Richard C. Woodville

Happy Birthday Richard C. Woodville!! This artist was born to wealthy parents in Baltimore in 1822. He graduated from medical school but never had the desire to pursue a career in medicine, instead decided to become an artist. After marrying the daughter of a doctor, Woodville went to Dusseldorf to study privately with genre artist Carl Ferdinand Sohn. While in Europe, he worked form sketches of America, shipping home his paintings where they did achieve some fame and appreciation. His work is rather drab in color and is said to appear aloof, as if laughing at his subject. The painting today is titled Waiting for the Stage. Five years after going to Germany, Woodville left his wife for a fellow student and fled to Paris, where he died of an accidental drug overdose at age 30.

David Hoadley

Happy Birthday David Hoadley!! American architect from Connecticut, born in 1774, Hoadley was a self-taught architect. He got his start as a craftsman, a carpenter and builder. He created designs for churches and houses for early America, among other buildings. Hoadley's designs are light and graceful. The First Church of Milford, pictured here was built in 1824 in place of the previous meeting house.

Edgar Tytgat

Happy Birthday Edgar Tytgat!! Flemish painter and etcher, Edgar Tytgat was born in 1879. His father owned a lithography studio where Edgar first learned to draw. As his career progressed his artwork went through changes beginning with an interest in Symbolism,  Expressionism and finally at the end of his life his subjects involved historical, mythological and imaginary images. During WWI he went into refuge and created woodcuts and linocuts with his wife, Maria. His style was sensitive handling of bright colors accented with soft greys, his images simplistic. Tytgat also was a writer but published little.

Norman Bel Geddes

Happy Birthday Norman Bel Geddes!! American artist, born in 1893, Geddes was focused on theatrical and industrial design. He got his love for the theater from his mother, who was a “woman of culture”. He married Helen Belle Schneider and they joined their names to form Bel Geddes. He is said to be the first to impose theories of aeronautics and streamlining to industrial design. He created futuristic ideas, some of which never came to fruition, such as the 1934 aerodynamic car pictured here.

Eugene Delacroix

Happy Birthday Eugene Delacroix!! French painter born in 1798, Delacroix was the major artist in the Romantic movement in France. His work was colorful and his subjects perhaps more exotic and literary than classical, but he was held in high regard by artists struggling to break free from the strict guidelines set forth by the Salon. He had a few pupils but did not teach as an avocation, concentrating instead on his own work and commentary on Parisian life. He traveled to America in the 1830, returning with a wealth of subject matter in new peoples, animals and ideas. The painting today is Christ on the Sea of Gallilee clinging on to the small craft amidst a turbulent sea.

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Karel Appel

Happy Birthday Karel Appel!! Born in Amsterdam, in 1921, this artist was a painter and sculptor and an originator of the artistic group Cobra. His first painting was created when he was 14. His mother did not approve of his becoming an artist so he had to leave home after studying art during the German occupation from 1940-43. He was influenced by artists Picasso, Matisse and Jean Dubuffet. He made found object sculpture and joined a group of artists in Holland, later forming the group Cobra. The group was rather controversial, so he eventually moved to Paris. This sculpture was created in 1976 and is a good representation of his bold use of colr and simplistic shapes in both his painting and sculpture. The artist died in 2006.

Bridget Riley

Happy Birthday Bridget Riley!! English painter from 1931, born in London, this woman artist first studied at Cheltenham Ladies' College but later went to the Royal College of Art. She was a forerunner of Op art, creating illusions of intricate black and white geometric patterns. Early on she was an art teacher, an illustrator, but then began to develop her signature style. Considered the first British contemporary painter, she was the first woman to be awarded the International Prize for painting at the Venice Biennale. She has compared her work to nature, "It (the eye) should feel caressed and soothed, experience frictions and ruptures, glide and drift...One moment there will be nothing to look at and the next second the canvas seems to refill, to be crowded with visual effects.”

Venice Biennale-Contempory Art Art exhibit that happens every two years in Venice, Italy.