German-born American Hudson River School Painter, 1830-1902 Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Germany. His family moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833. He studied painting with the members of the D??sseldorf School in D??sseldorf, Germany from 1853 to 1857. He taught drawing and painting briefly before devoting himself to painting. Bierstadt began making paintings in New England and upstate New York. In 1859, he traveled westward in the company of a Land Surveyor for the U.S. government, returning with sketches that would result in numerous finished paintings. In 1863 he returned west again, in the company of the author Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whose wife he would later marry. He continued to visit the American West throughout his career. Though his paintings sold for princely sums, Bierstadt was not held in particularly high esteem by critics of his day. His use of uncommonly large canvases was thought to be an egotistical indulgence, as his paintings would invariably dwarf those of his contemporaries when they were displayed together. The romanticism evident in his choices of subject and in his use of light was felt to be excessive by contemporary critics. His paintings emphasized atmospheric elements like fog, clouds and mist to accentuate and complement the feel of his work. Bierstadt sometimes changed details of the landscape to inspire awe. The colors he used are also not always true. He painted what he believed is the way things should be: water is ultramarine, vegetation is lush and green, etc. The shift from foreground to background was very dramatic and there was almost no middle distance Nonetheless, his paintings remain popular. He was a prolific artist, having completed over 500 (possibly as many as 4000) paintings during his lifetime, most of which have survived. Many are scattered through museums around the United States. Prints are available commercially for many. Original paintings themselves do occasionally come up for sale, at ever increasing prices.  Related Paintings of Albert Bierstadt :. | Tyrolean Landscape | Ruins-Campagna of Rome | Among the Bernese Alps | The Shore of the Turquoise Sea | Sunlight and Shadow |
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Patrick Henry Bruce
American Cubist Painter, 1881-1936 was an American cubist painter. A descendant of Patrick Henry, Bruce was born in Campbell County, Virginia, the second of four children. His family had once owned a huge plantation, Berry Hill, worked by over 3,000 slaves. Berry Hill is now a resort & conference center outside South Boston, Virginia and is now a National Historic Landmark. Berry Hill Estate originally was part of a 105,000-acre (420 km2) tract granted by the English Crown in 1728 to William Byrd II. The Civil War left the Bruce's wealth greatly diminished. Bruce began taking evening classes at the Art Club of Richmond in 1898, while working in a real estate office during the daytime. His earliest known extant painting dates from 1900. In 1902 he moved to New York, where he studied with William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, and Kenneth Hayes Miller. By February 1904 he was in Paris, where he would live until 1933. Although his evolution toward a modernist style was gradual, his works of 1908 reveal the influence of Renoir and C??zanne, and in that year he was among the first to enroll in Matisse's school. Bruce exhibited regularly in the Salon d'Automne, and met many of the leading artists of the early twentieth century avant garde.
KEIRINCKX, Alexander
Flemish painter (b. 1600, Antwerpen, d. 1652, Amsterdam). Flemish painter. He was the son of Matthijs Keirinckx and Anna Masson. In 1619 he became a master in Antwerp's Guild of St Luke, he married Clara Matthausen on 18 June 1622, and in 1624 he took on Artus Verhoeven as an apprentice. From 1636 onwards he is regularly recorded in Amsterdam, where he was registered as a citizen in the year of his death. He visited Great Britain, possibly in 1625 (Walpole mentions two signed and dated drawings of London views from this year) and definitely in 1640-41, when he undertook commissions from King Charles I to paint views of royal castles and palaces.
Robert Scott Duncanson
(1821 - December 21, 1872) was born in Seneca County, New York in 1821.Duncansones father was a Canadian of Scottish descent and his mother was an African American, thus making him ea freeborn person of color.e Duncanson, an artist who is relatively unknown today, painted America, both physically and figuratively, at a time when the country was in turmoil. Beautiful and serene, Duncansones work sheds light on American art that has been forgotten over the years.