American Painter, 1847-1928 was an American artist, born in Tuskegee, Alabama. An American Southerner, born in Tuskeegee, Alabama, the son of a physician, Bridgman would become one of the United States' most well-known and well-regarded painters and become known as one of the world's most talented "Orientalist" painters. He began as a draughtsman in New York City, for the American Bank Note Company in 1864-1865, and studied art in the same years at the Brooklyn Art Association and at the National Academy of Design; but he went to Paris in 1866 and became a pupil of Jean-Leon Gerôme. Paris then became his headquarters. A trip to Egypt in 1873-1874 resulted in pictures of the East that attracted immediate attention, and his large and important composition, The Funeral Procession of a Mummy on the Nile, in the Paris Salon (1877), bought by James Gordon Bennett, brought him the Cross of the Legion of Honor. Other paintings by him were An American Circus in Normandy, Procession of the Bull Apis (now in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), and a Rumanian Lady (in the Temple collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). In 1867, Bridgman entered the studio of the noted academic painter Jean-Leon Gerôme (1824-1904), where he was deeply influenced by Gerôme's precise draftsmanship, smooth finishes, and concern for Middle-Eastern themes. (Bridgman would even become known as "the American Gerôme.") No mere imitator, however, Bridgman would later adopt a more naturalistic aesthetic, emphasizing bright colors and painterly brushwork. Bridgman made his first trip to North Africa between 1872 and 1874, dividing his time between Algeria and Egypt. There he executed approximately three hundred sketches, which became the source material for several later oil paintings. Additional visits to the region throughout the 1870s and 1880s allowed him to amass a collection of costumes, architectural pieces, and objets d'art, which often appear in his paintings. (Amusingly, John Singer Sargent noted that Bridgman's overstuffed studio, along with the Eiffel Tower, were Paris's must-see attractions.) Though Bridgman maintained a lifelong connection to France, his popularity in America never waned. Indeed, in 1890, the artist had a one-man show of over 400 pictures in New York's 5th Avenue galleries. When the show moved to Chicago's Art Institute, it contained only 300 works - testimony to the high number of sales Bridgman had made.  Related Paintings of Frederick Arthur Bridgman :. | The Siesta | Interior of a Biskra Cafe, Algiers. | An evening gathering at a North-African encampment | River Landscape with Deer | Funeral of a Mummy |
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Peter von Hess
(29 July 1792, Dseldorf - 4 April 1871, Menchen) was a German painter, known for historic paintings, especially of the Napoleonic Wars and the Greek War of Independence. Peter von Hess initially received training from his father Carl Ernst Christopher Hess. He accompanied his younger brother Heinrich Maria to Munich in 1806, and enrolled at the Munich Academy at the age of sixteenth. He also trained under Wilhelm von Kobell. During the Napoleonic Wars, he was allowed to join the staff of General Wrede, who commanded the Bavarians in the military operations which led to the abdication of Napoleon. There he gained novel experiences of war and a taste for extensive travel. During this time, von Hess painted his first battle pieces. In 1818 he spent some time in Italy where he painted landscapes and various Italian scenes. In 1833, at Ludwig's request, he accompanied Otto of Greece to the newly formed Kingdom of Greece, where at Athens he gathered materials for pictures of the war of liberation. The sketches which he then made were placed, forty in number, in the Pinakothek, after being copied in wax on a large scale by Nilsen, in the northern arcades of the Hofgarten at Munich. King Otho's entrance into Nauplia was the subject of a large and crowded canvas now in the Pinakothek, which Hess executed in person.
John Garrick
painted The Death of King Arthur in 1862
OOSTERWIJK, Maria van
Dutch woman painter (b. 1630, Nootdorp, d. 1693, Uitdam) was a Dutch Baroque painter, specializing in richly detailed still lifes. She was a student of Jan Davidsz de Heem. Van Oosterwijk worked in Delft and later in Amsterdam (1675-1689), where she lived opposite the workshop of Willem van Aelst. She was popular with European royalty, including Emperor Leopold, Louis XIV of France and William III of England. Despite this, as a woman, she was not allowed to join the painters' guild. Her work is in many prominent collections, including the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge), the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna), the Palatine Gallery in Palazzo Pitti (Florence), the Royal Collection