Georges Braque May 13, 1882 in Argenteuil, Val-d’Oise – August 31, 1963 buried in the cemetery of the Church of St. Valery in Varengeville-sur-Mer, Normandy Braque grew up in Le Havre and trained to be a house painter and decorator like his father and grandfather. However, he also studied artistic painting during evenings at the [...]
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May 12, 1828: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti May 12, 1828 in London, England – April 9, 1882 buried at Birchington-on-Sea, Kent, England Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Rossetti’s art was characterised by its sensuality and its medieval revivalism. [...]
May 12, 1936: Frank Stella
Frank Stella May 12, 1936 in Malden, Massachusetts Frank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant in the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella moved to New York in 1958, after his graduation. He is one of the most well-regarded postwar American painters still working today. Frank Stella has reinvented himself in [...]
May 11, 1904: Salvador Dali
Salvador Domènec Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989 Salvador Dalí was a prominent Spanish surrealist painter who was born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed [...]
May 6, 1880: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner May 6, 1880 – June 15, 1938 Kirchner was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or “The Bridge”, a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th century art. He volunteered for army service in the First World War, [...]
Small Home Town America
I’ve been obsessing over the last few days on the Smithsonian’s recent list of the 20 Best Small Towns in America. The list is meant as a travel list, not a live-in-this-town list, which does make a difference. But in any case, while there are towns on the list that I love, like Mill Valley [...]
TEDtalks: Amit Sood: Building A Museum Of Museums On The Web
We’ve been linking to this project since it was announced last year, and in this TEDtalk Amit Sood talks about his google project of building an online museum of museums. It’s an excellent resource for those who want to study details of master works, or just take a stroll through a museum to relive a [...]
The Garden of Shakespeare’s Flowers
Shakespeare’s works are full of references to flora and fauna. In his plays and sonnets, he uses them, both their color or their properties, as symbols to help the reader visualize the story being told. Tucked in behind the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park is a little gem of a garden that [...]
Art History: Vincent Van Gogh 1889 Saint-Rémy
Image at left: The Road Menders, c. November 1889, Saint-Rémy During the time Van Gogh painted The Road Menders, he was still at the hospital in Saint-Rémy, but feeling much better. In his writing to Theo telling him so, he said that he was sending off three parcels to him and let him know that [...]
Art History: Vincent Van Gogh 1889 in Saint-Rémy
Image at left: Pine Trees Against a Red Sky with Setting Sun, c. November 1889, Saint-Rémy Van Gogh seemed to be enjoying his time working outside, even though the fall mistral have arrived. The mistrals are a cold, dry wind, lasting only a few days at a time, that sweep down the Rhone valley from [...]
