19-20th Century European

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French postimpressionist painter, lithographer, and illustrator, who documented the bohemian nightlife of late-19th-century Paris. Toulouse-Lautrec was born in Albi into one of the oldest aristocratic families. Henri was weak and often sick. By the time he was 10 he had begun to draw and paint. At 12 young Toulouse-Lautrec broke his left leg and at 14 his right leg. The bones failed to heal properly, and his legs stopped growing. He reached young adulthood with a body trunk of normal size but with abnormally short legs. During his convalescence, his mother encouraged him to paint. He subsequently studied with French academic painters L. J. F. Bonnat and Fernand Cormon.

He stayed in the Montmartre section of Paris, the center of the cabaret entertainment and bohemian life that he loved to paint. Circuses, dance halls, nightclubs, racetracks and parisian brothels—all these spectacles were set down on canvas or made into lithographs. Toulouse-Lautrec was very much a part of all this activity. He would sit at a crowded nightclub table, laughing and drinking, and at the same time he would make swift sketches. Toulouse-Lautrec preserved his impressions of these places and their celebrities in portraits and sketches of striking originality and power. Outstanding examples are La Goulou Entering the Moulin Rouge (1892, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi), Jane Avril Entering the Moulin Rouge (1892, Courtauld Gallery, London), and Au salon de la rue des Moulins (1894, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec).

Toulouse-Lautrec, many of whose works are in the museum that bears his name in Albi, was a prolific creator. His oeuvre includes great numbers of paintings, drawings, etchings, lithographs, and posters, as well as illustrations for various contemporary newspapers. He incorporated into his own highly individual method elements of the styles of various contemporary artists, especially French painters Edgar Degas and Paul Gauguin. Japanese art, then coming into vogue in Paris, influenced his use of sharp delineation, asymmetric composition, oblique angles, and flat areas of color. His work inspired van Gogh, Georges Seurat, and Georges Rouault. His alcoholic dissipation, however, eventually brought on a paralytic stroke, to which he succumbed at Malromé, one of his family's estates. Since then his paintings and posters--particularly the 'Moulin Rouge' group—have been in great demand and bring high prices at auctions and art sales.


Alfred Fontville De Breanski was one of seven children born to the prolific British landscape painter, Alfred De Breanski Sr. (1852-1928).  Though his paintings emanate those of his father in palette and subject matter, his landscapes are executed in a slightly less formal, coarser style. 

His main body of work concentrates on the effects of sunlight on the Highland scenery at different times of the day, but between 1905 and 1920, De Breanski Jr. painted a series of English garden scenes done in a colourful, impressionistic style. 

Although he usually signed his work A. F. de Breanski or Alfred de Breanski, Jun, his landscapes are sometimes confused with those of his father. 

Alfred Fontville De Breanski exhibited several works during his lifetime at the Royal Academy and at the Royal Society of British Artists.

Only bio as of Now:   (British, 1848-1922)

Only biography as of now:   (BRITISH 1843-1896)

Thomas Hart Benton, Signed Photograph of the artist, 25 x 20.5 inches
Likely the most important painter of the American Scene* movement, Thomas Hart Benton created a style and addressed subject matter that was uniquely American as well as specific to his state of Missouri, and that combined elements of modernism and realism.  His signature painting was regionalist* genre, especially laboring figures.  In addition to many murals, he also painted landscapes and portraits.

Benton was a highly intelligent, energetic, flamboyant, pugnacious and hard drinking fellow, who quite often found himself in the center of controversy.  As a student, he was unruly and alienated many of his peers and teachers.

Thomas Hart Benton was born in Neosho, Missouri, and named for a great uncle and early United States Senator.  His father, Colonel M.E. Benton, was a Congressman for eight years, and during the winter, the family lived in Washington D.C. and in Neosho in the summer.  At age 17, after the family had returned to Missouri, he took a summer job as cartoonist on The Joplin American.  Determined to pursue his talent, he later said he had to run away from home to become an artist.

In 1907-1908, he studied with Frederick Oswald at the Art Institute of Chicago* and then studied in Paris for three years including briefly at the Academie Julian* under Jean-Paul Laurens and for a longer period at the Academie Collarossi*, where he could work independently.

In 1911, Colonel Benton decided he could no longer support his son in Paris, so Tom went to New York.  Between 1910 and 1920, he experimented with styles of Impressionism*, Neo-Impressionism*, Post-Impressionism*, and Synchromism*, the last influenced by his friend, Stanton MacDonald-Wright.  For much of this time, he was a dedicated modernist, but a fire destroyed most of the examples of his painting from this time period.

His draftsman experience in the Navy, 1918-19, led to his American Scene realist style beginning with a mural, The American Historical Epic for the New School of Social Research* in New York City.  This work earned much respect for mural painting and was key to the support of artists in the Federal Art Projects*.

