Simberg was born at Hamina (original Swedish Fredrikshamn) in Finland, the son of Colonel Nicolai Simberg and Ebba Matilda Simberg (born Widenius). In 1891, at the age of 18, he enrolled at the Drawing School of the Viipuri Friends of Art, and also studied at the Drawing School of the Finnish Art Association (Suomen Taideyhdistys) (1893–1895),…
Herbert James Draper (1863 – 22 September 1920) was an English Classicist painter whose career began in the Victorian era and extended through the first two decades of the 20th century. Born in London, the son of a jeweller named Henry Draper and his wife Emma, he was educated at Bruce Castle School in Tottenham and…
Hendrik Goltzius (January or February 1558 – January 1, 1617), was a Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter. He was the leading Dutch engraver of the early Baroque period, or Northern Mannerism, noted for his sophisticated technique and the “exuberance” of his compositions. According to A. Hyatt Mayor, Goltzius “was the last professional engraver who drew…
The son of a craftsman, Joshua Clarke, Clarke the younger was exposed to art (and in particular Art Nouveau) at an early age. He went to school in Belvedere College in Dublin. By his late teens, he was studying stained glass at the Dublin Art School. While there his The Consecration of St. Mel, Bishop…
He was born in Bernau in the Black Forest, Germany. Having started life as a painter of clock-faces, he entered in 1859 the Karlsruhe academy, where he studied under Schirmer and Des Coudres. He subsequently studied and worked, with but indifferent success, in Düsseldorf, Paris, Italy, Munich and Frankfurt, until his reputation became firmly established…
Hans Lützelburger (died June 1526), also known as Hans Franck, was a German blockcutter (“formschneider”) for woodcuts, regarded as one of the finest of his day. He cut the blocks but as far as is known was not an artist himself. He is best known for his virtuoso work on 41 of the “superbly cut”…
Hans Baldung was born in Swabia, Germany in the year 1484 to a family of intellectuals, academics and professionals. His father was a lawyer and his uncle was a doctor, and many other of his family members maintained professional degrees. In fact, Baldung was the first male in his family not to attend university. This…
Gustav-Adolf Mossa was born in Nice on 28th January 1883. His father Alexis Mossa (1844-1926), was himself a painter from Nice who produced many posters for the Carnival of Nice at the end of the 19th century and would strongly influence the career of his son. Up to 1900, Gustav-Adolf studied at l’École des Arts…
The Librarian by Giuseppe Arcimboldo Today is the anniversary of the birth of the Mannerist painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593), so this week’s picture is one of his ingenious “composite heads”, the so-called Librarian. The picture of a man composed entirely from books and the paraphernalia of reading, the work is traditionally said to represent Wolfgang…
Gislebertus, Giselbertus or Ghiselbertus, sometimes “of Autun” (flourished in the 12th century), was a French Romanesque sculptor, whose decoration (about 1120-1135) of the Cathedral of Saint Lazare at Autun, France – consisting of numerous doorways, tympanums, and capitals – represents some of the most original work of the period. His sculpture is expressive and imaginative:…
Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (baptized 23 March 1609 – 1664) was an Italian Baroque artist, painter, printmaker and draftsman, of the Genoese school. He is best known now for his elaborate engravings, and as the inventor of the printmaking technique of monotyping. He was known as Il Grechetto in Italy and in France as Le Benédette. Castiglione…
Piranesi was born in Mogliano Veneto, near Treviso, then part of the Republic of Venice. His brother Andrea introduced him to Latin and the ancient civilization, and later he studied as an architect under his uncle, Matteo Lucchesi, who was Magistrato delle Acque, a Venetian engineer who specialized in excavation. From 1740 he was in…
George Frederic Watts, OM (23 February 1817 – 1 July 1904) was a popular English Victorian painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical works, such as Hope (see image) and Love and Life. These paintings were intended to form part of an epic symbolic cycle…
George Arnald ARA (1763 – 21 November 1841) was a British painter who specialised in landscapes, including topographical views to illustrated county histories. He is best known for his celebrated painting depicting the Battle of the Nile. George Arnald was born in 1763. One account places his birth in the village of Farndip (now Farndish) in…
Gabriel Ferrier is an academic painter, portraitist French ( 29 September 1847 in Nîmes – 6 June 1914 in Paris). Prix de Rome in 1872, he was a professor at the National School of Fine Arts and a member of the Academy of Fine Arts. He was born in in Nîmes father a pharmacist. Entered the…
Friedrich Wilhelm Heine is a German painter from Leipzig who lived from 1845 to 1921. He is known for his genre works, as well as for paintings depicting Norse mythology. Friedrich Wilhelm Heine spent the first forty years of his life in Germany. At the age of fourteen he was a copper and steel engraver’s apprentice…
Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (born Antonio Frederic Augustus Sands) (1 May 1829 – 25 June 1904), but usually known as Frederick Sandys, was an English “Pre-Raphaelite” painter, illustrator and draughtsman, of the Victorian era. He was born in Norwich, England, and received his earliest lessons in art from his father, who was himself a painter. His…
Frederic Leighton, Baron Leighton, also called (1886–96) Sir Frederic Leighton, Baronet (born Dec. 3, 1830, Scarborough, Yorkshire, Eng.—died Jan. 25, 1896, London), academic painter of immense prestige in his own time. After an education in many European cities, he went to Rome in 1852, where his social talents won him the friendship of (among others)…
Franz Stuck (February 24, 1863 – August 30, 1928), ennobled as Franz Ritter von Stuck in 1906, was a German symbolist/Art Nouveau painter, sculptor, engraver, and architect. Stuck was born at Tettenweis, in Bavaria. From an early age he displayed an affinity for drawing and caricature. To begin his artistic education he relocated in 1878 to…
Franz Sedlacek (1891–1945) was an Austrian painter who belonged to the tradition known as “New Objectivity” (“neue Sachlichkeit”), an artistic movement similar to Magical Realism. At the end of the Second World War he “disappeared” as a soldier of the Wehrmacht somewhere in Poland. Franz Sedlacek was born in Breslau on 21 January 1891, and…