murals in Uruguay. Torres-Garciá founded and wrote for various art publications, and introduced to Uruguay’s art the concepts of Constructivism, Cubism and Neo-plasticism. Torres-Garciá founded an art school in Uruguay, the Taller, which many have likened to Germany’s Bauhaus. It trained many important Uruguayan artists. When he died in 1949 in Uruguay, Torres-Garciá was considered among the most significant Latin American artists of his time. #joaquintorresgarcia #garcia https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/joaquin-torres-garcia/

Edward Hopper’s birthday is 22 July Hopper worked as a commercial illustrator for an advertising agency after leaving art school. He then spent a year in Europe, mostly in Paris. Hopper made a a total of three trips to Paris over the course of his life. Hopper had his first public exhibit in 1908. Hopper also exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show. In 1915, he took up etching. He had been exhibiting paintings in New York, Chicago and elsewhere and hadn’t sold any. Hopper put his c...anvases into storage. He also started teaching art at his family home in Nyack. In 1916, Hopper bought a printing press. Throughout the early 1910s, Hopper continued to make the bulk of his income through commercial illustration, but was also selling his etchings. In 1924, he married Josephine Nivison. She was already an accomplished artist. During their extended honeymoon in Gloucester, MA, Hopper began to experiment with watercolor in earnest. In 1931, Hopper was among the first artists invited to exhibit at the new Whitney Museum in New York. At that time, the artist Guy Pène du Bois wrote on Hopper, who he said turned the Puritan in him in to a purist, turned moral rigours into stylistic precisionsHe will never himself, in conversation, bother to fill in awkward momentsmoments which a more worldly and less strictly honest painter would pad. Only very rarely do Hopper’s watercolors have people in them. He painted his final watercolor in 1962, five years before his death. But Hopper continued to sketch and paint oils for the rest of his life. These often included people. Hopper’s wife Josephine was his only female nude model from the time they married. In 1933, she inherited some money, which allowed the Hoppers to buy a summer home and to travel. The Hoppers did not have electricity, a refrigerator or telephone service in their summer home until 1954. Hopper disagreed with critics who said his paintings were about human isolation. He said, The loneliness thing is overdoneIt formulates something you don’t want formulated. Hopper died on May 15, 1967 at his Washington Square apartment. Hopper had lived there since 1913. Josephine, his wife, died ten months later. #edwardhopper #hopper https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/edward-hoppers-birthday-/

Nicholas Poussin Poussin was born on 16 June in either 1593 or 1594. He established the main tenets of Classicism. Poussin is regarded by many art historians as the best French artist of the seventeenth century. Little is known of Poussin’s early years. As a child, he saw the work of Mannerist artist Quentin Varin. Poussin wanted to study art and moved to Paris in 1612. He had some early success in Paris, but was eager to see Classical and Renaissance art for himself in R...ome. Poussin’s earliest drawings show his interest in Classical Greek and Roman mythology. Rome finally got to Rome in 1624. He met a group of influential intellectuals in Rome, and won many commission to create art. A particularly important commission was from the poet Marino to illustrate Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Art historians believe that during this early period in Rome, Poussin concentrated on making art for private contemplation rather than grand, public statements. In 1628, Poussin won a commission from the Pope. In the drawing above, Poussin masterfully depicts a large of group of people in an outdoor space without making it seem crowded. The drawing was a preparatory sketch for the second series called The Seven Sacraments. This series was created for Poussin’s patron Paul Fréart de Chantelou. During his time in Rome, Poussin began to attend dissections and study medieval Arabic mathematics. He started making boxes, which he used to stage the settings of his drawings and paintings. Poussin created figures out of beeswax and moved the figures around a sort of stage set up in the box to change the dynamics of his compositions. The boxes had openings so he could see the how alterations in lighting would affect the scene. Poussin also used live models to stage the scenes he sketched or painted. Poussin became ill in about 1629. The family of Jacques Dughet, a chef, took care of Poussin during this time. Poussin married Dughet’s daughter. Her brother Gaspard was an important landscape painter. From about 1630 to 1640, Poussin did not take any public commissions. He became more concerned with the depiction of emotions. Poussin returned to Paris in 1640. During this time, he met adherents of Réne Descartes and developed an interest in philosophy and the philosophical underpinnings of art. The followers of Descartes became his patrons and followers. Poussin returned to Rome in 1642. In the 1640s, Poussin painted more landscapes. Wall paintings from the Roman period were being excavated at this time. The oil-on-canvas paintings Poussin created in this period used the brilliant colors typical of Roman wall paintings. Poussin died in 1665. According to Anthony Blunt, who sparked twentieth century interest in Poussin, Poussin was a pure example of the Christian Stoic. His art profoundly influenced generations of artists who came after him. #nicholaspoussin #poussin https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/nicholas-poussin/

