Oil on canvas; 85 x 73 cm.

Known simply as Tarsila, is considered to be one of the leading Latin American modernist artists, described as "the Brazilian painter who best achieved Brazilian aspirations for nationalistic expression in a modern style." She was a member of the Grupo dos Cinco (Group of Five), which included Anita Malfatti, Menotti Del Picchia, Mário de Andrade, and Oswald de Andrade.

Biography
Tarsila was born in the city of Capivari, part of the interior of São Paulo, Brazil, to a wealthy family who were coffee growers and landowners. Her family's position provided her a life of privilege. Although women of privilege were not expected to seek higher education, her parents supported her educational and artistic pursuits. During her teens, Tarsila and her family traveled to Barcelona, where she attended school and first exhibited her interest in art by copying images seen in the school's collections.
Beginning in 1916, Tarsila studied sculpture in São Paulo with Zadig and Montavani. Later she studied drawing and painting with the academic painter Pedro Alexandrino. These were all respected but conservative teachers In 1920, she moved to Paris and studied at the Académie Julian and with Emile Renard. The Brazilian art world was conservative, and travels to Europe provided students with a broader education in the areas of art, culture, and society. At this time, her influences and art remained conservative.

Brazilian modernism
Returning to São Paulo in 1922, Tarsila was exposed many things after meeting Anita Malfatti, Oswald de Andrade, Mário de Andrade, and Menotti Del Picchia. Prior to her arrival in São Paulo from Europe, the group had organized the Semana de Arte Moderna ("Week of Modern Art") during the week of February 11–18, 1922. The event was pivotal in the development of modernism in Brazil. The participants were interested in changing the conservative artistic establishment in Brazil by encouraging a distinctive mode of modern art. Tarsila was asked to join the movement and together they became the Grupo dos Cinco, which sought to promote Brazilian culture, the use of styles that were not specifically European, and the inclusion of things that were indigenous to Brazil.
During a brief return to Paris in 1923, Tarsila was exposed to Cubism, Futurism, and Expressionism while studying with André Lhote, Fernand Léger, and Albert Gleizes. European artists in general had developed a great interest in African and primitive cultures for inspiration. This led Tarsila to utilize her own country's indigenous forms while incorporating the modern styles she had studied. While in Paris at this time, she painted one of her most famous works, A Negra (1923). The principal subject matter of the painting is a large negroid female figure with a single prominent breast. Tarsila stylized the figure and flattened the space, filling in the background with geometric forms.
Excited about her newly developed style and feeling ever more nationalistic, she wrote to her family in April 1923:

"I feel myself ever more Brazilian. I want to be the painter of my country. How grateful I am for having spent all my childhood on the farm. The memories of these times have become precious for me. I want, in art, to be the little girl from São Bernardo, playing with straw dolls, like in the last picture I am working on…. Don’t think that this tendency is viewed negatively here. On the contrary. What they want here is that each one brings the contribution of his own country. This explains the success of the Russian ballet, Japanese graphics and black music. Paris had had enough of Parisian art."

Legacy
Besides the 230 paintings, hundreds of drawings, illustrations, prints, murals, and five sculptures, Tarsila's legacy is her effect on the direction of Latin American art. Tarsila moved modernism forward in Latin America, and developed a style unique to Brazil. Following her example, other Latin American artists were influenced to begin utilizing indigenous Brazilian subject matter, and developing their own style.The Amaral Crater on Mercury is named after her.

Source: Tarsila do Amaral - Wikipedia (edited version)

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Oil on panel; 52 x 82 cm.

Hermenegildo Anglada Camarasa, known in Catalan as Hermenegild (or Hermen) Anglada Caramasa, was a Spanish Balearic painter.

Born in Barcelona, he studied there at the Llotja School. His early work had the clear academic imprint of his teacher, Modest Urgell.

In 1894 he moved to Paris, where he adopted a more personal style, after that of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, with their depictions of nocturnal and interior subjects. But his work was also marked by the intense colors which presaged the arrival of Fauvism. Lively brushwork reveals strong Oriental and Arab influences. Allied with the Vienna Secession movement, his decorative style draws comparison to Gustav Klimt.

One of his most important works is a portrait of Sonia Klamery.

