الثلاثاء، 27 نوفمبر 2012

Henry Bacon American (1839-1913











































Henry Bacon American (1839-1913

Henry Bacon Born: 1839, Haverhill, Massachusetts, United States of America Died: 1912, Cairo, Egypt Gender: Male Biography: An expatriate artist best known for his scenes of life aboard transatlantic passenger ships, Henry Bacon enjoyed an international career as an illustrator, travel and art writer, and painter in oils and watercolors. Bacon was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, of an old New England family. Little is known of his initial artistic training, but by the time he enlisted in the U.S. Army during the American Civil War, at the age of eighteen, he was ready to serve both as a soldier and as a field artist for the popular magazine Leslie’s Weekly. Badly wounded in the war, Bacon returned to Boston and began to paint while attending anatomy lectures given by figure painter William Rimmer (1816–1879) at the Lowell Institute. With his bride, he departed for Paris in 1864. Bacon was one of the first American artists to be admitted to the recently reformed Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under the influential French history painter Alexandre Cabanel (1823–1889). He also became an art correspondent for American journals. Between 1866 and 1868, partly in an effort to economize, Bacon and his wife lived in the village of Ecouen, near Paris; there, he worked under figure painter Edouard Frère (1819–1886), following his example in producing the sentimental French peasant scenes so popular among European and American collectors of the day. Later, Bacon produced American scenes of everyday life in colonial-era America and coastal views of the French province of Normandy. The smoothly finished surfaces, rich colors, and carefully modeled figures of Bacon’s paintings were consistent with popular, academic taste. Beginning in 1867, his works were displayed regularly in the Paris Salon, a prestigious annual exhibition. In the mid-1870s, Bacon made two visits to the United States that furnished material for his most notable works: scenes of passengers aboard the steamships that had revolutionized transatlantic travel, making France a popular American tourist destination. These images, some of them reproduced as illustrations for Bacon’s travel articles in popular periodicals, established the artist’s reputation in America. As Bacon’s academic style went out of favor in the 1890s, he attempted to adjust his manner to the newer mode known as impressionism, with its bright, pure color applied in distinct brushstrokes. Following his second marriage, to a writer from a prominent Baltimore family, Bacon found the means to travel extensively in search of new material. Maintaining a studio in London, he worked in Italy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and Greece, but he was particularly fascinated by Egypt. His first excursion there, in 1897, inspired the artist to take up the medium of watercolor, in which he worked for the rest of his career. Bacon returned several times to Egypt, where he died at the age of seventy-three.

Carlo Maria Mariani 1931 | Italy



















































Carlo Maria Mariani 1931 | Italy
Mariani is a conceptual painter. His work is a meditation on perfection and harmony - past, present and future. It is not enough for him to present to the world simply a glimpse of his own private vision. Instead, he offers an alternative mode of thought, to be used by all who seek refuge from mass-media induced mediocrity and cynicism...
He uses his dazzling craftsmanship and mythological themes to address the most advanced aesthetic problems of today. His work involves complex issues including reconciliations of past with present, memory with loss, and life with death...In his work, Mariani strives for heightened consciousness, and for a greater understanding of the dimensions, not only of space, but also of time."
-David Ebony, Art in America
Carlo Maria Mariani was born in Rome and studied in Italy at the Academia di Belle Arti. Mariani is a conceptual artist who uses painting as his medium. His work combines the language of both classical and contemporary imagery to express his personal vision and the hidden anxieties of our time. In 1998 he was awarded the prestigious Feltrinelli prize from the Academia dei Lincel in Rome for lifetime achievement in painting and has represented his native Italy three times in the Venice Biennale. He has exhibited worldwide Documenta, Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum, Frye Museum in Seattle, Bologna Museum of Modern Art and his work is held in private and public collections in Europe and the United States, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The Earl Mcgrath Gallery is pleased to hold an exhibition of his paintings at our New York location in the spring of 2003. Mariani lives and works in New York City.