On this Date in History, August 25: Birth of George Stubbs and death of Henri Fantin-Latour

What happened on August 25 in art history?

English painter George Stubbs (August 25, 1724- July 10, 1806) was born in Liverpool in 1724.  Stubbs is best known for all his drawings, prints and paintings of horses and his research on horse anatomy.

Whistlejacket, George Stubbs, 1762, National Gallery of Art, London

Stubbs wrote a book in 1766, The Anatomy of the Horse, which was a groundbreaking text and contained 24 etchings of detailed horse anatomy, skeletons and muscular structures.

Homage to Delacroix, Henri Fantin-Latour, 1864, Musee D'Orsay, Paris

Also on this day French painter Henri Fantin-Latour, (January 14, 1836 – August 25, 1904) died in 1904 in France. 

Fantin-Latour was one of the artists who exhibited work in the famous Salon des Refusés in Paris in 1863.  His participation in the exhibit inspired his 1864 painting Homage to Delacroix (shown above).

Fantin-Latour was best known for his beautiful floral still-life paintings, he was known for his talent in painting colors and textures and continued to paint in a realist manner throughout the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist periods.

Asters and Fruit on a Table, Henri Fantin-Latour, 1868, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Hammershøi lectures at the Frye Art Museum- August 2016

I am very excited to announce I will be teaching a lecture series at the Frye Art Museum this summer on Vilhelm Hammershøi!

The Frye Art Museum is located in Seattle, they show a wide range of art exhibits ranging from the collection of the founders Charles and Emma Frye, to vibrant local art to national and international artists and the Frye is always free.

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior With Potted Plant on Card Table, 1910-11, Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden

 

 

The lecture series I am teaching will tie in with the upcoming exhibit-
July 16–September 25, 2016

Chronicles of Solitude: Masterworks by Vilhelm Hammershøi from SMK—The National Gallery of Denmark

Vilhelm Hammershøi. Interior in Strandgade, Sunlight on the Floor, 1901. Oil on canvas. 18 5/16 x 20 1/2 in. National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, ©SMK Photo.

Hammershøi and His Contemporaries

Lecture with Carol Hendricks

Tuesday, August 2 – Friday, August 5, 2016
9:30 am - 12 pm



This lecture series examines Vilhelm Hammershøi’s many influences in order to put his work into context. The days are divided into Hammershøi’s four main genres: portraits, interior spaces, landscapes, and cityscapes. The course begins with a comparative history of subject matter from Dutch Baroque painters, such as Rembrandt and Vermeer who had an influence upon his style.




The Love Letter, Vermeer, 1669, Rijksmuseum

Portrait of the Artist, ca. 1665, Rembrandt van Rijn,
Kenwood House, 1927

 

 

After examining these influences we will thoroughly discuss the work of Hammershøi, each day will focus on a different genre of the artist.



Ida Reading a Letter,  Hammershøi

The series continues to contemporary Scandinavian painters, such as Swedish painters Anders Zorn and August Strindberg, Norwegians Edvard Munch and Harriet Backer, and Finish painter Askeli Gallen-Kallela.

I would love to have you join me for this lecture series this summer, I am very excited to be discussing all of these fascinating artists and am looking forward to seeing the Vilhelm Hammershøi exhibit at the Frye this summer.

Emma Zorn Reading, Anders Zorn, 1887

The Artist's House, Harriet Backer, 1886

 

On this Date in History, May 26: Birth of Aaron Douglas, Gwendolyn Knight and Philippe de Champaigne

On this date in history: May 26

What happened in the world of Art History on May 26?  It was the birthday of three artists.

Aaron Douglas was born on this day in Topeka, Kansas in 1899 (May 26, 1899 – February 3, 1979).   Douglas was an African-American painter and print maker who was an important artist in the Harlem Renaissance.  After studying at the University of Nebraska and the University of Kansas, he moved to New York City where he worked as an illustrator.  He was known for his modern figurative style of paintings and unique color palate.  Later he moved to Nashville where he was a painting professor at Fisk University.  He taught a the University for over two decades and spent the rest of his life in Nashville.  His work and style had a lasting impression on many artists.

Aaron Douglas, Let My People Go, c-1934-39, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gwendolyn Knight (May 26, 1913 – February 18, 2005) was an American painter who was born in Barbados, moved to America and spent much of her life in Seattle.  Knight studied in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. She was the wife of painter Jacob Lawrence who was a Professor in the Art Department at the University of Washington.

Knight had a large retrospective when she was nearly 80 years old titled "Never Late for Heaven: The Art of Gwen Knight," at the Tacoma Art Museum in 2003.  The Tacoma Art Museum says this of Knight on their website-

"An expressionistic painter with a strong interest in people, Gwendolyn Knight has developed a fluid sense of design using a brilliant palette of bright greens, reds and blues over the past seventy years. As an artist on one of the federal government’s Depression-era public art projects, Knight met her husband Jacob Lawrence in 1937. They lived in New York City until 1970 when they moved to Seattle. Each maintained their own artistic style, while their humanist interests created a strong intellectual bond. For most of her career Knight painted people who posed for her at home or in various studio settings and recreated scenes from the various neighborhoods in which she lived."

Annunciation, Philippe de Champaigne, 1644, Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Our final artist born this day was Philippe de Champaigne, born in Brussels in 1601 (May 26,1602 – August 12,1674).  He was a Baroque painter who spent the majority of his life in Paris.  He moved to Paris in 1621 to work with the French painter Poussin.  Later de Champaigne became a founding member of the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture which opened in Paris in 1648.