1758-1810 British John Hoppner Galleries John Hoppner (April 4?, 1758 - January 23, 1810), English portrait-painter, was born in Whitechapel. His father was of German extraction, and his mother was one of the German attendants at the royal palace. Hoppner was consequently brought early under the notice and received the patronage of George III, whose regard for him gave rise to unfounded scandal. As a boy he was a chorister at the royal chapel, but showing strong inclination for art, he in 1775 entered as a student at the Royal Academy. In 1778 he took a silver medal for drawing from the life, and in 1782 the Academy's highest award, the gold medal for historical painting, his subject being King Lear. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy In 1780. His earliest love was for landscape, but necessity obliged him to turn to the more lucrative business of portrait painting. At once successful, he had throughout life the most fashionable and wealthy sitters, and was the greatest rival of the growing attraction of Lawrence. Ideal subjects were very rarely at tempted by Hoppner, though a "Sleeping Venus," "Belisarius," "Jupiter and Io," a "Bacchante" and "Cupid and Psyche" are mentioned among his works. The prince of Wales visited him especially often, and many of his finest portraits are in the state apartments at St. James's Palace, the best perhaps being those of the prince, the duke and duchess of York, of Lord Rodney and of Lord Nelson, Among his other sitters were Sir Walter Scott, the Duke of Wellington, Frere and Sir George Beaumont. Competent judges have deemed his most successful works to be his portraits of women and children. A Series of Portraits of Ladies was published by him in 1803, and a volume of translations of Eastern tales into English verse in 1805. The verse is of but mediocre quality. In his later years Hoppner suffered from a chronic disease of the liver. He was confessedly an imitator of Reynolds. When first painted, his works were much admired for the brilliancy and harmony of their colouring, but the injury due to destructive mediums and lapse of time which many of them suffered caused a great depreciation in his reputation. The appearance, however, of some of his pictures in good condition has shown that his fame as a brilliant colourist was well founded. His drawing is faulty, but his touch has qualities of breadth and freedom that give to his paintings a faint reflection of the charm of Reynolds. Hoppner was a man of great social power, and had the knowledge and accomplishments of a man of the world. The best account of Hoppner's life and paintings is the exhaustive work by William McKay and W Roberts (1909  Related Paintings of John Hoppner :. | Portrait of the Frankland Sisters | Portrait of Adam Duncan | sir george beaumont | Sir George Beaumont | Richard Brinsley Sheridan |
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lhote
Andre Lhote (5 July 1885 -- 25 January 1962) was a French sculptor and painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes and still life. He was also very active and influential as a teacher and writer on art. Lhote was born in Bordeaux and learnt wood carving and sculpture from the age of 12, when his father apprenticed him to a local furniture maker to be trained as a sculptor in wood. He enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux in 1898 and studied decorative sculpture until 1904. Whilst there, he began to paint in his spare time and he left home in 1905, moving into his own studio to devote himself to painting. He was influenced by Gauguin and C??zanne and held his first one-man exhibition at the Galerie Druet in 1910, four years after he had moved to Paris. After initially working in a Fauvist style, Lhote shifted towards Cubism and joined the Section d'Or group in 1912, exhibiting at the Salon de la Section d'Or. He was alongside some of the fathers of modern art, including Gleizes, Villon, Duchamp, Metzinger, Picabia and La Fresnaye. The outbreak of the First World War interrupted his work and, after discharge from the army in 1917, he became one of the group of Cubists supported by Leonce Rosenberg. In 1918, he co-founded Nouvelle Revue Française, the art journal to which he contributed articles on art theory until 1940. Lhote taught at the Academie Notre-Dame des Champs from 1918 to 1920 and later taught at other Paris art schools including his own school, which he founded in Montparnasse in 1922. Lhote lectured extensively in France and abroad, including Belgium, England, Italy and, from the 1950s, also in Egypt and Brazil. His work was awarded with the Grand Prix National de Peinture in 1955, and the UNESCO commission for sculpture appointed Lhote president of the International Association of Painters, Engravers and Sculptors. Lhote died in Paris in 1962.