He died in Pollença, on the island of Majorca, and is commemorated by a bronze bust on the 'Pine Walk' at Port de Pollença.

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Oil on canvas; 67 x 54 cm.

Russian painter, draughtsman and stage designer. He studied at the University of St Petersburg (later Petrograd) in 1908 and in the private studio of Savely Zeidenberg (1862–1924). In 1909–10 he attended the studio of Yan Tsyonglinsky (1850–1914) in St Petersburg, where he became acquainted with the avant-garde artists Yelena Guro (1877–1913), Mikhail Matyushin and Matvey Vol’demar (1878–1914). In 1911–12 he worked in the studios of Maurice Denis and Félix Vallotton in Paris, then in Switzerland (1913) before returning to St Petersburg. As a painter he was a modernist, and his work developed rapidly towards abstraction, although he did not adhere to any particular branch of it. His works of the time use various devices of stylization and decorativeness, and some of them echo the free associations of Marc Chagall, but fundamentally they remain geometrically based compositions. In 1919–20 he made a series of abstract sculptural assemblages and a great number of abstract collages.

Annenkov became popular as an illustrator, producing elegant drawings for a number of magazines in Petrograd in 1913–17, including Satirikon, Argus, Lukomor’ye and Solntse Rossii. He designed and illustrated many books for Moscow and Petrograd publishing houses in the 1910s and 1920s. In the early 1920s he designed a great number of book covers in the Constructivist style. He illustrated children’s books, especially for the private publishing house Raduga in Petrograd. But his most important illustrations were those for Aleksandr Blok’s revolutionary poem Dvenadtsat’ (‘The Twelve’; St Petersburg, 1918), which were successful improvisations on the poem’s themes, combining stylization and emotion. He also drew and painted a great number of portraits, especially of cultural and political figures. His monumental Portrait of the Red Army Leader L. Trotsky (1923; Moscow, Cent. Mus. Revolution), which has an urban background in Constructivist style, was particularly successful.

From 1913 Annenkov worked as a stage designer. He worked for the Krivoye Zerkalo (Distorting Mirror) Theatre in Petrograd (1914–15) and for the Komissarzhevsky Theatre in Moscow (1914–18). He then worked for a number of theatres in Petrograd, sometimes as designer and producer. He collaborated with Vsevolod Meyerkhold (e.g. Lev Tolstoy’s Pervyy vinokur, ‘First distiller’, Hermitage Theatre, Petrograd, 1919) and with Nikolay Yeureinov. Annenkov’s designs for Bunt mashin (‘Revolt of the machines’, Georg Kaiser adapted by Aleksey Tolstoy, Bol’shoy Dramatic Theatre, Petrograd, 1924) used a Constructivist-inspired mechanized set. Annenkov also designed a number of celebrations and pageants commemorating the Revolution of 1917, including the ambitious re-enactment of the storming of the Winter Palace, which took place in Uritsky (now Dvortsovaya) Square in Petrograd on 7 November 1920 and involved monumental scenery and c. 7000 performers. In 1922–4 he led the revival of the activities of the World of art group and in 1924 worked towards the establishment of the Society of easel painters. The same year he settled in Paris, where he aligned himself with the Ecole de Paris. He continued to design books, stage and film sets in France and Germany, and he exhibited at many joint Russian and French exhibitions. He also became active as an exhibition organizer himself, especially for the USA.

V. Rakitin From Grove Art Online
© 2009 Oxford University Press

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Oil, collage, glass, bell-push and plaster on canvas; 67 x 58 cm.

Russian painter, draughtsman and stage designer. He studied at the University of St Petersburg (later Petrograd) in 1908 and in the private studio of Savely Zeidenberg (1862–1924). In 1909–10 he attended the studio of Yan Tsyonglinsky (1850–1914) in St Petersburg, where he became acquainted with the avant-garde artists Yelena Guro (1877–1913), Mikhail Matyushin and Matvey Vol’demar (1878–1914). In 1911–12 he worked in the studios of Maurice Denis and Félix Vallotton in Paris, then in Switzerland (1913) before returning to St Petersburg. As a painter he was a modernist, and his work developed rapidly towards abstraction, although he did not adhere to any particular branch of it. His works of the time use various devices of stylization and decorativeness, and some of them echo the free associations of Marc Chagall, but fundamentally they remain geometrically based compositions. In 1919–20 he made a series of abstract sculptural assemblages and a great number of abstract collages.

