b.Jan. 8, 1836, Dronrijp, Netherlands. d.June 25, 1912, Wiesbaden, Germany. Painter and designer of Dutch birth. The son of a notary, Alma-Tadema demonstrated an early artistic ability. In 1852 he entered the Antwerp Academy, where he studied under Gustaf, Baron Wappers, and Nicaise de Keyser. An important influence at this time was Louis De Taye, Professor of Archaeology at the academy and a practising artist. Alma-Tadema lived and worked with De Taye from 1857 to 1859 and was encouraged by him to depict subjects from the early history of France and Belgium. This taste for historical themes increased when Alma-Tadema entered Baron Henri Leys studio in 1859 and began assisting him with his monumental frescoes for the Antwerp Town Hall. While in Leys studio, Alma-Tadema produced several major paintings, for example the Education of the Children of Clovis (1861; ex-Sir John Pender priv. col., see Zimmern, p. 3) and Venantius Fortunatus Reading his Poems to Radagonda (1862; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Mus.), which are characterized by their obscure Merovingian subject-matter, rather sombre colouring and close attention to detail.  Related Paintings of Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence :. | Hadrian Vistiting a Romano-British Pottery (mk23) | Catullus at Lesbia's (mk23) | Gustave Boulanger,The Rehearsal in the House of the Tragic Poet (mk23) | A Sculpture's Model (mk23) | The Frigidarium (mk24) |
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Gwen John
Welsh 1876-1939 Gwen John was born in Haverfordwest, Wales, the second of four children of Edwin William John and his wife Augusta (nee Smith). Edwin John was a solicitor whose dour temperament cast a chill over his family, and Augusta was often absent from the children due to ill health, leaving her two sisters??stern Salvationists??to take her place in the household. Despite the considerable tension in the family (who became known as "those turbulent Johns") the children's interest in literature and art was encouraged. Following the mother??s premature death in 1884, the family moved to Tenby in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Although she painted and drew from an early age, her earliest surviving work dates from her nineteenth year. From 1895?C98, she studied at the Slade School of Art, where her younger brother, Augustus John, had begun his studies in 1894. During this period they shared living quarters, and further reduced their expenses by subsisting on a diet of nuts and fruit. Even as a student, Augustus' brilliant draughtsmanship and personal glamour made him a celebrity, and stood in contrast to Gwen's quieter gifts and reticent demeanour. While he greatly admired her art, Augustus offered her advice which she ignored; he urged her to take a "more athletic attitude to life", and cautioned her against what he saw as the "unbecoming and unhygienic negligence" of her mode of living, but her entire life was marked by a disregard for her physical well-being. In 1898 she made her first visit to Paris with two friends from the Slade, and while there she studied under James McNeill Whistler at the Academie Carmen. She returned to London in 1899, and spent the next four years in austere circumstances. When she exhibited her work for the first time in 1900, at the New English Art Club (NEAC), her address was a derelict building where she was living illegally.
Ludwig Passini
Austrian, 1832-1903
Giacinto Diano
painted Portrait of architect Luigi Vanvitelli in