Jacques Villon

Happy Birthday Jacques Villon!! (aka Gaston Duchamp) Born in France in 1875, Jacques Villon, brother of Marcel Duchamp (see my blog for July 28), was a painter. Actually, 3 of his siblings were artists,
Marcel, Raymond and sister Suzanne. He began his career in art studying engraving with his grandfather, Emile Nicolle, an amateur artist. His name "Villon" was taken as a tribute to French poet Francois Villon. His posters definitely show the influence of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. After working as an illustrator and caracturist for a time, he began painting, and became a member of the artistic group Section d'Or along with his brother Marcel and others. Although know as a Cubist painter, his work also has connections with Impressionism and Futurism. The poster below, in the Art Nouveau tradition,  is called Le Grillon (The Cricket), American Bar, and said to be the most famus as well as the most rare of his lithographs.


Section d'Or a group of French artists influenced by Cubism.

Giorgio Vasari

Happy Birthday Giorgio Vasari!! The Italian art historian was born in 1511, in Arezzo, Tuscany, trained in Florence and worshipped Michelangelo. Although he was also a painter and architect, Vasari's real expertise was his ability to explain how art history evolved. His book Le Vite de'piu eccellenti Architetti, Pittori, et Scultori Italiani (1550) or Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, is considered by some to be the most important book written on the history of art.

Eastman Johnson

Happy Birthday Eastman Johnson!! Co-founder of the Metropolitan Art Museum, Johnson was born in  Lovell, Maine, in 1824. He was a famed portrait painter of various well known public figures. In 1840 he was apprenticed to a lithographer, where he began his extensive study of art. He was a realistic genre painter who took care to paint what he saw rather than stereotypical images, providing an important historical record. His final genre painting is included here today, The Nantucket School of Philosophy, 1887, a creation of warmth and comaraderie amongst the figures who sit and solve the problems of the day.

Marcel Duchamp

Happy Birthday Marcel Duchamp!! Born in 1887, this French painter was associated with the Dada and Surrealist movements and is thought to have initiated many avenues in art. His brother Raymond Duchamp Villon was a sculptor. Duchamp's early work had ties to Cubism and certainly Futurism (Nude Descending a Staircase). Later he exhibited ready-made objects (urinal, hat stand) questioning the implications of Cubism. Dada was the natural progression of this thought...Dada "signifies nothing". He insisted art should be a "brain fact" not merely an imitation of reality and it is statements such as this that make us realize he was an intellectual artist influenced by Leonardo da Vinci. Bicycle Stand, 1913, his well-known found object sculpture represents the first kinetic sculpture. Duchamp eventually lost interest in art and became quite interested in chess, even playing competitively and writing as a chess journalist for a time.

Hugo Henneberg

Happy Birthday Hugo Henneberg!! This Austrian photographer was born in 1842. He became a photographer in  1888, after obtaining his doctorate, following a period of study in chemistry, physics, mathematics and astronomy. He was a member of various photography groups and exhibited in the Netherlands, Germany and Austria. Landscapes were his favored subject. By 1910 Henneberg had abandoned photography for etchings and engravings.

George Catlin

Happy Birthday George Catlin!! American painter, born in Philadelphia, in 1796, Catlin started out as a lawyer. He was enamored with Native Americans, however, and turned to painting scenes from the Old West. He traveled to Native American territories in Missouri and created  paintings of their lives and customs and nature. He returned with quite a collection of artifacts as well as over 500 paintings, that he used to set up an "Indian Gallery" in 1838.  He also published several collections of engravings. Much of his work is displayed in the Smithsonian.

Thomas Eakins

Happy Birthday Thomas Eakins!! American painter, born in 1844, Thomas Eakins was a realism painter of the ninetheenth century. He was born in Philadelphia and other than a period of study in Paris, lived there his entire life. While some artists who travel and study abroad turn away from American genre, he became more attuned to life around him. He was committed to painting the world around him and was also a great teacher in this respect. Eakins encouraged his students to paint what was before them rather than what they felt the subject should look like. The portrait of Walt Whitman exemplifies his honesty in approach.