1822-1902
American painter of English birth. At the age of eight, she and her family emigrated to America, and after three years in New York they moved to Marietta, OH. In 1841 her father took her to Cincinnati, where she exhibited and received help from artists such as the animal painter James Henry Beard (1812-93). However, she refused the offer of the city's most important art patron, Nicholas Longworth, to assist in her art studies in Boston and Europe. Instead she stayed in Cincinnati and married an Englishman, Benjamin Spencer, by whom she had thirteen children, seven living to maturity. Related Paintings of Lilly martin spencer :. | The Artist and Her Family on a Fourth of July Picnic | The War Spirit at Home Celebrating the Victory at Vicksburg | War Spirit at Home | Artist and Her Family on a Fourth of July Picnic | Portrait of Queen Anne | Related Artists:
Enoch SeemanEnoch Seeman the Younger was born in Danzig, now Gdansk, Poland, around 1694. His father, also Enoch was born around 1661, and the Seeman family were painters.
Having been brought to London from his home of Flanders by his father in 1704, the younger Seeman's painting career as we know it began with a group portrait of the Bisset family in the style of the portraitist Godfrey Kneller, now held at Castle Forbes in Grampian, Scotland, and dated by an inscription 1708.
As a painter to the British royal court Seeman the Younger completed portraits of George I, in 1730, in the robes of his coronation and of George II some years later. The first of these pictures is held at the Middle Temple in London, England, and the second is at Windsor Castle in Berkshire, England, part of the royal collection.
In 1734, Seeman painted a portrait of Jane Pratt Taylor, daughter of Lord Chief Justice John Pratt. The portrait was sent to William Byrd, II of Westover, in Virginia, where it became part of the largest colonial portrait collection of the early eighteenth-century. The painting is now part of the collection of the Virginia Historical Society.
The Yale University Art Gallery owns a portrait of Elihu Yale in 1717 by Seeman and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, USA owns his rendering of Sir James Dashwood, described by the Grove Dictionary of Art as 'Exceptionally lively'. Also by Seeman the younger, Abraham Tucker in 1739 at the National Portrait Gallery in London, England, and various copies of sixteenth and seventeenth century portraits. The National Trust owns two examples of this set of his work - at Dunham Massey in Cheshire, England, a copy of a portrait of Lady Diana Cecil, and at Belton House in Lincolnshire, England, of Lady Cust and her Nine Children.
Franz BischoffAustrian-born American Painter, 1864-1929
was an American artist known primarily for his beautiful floral paintings and California landscapes. He was born in Bomen, Austria on January 9, 1864 and as a young teenager immigrated to the United States where he became a naturalized citizen. While in Europe, his early training was focused upon applied design, watercolor and ceramic decorations.After having lived and worked in New York, Fostoria, Ohio and Dearborn, Michigan, Franz Bischoff decided to visit California in 1900 and ultimately chose to settle in Los Angeles in 1906. Shortly after arriving, he started making arrangements to design and build a large Italian Renaissance style home in Pasadena that also became his studio. This landmark home was completed in 1908. Inspired by the California countryside, Bischoff set attempted to capture the area's brilliant light and diverse landscapes. Spending less time with ceramic painting, Bischoff painted local farms, fishing wharfs, and coastal landscapes. Recognized during his career for use of color and vivid composition, his paintings always displayed reverence for nature. One critic commented that some of his later works flirted with Expressionism and his use of colors were reminiscent of Fauvism.
Valentin Aleksandrovich SerovRussian Painter, 1865-1911
Russian painter, graphic artist and stage designer. As a child he lived in St Petersburg, but he made frequent trips abroad. In 1874 he travelled to Paris with his mother and frequented the studio of the Russian Realist painter, Il'ya Repin. In 1875 the art patron Savva Mamontov invited Serov and his mother to settle at ABRAMTSEVO outside Moscow, where he again had the opportunity to study under Repin and to meet other artists in the Mamontov circle. The Symbolist paintings of Mikhail Vrubel' and the late Impressionist landscapes and figure studies of Konstantin Korovin he saw at Abramtsevo had a lasting influence on the young Serov. From 1880 to 1885 he studied at the Academy of Art, St Petersburg, under Pavel Chistyakov (1832-1919). During the 1880s Serov also travelled abroad and became aware of French Impressionism. He began to use bright colours in portraits of figures seen in dappled sunlight and shade, as in his portrait of Vera Mamontov, Girl with Peaches (1887) and a portrait of Mariya Simonovich, Girl in Sunlight (1888; both Moscow, Tret'yakov Gal.).