Annenkov became popular as an illustrator, producing elegant drawings for a number of magazines in Petrograd in 1913–17, including Satirikon, Argus, Lukomor’ye and Solntse Rossii. He designed and illustrated many books for Moscow and Petrograd publishing houses in the 1910s and 1920s. In the early 1920s he designed a great number of book covers in the Constructivist style. He illustrated children’s books, especially for the private publishing house Raduga in Petrograd. But his most important illustrations were those for Aleksandr Blok’s revolutionary poem Dvenadtsat’ (‘The Twelve’; St Petersburg, 1918), which were successful improvisations on the poem’s themes, combining stylization and emotion. He also drew and painted a great number of portraits, especially of cultural and political figures. His monumental Portrait of the Red Army Leader L. Trotsky (1923; Moscow, Cent. Mus. Revolution), which has an urban background in Constructivist style, was particularly successful.

From 1913 Annenkov worked as a stage designer. He worked for the Krivoye Zerkalo (Distorting Mirror) Theatre in Petrograd (1914–15) and for the Komissarzhevsky Theatre in Moscow (1914–18). He then worked for a number of theatres in Petrograd, sometimes as designer and producer. He collaborated with Vsevolod Meyerkhold (e.g. Lev Tolstoy’s Pervyy vinokur, ‘First distiller’, Hermitage Theatre, Petrograd, 1919) and with Nikolay Yeureinov. Annenkov’s designs for Bunt mashin (‘Revolt of the machines’, Georg Kaiser adapted by Aleksey Tolstoy, Bol’shoy Dramatic Theatre, Petrograd, 1924) used a Constructivist-inspired mechanized set. Annenkov also designed a number of celebrations and pageants commemorating the Revolution of 1917, including the ambitious re-enactment of the storming of the Winter Palace, which took place in Uritsky (now Dvortsovaya) Square in Petrograd on 7 November 1920 and involved monumental scenery and c. 7000 performers. In 1922–4 he led the revival of the activities of the World of art group and in 1924 worked towards the establishment of the Society of easel painters. The same year he settled in Paris, where he aligned himself with the Ecole de Paris. He continued to design books, stage and film sets in France and Germany, and he exhibited at many joint Russian and French exhibitions. He also became active as an exhibition organizer himself, especially for the USA.

V. Rakitin From Grove Art Online
© 2009 Oxford University Press

Tags:   yuri annenkov annenkov painter 20th century russian 1922 1920s portrait of aleksandr tikhonov chrisitie's million portrait cubism writer

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Oil on board; 141 x 90.2 cm.

Annigoni was born in Milan. He studied at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence, taking classes in painting, sculpture and engraving. Basing his style on the Italian old masters he studied their techniques, learning the art of 'oil tempera' under the Russian painter, Nikolai Lokoff. Initially Annigoni's success was limited to Italy where his sharply evocative landscapes were very popular. In 1947 along with Gregory Sciltian, the brothers Antonio and Xavier Bueno, and others, he signed the manifesto of the 'Modern Realist Painters', coming out in open opposition to abstract art. Alone among the signatories Annigoni remained true, both aesthetically and ethically to the doctrines of the manifesto.

His art was brought to the attention of the British public when, in March 1949, the Royal Academy accepted some of his works for the annual exhibition and the move from relative obscurity to instant recognition came in 1954 when he received a commission to paint the young Queen Elizabeth II. The commission from the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers brought instant fame. Crowds flocked to see the painting when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in London and a limited-edition print published by The Times was fully subscribed. Sir Alfred Munnings, former President of the Royal Academy, declared Annigoni to be 'the greatest painter of the age'. This painting was followed by a portrait of the Duke of Edinburgh and another of Princess Margaret in 1957. In typical style the portrait is painted in immense detail, with the Princess depicted amongst the roses evocative of her name. The fabric of her cloak is reminiscent of the religious frescoes he painted as a younger man, imbuing the portrait with a magical, ethereal quality.

Annigoni remained a prominent artistic personality until his death in Florence in 1988, his paintings a powerful evocation of the great Renaissance tradition.

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