John Constable John Constable was born on 11 June 1776 in Suffolk, England. His father owned a mill, and Constable grew up in a family keenly interested in weather conditions. John Constable continued to work at the family mill and on family properties until 1798. As a child, Constable started sketching in Suffolk and Norfolk. His father allowed him to move to London to pursue art studies when John Constable turned twenty-two years old. Constable started studying at the Ro...yal Academy Schools in 1800. Throughout the early 1800s, Constable made many trips around England to sketch the scenery and in particular the skies. Constable had been exposed to the landscape paintings of Gainsborough, Girtin, and the Dutch landscape artists, but he started developing his own original take on landscape painting during this period. Constable completed many watercolor studies of clouds. Most were in sketchbooks. Constable wrote, It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the keynote, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment. Scholars believe Constable often sketched hastily outside but brought many watercolors inside to finish. Constable ably depicts the unsettled weather and volatile skies of Sussex in the watercolor above. Constable said, No two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the beginning of the world. Unlike many British artists, Constable never traveled overseas. His work was appreciated during his lifetime for its originality and freshness. Starting in the twentieth century, many critics praised the spontaneity of Constable’s watercolors and sketches over his finished oil-on-canvas paintings. #johnconstable #constable https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/john-constable/

Paul Gauguin Paul Gauguin was born on 7 June 1848 in Paris. His childhood was spent in Peru. Though well-known for his paintings, he was also a sculptor, print-maker. potter, and a master of watercolors and pastels. This fan was painted while Gauguin lived in Copenhagen from December 1894 to July 1885. In 1881, Camille Pissarro introduced Gauguin to Paul Cézanne. The Cézanne landscape painting after which it is done is at the National Museum of Art in Cardiff, Wales.... In 1881, Camille Pissarro introduced Gauguin to Paul Cézanne. The Cézanne landscape painting after which it is done is at the National Museum of Art in Cardiff, Wales. Paul Gauguin was married for ten years to a Danish woman, Mette-Sophie Gad. Aline was their second daughter. She was named after Gauguin’s mother and was born on Christmas 1876. Gauguin got some instruction in drawing and watercolor from Camille Pissarro. He could not afford professional models and used his family as sitters. In 1876, a landscape painting by Gauguin was accepted for exhibition at the Paris Salon. He had been working as a merchant. In 1883, he stopped working in the business world and began to be a full-time artist. Gauguin was unable to sell the paintings he created, but sold his collection of works by Impressionists to support his family. Gauguin abandoned his family and stayed in Brittany for nine months. It was cheaper than Paris and it had a distinctive culture, then considered exotic. Gauguin first went to Tahiti in June of 1891. But by 1893, illness and poverty compelled him to return to France. He hoped his work would sell there and held a solo exhibit at Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris. His work did not sell. He returned to Tahiti in July of 1895. Gauguin continued to produce art until his death in the Marquesas islands in 1903. #paulgauguin #gauguin https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/paul-gauguin/

Jules Chéret Chéret was born to an impoverished Parisian family on 31 May 1836. During his career, he produced over a thousand posters. His work helped to establish posters as a legitimate art form. Chéret became a printer’s apprentice in 1849. Although he had some work as an illustrator, Chéret decided to study lithography in London, where color printing was more advanced than in Paris. When he returned to Paris, Chéret sold one poster design but did not get other work. ...He went back to London in 1858, where he got a bit of work producing posters for circuses and operas. Chéret returned to Paris where the perfume company Rimmel commissioned his designs. This paid enough so Chéret could establish his own studio. According to many, the use of color lithography for posters was invented by Chéret. Chéret was perhaps the first to start using dark blue instead of black in prints, and to employ more vibrant colors than those used in in the past. In 1889, Chéret won the Gold Medal at the Exposition Universelle. He was elected a Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur in 1891. Chéret stopped making posters in 1900, but created pastels and oil-on-canvas paintings. Chéret’s work inspired a generation of accomplished French poster artists including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Chéret died in 1932. A posthumous exhibit of Chéret’s work was held in 1933 at the Salon d’Automne. #julescheret #cheret https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/jules-cheret/

11 Secrets Discovered By X-Raying Old Paintings - rnkr.co/XRayPaintingSecrets

Life Imitates Art Oscar Wilde famously wrote the words life imitates art far more than art imitates life. The phrase was published in the 1891 publication The Decay of Lying. Long after Wilde’s lifetime, in 1972, John Berger created the television series and book titled Ways of Seeing. Berger’s work again explored how fine art impacts various aspects of popular culture, including fashion and commercial advertising. Today, as we are facing a global pandemic and bound to ou...Continue reading

Mary Cassatt’s birthday is May 22 Mary Cassatt was born in Allegheny City (Pittsburgh), PA on May 22, 1844.She visited Europe with her parents and siblings frequently before she was ten years old. In 1851, Cassatt and her parents lived in Berlin and Paris. Her family returned to Pennsylvania in 1855. Her parents attempted to deter her, but in 1860, Cassatt embarked on studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Cassatt moved to Paris in 1865. In Paris, she studie...Continue reading

