Pirosmani was born in the Georgian village of Mirzaani to a peasant family in the Kakheti province. His family owned a small vineyard. He was later orphaned and put in the care of his two elder sisters. He move with them to Tbilisi in 1870. In 1872 he worked as a servant for wealthy families and learned to read and write Russian and Georgian. In 1876 he returned to Mirzaani and worked as a herdsman. Pirosmani gradually taught himself to paint. One of his specialties was painting directly into black oilcloth. In 1882 he opened a workshop in Tbilisi which was unsuccessful. In 1890 he worked as a railroad conductor, and in 1895 worked creating signboards. In 1893 he co-founded a dairy farm in Tbilisi which he left in 1901. Throughout his life Pirosmani, who was always poor, was willing to take up ordinary jobs including housepainting and whitewashing buildings. Although his paintings had some local popularity (about 200 survive) his relationship with professional artists remained uneasy; making a living was always more important to him than abstract aesthetics.  Related Paintings of Niko Pirosmani :. | det svenska skedet | stillleben | Abducation of Ganymede | Charity | View of Frantiskovy Lazne |
Related Artists:
Mauve, Anton
Dutch, 1838-1888 Dutch painter. He came from a large family of clergymen in the province of North Holland. At the age of 16 he was apprenticed to the animal painter Pieter Frederik van Os (1808-92): animals (especially sheep, but also cows and horses) became Mauve's preferred theme. He then trained for a few months with Wouterus Verschuur, who gave him his love of horses, in the style, at least, of Paulus Potter and Philips Wouwerman.
Robert Koehler
American Painter, 1850-1917 was a German born painter and art teacher who spent most of his career in the United States of America. Koehler was born in Hamburg; his family spelled their name Köhler until they moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in Robert's childhood. There he attended the historic German-English Academy. Koehler studied art from Henry Vianden and apprentice himself to a lithography firm. After some time working as a lithographer in New York City, Koehler went to Munich to study fine art at the Royal Academy in 1873. Koehler's work while in Munich won him silver and bronze awards from the Academy, and Bavaria's Cross of the Order of St. Michael. Koehler then set himself up as head of a private art school; pupils included Alfons Mucha. In 1892 Robert Koehler returned to New York City to work as a portrait artist. The following year he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, accepting an offer to be the director of the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design) Koehler was also involved with the establishment of Minneapolis' Museum of Fine Art, now the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
Francis Hopkinson Smith
Engineer, artist, illustrator, and short story writer American , 1838-1915 United States author, artist and engineer, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, a descendant of Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Smith became a contractor in New York City and did much work for the federal government, including the stone ice-breaker at Bridgeport, Connecticut, the jetties at the mouth of the Connecticut River, the foundation for the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, the Race Rock Lighthouse (southwest of Fishers Island, New York) and many life-saving stations. His vacations were spent sketching in the White Mountains, in Cuba and in Mexico.