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.  Related Paintings of Gwen John :. | Self-Portrait | The Convalescent | Napoleon Blair made plague in the house | The Precious Book | Self-Portrait |
Related Artists:
Alfred Wallis
British 1855-1942 1942). English painter, fisherman and scrap merchant. Although the exact date of Wallis birth is doubtful, he stated in letters to Jim Ede, one of his greatest patrons, that he was born on the day of the fall of Sebastopol. He claimed to have gone to sea at the age of nine and was involved in deep-sea fishing, sometimes sailing as far as Newfoundland. About 1875 he married Susan Ward, a woman 21 years his senior, and shortly afterwards gave up deep-sea fishing to become an inshore fisherman. In 1890 he moved to St Ives, Cornwall, where he set up as a marine scrap merchant. In 1912 he retired. His wife died in 1922, whereupon he took up painting to keep himself company, as he told Ede.
Richard Gerstl
(September 14, 1883 - November 4, 1908) was an Austrian painter and draughtsman known for his expressive psychologically insightful portraits, his lack of critical acclaim during his lifetime, and his affair with the wife of Arnold Schoenberg which led to his suicide. Richard Gerstl was born in a prosperous civil family, Emil Gerstl, a Jewish merchant, and Maria Pfeiffer, non-Jewish woman. He visited the Viennese Piaristengymnasium (de) (Bundesgymnasium Wien 8 (de), Josefstadt), but he had to leave because of difficulties of discipline. Early in his life, Gerstl decided to become an artist, much to the dismay of his father. After performing poorly in school and being forced to leave the famed Piaristengymnasium in Vienna as a result of "disciplinary difficulties," his financially stable parents provided him with private tutors. In 1898, at the age of fifteen, Gerstl was accepted the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna where he studied under the notoriously opinionated and difficult Christian Griepenkerl. Gerstl began to reject the style of the Vienna Secession and what he felt was pretentious art. This eventually prompted his vocal professor to proclaim, "The way you paint, I piss in the snow!" Frustrated with the lack of acceptance of his non-secessionist painting style, Gerstl continued to paint without any formal guidance for two years. For the summers of 1900 and 1901, Gerstl studied under the guidance of Simon Hollesy in Nagybenya. Inspired by the more liberal leanings of Heinrich Lefler (de), Gerstl once again attempted formal education. Unfortunately, his refusal to participate in a procession in honor of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria further ostracized him and led to his departure. Gerstl felt that taking part in such an event was "unworthy of an artist." His final exit from Lefler's studio took place in 1908. In 1904 and 1905, Gerstl shared a studio with his former academy classmate and friend, Viktor Hammer. Although Hammer had assisted in Gerstl's admittance to Lefler's tutelage and their relationship was friendly, it is difficult to determine how close the two men were as Gerstl did not associate with other artists. Regardless of their personal feelings, by 1906, Gerstl had acquired his own studio. Although Gerstl did not associate with other artists, he did feel drawn to the musically inclined; he himself frequented concerts in Vienna. Around 1907, he began to associate with composers Arnold Schoenberg and Alexander von Zemlinsky, who lived in the same building at the time. Gerstl and Schoenberg developed a mutual admiration based upon their individual talents. Gerstl apparently instructed Schoenberg in art.
Mario Dei Fiori
Italian painter , Penna Fermana 1603- Rome 1673 Italian painter. He was the first and most famous Roman painter to specialize in flower-pieces and one of only four still-life artists included by Leone Pascoli in his collection of artists' biographies. The early sources and old inventories attribute many flower paintings in distinguished Roman collections to the Caravaggesque painter Tommaso Salini, and since the 18th century Mario's name has been linked with his, and it has been assumed that he trained with Salini. This apprenticeship is difficult to document, yet a comparison of Mario's pictures with inventory descriptions of works by Salini confirms that Mario was influenced by his art. To the minute observation of various kinds of flowers, Mario added a refined sense of design and an interest in effects of light, still linked to Caravaggio in the use of a dark background.