Albrecht Dürer’s birthday is May 21 Dürer, generally considered the most important artist of the Renaissance in Northern Europe, was born in Nuremburg, Germany on 21 May 1471. His first art training was with his father, a goldsmith. Then he became an apprentice in the studio of Michael Wolgemut. Dürer traveled around Europe for about two years, studying art informally. In late 1493, he was making woodcut illustrations for books in Basel and Strasbourg. When the plague stru...ck his home town, Dürer fled to Venice. In Venice, his knowledge of art increased exponentially. He learned about perspective and proportion from Jacobi de’ Barbari, and by copying the works of masters such as Mantegna, di Credi, Giovanni Bellini and Gentile. After the plague outbreak, Dürer got commissions from Frederick the Wise, the ruler of Saxony. He became proficient in engraving and woodcuts as well as watercolors and oils. Plague returned in 1505; Durer returned to Venice. Dürer’s work was so popular it was being copied without his permission. He sued Marcantonio Raimondi for plagiarizing his prints and copying his signature. Dürer was an extremely talented printmaker. His engravings and woodcuts are the basis for his reputation. In 1512, Dürer was named court painter to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian III. By Maximilian, he was commissioned to create the largest prints ever made (below). Dürer traveled to Brussels in 1520. His diary of this trip, with its drawings and verbal description, is a valuable piece of historical evidence. During this trip he was one of the first to see the riches of Meso-America, taken by to Europe by Cortés. Dürer spent his final years writing about art. When he died in 1528, he was famous throughout Europe. #albrechtduerer #albrechtdurer https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/albrecht-durers-birthday/

May 14 is the birthday of Thomas Gainsborough. Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, England on May 14, 1727. He was the youngest child in his family and had eight siblings. Gainsborough studied in London with Hubert Gravelot, a French engraver and illustrator. Gainsborough started painting portraits almost immediately. Gainsborough had early patrons among the merchants of Sudbury. He lived in London from about 1744 until 1748. During this time, he met and marr...ied Margaret Burr. Then he returned to Sudbury. But with a growing family, Gainsborough needed more business. In 1760, he moved to more prosperous Bath. There members of Society became Gainsborough’s sitters. In Bath, Gainsborough’s painting started to show the influence of Sir Anthony Van Dyck. Unlike many English artists of the time, Thomas Gainsborough did not travel much overseas.. Scholars know of one possible trip to Flanders. Also, unlike many artists of his time, Gainsborough worked with only one assistant: his nephew. In the mid and late 1760s, Thomas Gainsborough was sidelined by illness. During this time, he helped to establish the Royal Academy of Arts along with Benjamin West and William Chambers, an architect. One of Gainsborough’s paintings was among the first to be exhibited at the Royal Academy. Gainsborough became popular with the royal family and was awarded many royal portrait commissions. He moved to London in 1774. In 1783, Gainsborough traveled to the Lake District, where he painted the dramatic scenery. River Landscape with Cattle Watering and Ferry In addition to painting, Gainsborough was one the first masters of printmaking, becoming proficient in soft-ground etching and aquatint. He became disenchanted with. the Royal Academy’s exhibition protocols, and from 1784, exhibited only at his own studio. Gainsborogh died in 1788. His total output was immense. Gainsborough was best known for his portraits but said painting landscapes gave him the greatest pleasure. #thomasgainsborough https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/may-4-is-thomas-wilmer-d/

May 12 is the birthday of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was born in London in 1828. His first interests were manuscript illumination and poetry. Rossetti started studying art in 1841, then in 1845 began studying at the Antique School of the Royal Academy of Art in London. Then Rossetti studied with his life-long friend Ford Madox Brown. In 1848, Rossetti jointed the studio of William Holman Hunt. In 1848, Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and J.E. Millais formed ...the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Rossetti’s Girlhood of Mary Virgin (above) was the first painting to be exhibited with the initials of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: PRB. The Pre-Raphaelites disdained contemporary British art and wanted to restore, what they considered, the more authentic and simple art before Raphael (Rafaello Sanzio, 1483-1520). The Pre-Raphaelites believed Raphael was the epitome of rigid Academic art. Like Rossetti, the Pre-Raphaelites were fans of the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson and John Keats, whose work inspired their art. The Pre-Raphaelites published a journal: The Germ. The harsh criticism to which his work was subjected convinced Rossetti to exhibit in public only occasionally after 1850. He also started painting in watercolor more than oils. In 1854, Rossetti met an important art critic who became his advocate: John Ruskin. Through Ruskin, Rossetti met many patrons and collectors. His wife had a still-born child and died of a drug overdose in 1862. Rossetti wrote a series of poems to her, which were buried in her coffin. But in 1869, Rossetti had them exhumed and published. At about this time, Rossetti started painting in oil again. He was a popular and successful portrait painter. Rossetti’s poetry was subjected to indecorous criticism in 1870. In his final years, Rossetti lived alone, shunning company, addicted to drugs and alcohol, surrounded by a menagerie of wild animals, including a wombat, to whom he dedicated a poem. Rossetti painted until his death. He died in 1882. Rossetti’s work was immensely influential and encouraged a later group of Pre-Raphaelite artists. #gabrielrossetti https://www.artexpertswebsite.com/may-12-is-the-birthday-o/