His murals at the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City are major American Scene murals, and in 1957, he was commissioned by Robert Moses, chairman of the board of the Power Authority of the State of New York to paint a mural for the Power Authority at Massena.  For this work at the site, he did extensive research on the theme, which was the Canadian expedition of Jacques Cartier in the mid 1500s.

The early part of his career he lived in New York City where he taught at the Art Students League* and became a major influence on the style of gestural* painter, Jackson Pollock.  But increasingly Benton grew to believe that art should express one's surroundings rather than abstract ideas and that the ordinary person most exemplified American life.  Many of these ideas he inherited from his Populist father who served as a Congressman from Missouri from 1897 to 1905.

From 1935, he established a studio in Kansas City from where he painted for the next forty years until his death at age 85.

He was both a prolific lithographer, completing 80 lithographs* between 1929 and 1945, and writer including two autobiographies, An Artist in America, and An American Art.  Fellow Missourian and former United States President Harry Truman said that Benton was "the best damned painter in America.

Salvador Dali was born in May 11, 1904 in the small agricultural town of Figueres, Spain, located in the foothills of the Pyrenees, only sixteen miles from the French border in the principality of Catalonia. The son of a prosperous notary, Salvador Dali spent his boyhood in Figueres and at the family's summer home in the coastal fishing village of Cadaques where his parents built his first studio.  As an adult, he made his home with his wife Gala in nearby Port Lligat.  Many of his paintings reflect his love of this area of Spain.

The young Salvador Dali attended the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid.  Early recognition of Salvador Dali's talent came with his first one-man show in Barcelona in 1925.  He became internationally known when three of his paintings, including The Basket of Bread (now in the Museum's collection), were shown in the third annual Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh in 1928.

The following year, Dalí held his first one-man show in Paris.  He also joined the surrealists, led by former Dadaist Andre Breton.  That year, Dali met Gala Eluard when she visited him in Cadaques with her husband, poet Paul Eluard.  She became Dalí's lover, muse, business manager, and chief inspiration.

Dalí soon became a leader of the surrealist movement.  His painting, The Persistance of Memory, with the soft or melting watches is still one of the best-known surrealist works.  But as the war approached, the apolitical Dalí clashed with the surrealists and was "expelled" from the surrealist group during a "trial" in 1934.  He did however, exhibit works in international surrealist exhibitions throughout the decade but by 1940, Dali was moving into a new style that eventually became known as his "classic" period, demonstrating a preoccupation with science and religion.

Dalí and Gala escaped from Europe during World War II, spending 1940-48 in the United States.  These were very important years for the artist.  The Museum of Modern Art in New York gave Dali his first major retrospective exhibit in 1941. This was followed in 1942 by the publication of Dali's autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali.

As Dali moved away from Surrealism and into his classic period, he began his series of 19 large canvases, many concerning scientific, historical or religous themes. Among the best known of these works are The Hallucinogenic Toreador, and The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in the museum's collection, and The Sacrament of the Last Supper in the collection of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

In 1974, Dalí opened the Teatro Museo in Figueres, Spain. This was followed by retrospectives in Paris and London at the end of the decade.  After the death of his wife, Gala, in 1982, Dali's health began to fail.  It deteriorated further after he was burned in a fire in his home in Pubol in 1984.  Two years later, a pace-maker was implanted.  Much of this part of his life was spent in seclusion, first in Pubol and later in his apartments at Torre Galatea, adjacent to the Teatro Museo.  Salvador Dalí died on January 23, 1989 in Figueres from heart failure with respiratory complications.

As an artist, Salvador Dalí was not limited to a particular style or media.  The body of his work, from early impressionist paintings through his transitional surrealist works, and into his classical period, reveals a constantly growing and evolving artist.  Dali worked in all media, leaving behind a wealth of oils, watercolors, drawings, graphics, and sculptures, jewels and objects of all descriptions.

Whether working from pure inspiration or on a commissioned illustration, Dalí's matchless insight and symbolic complexity are apparent. Above all, Dalí was a superb draftsman.  His excellence as a creative artist will always set a standard for the art of the twentieth century.

"Every morning when I wake up I experience an exquisite joy—the joy of being Salvador Dalí—and I ask myself in rapture, ‘What wonderful things this Salvador Dalí is going to accomplish today?’" —Salvador Dalí.

Born in Munich in 1880, Franz Marc began to study theology and philosophy at Munich University in 1899. In 1900 Marc switched to the Munich Art Academy, where his teachers were Gabriel von Hackl and Wilhelm von Diez. During a trip to Paris in 1903, Franz Marc was particularly taken with Impressionist painting. After this trip Marc dropped out of the academy and worked for some years in Munich. In 1907 Marc married the painter Maria Schür, a single mother with a child, but by 1908 the marriage had ended in divorce and Marc entered on a liaison with Maria Franck, whom he did not marry until 1913. Influenced by van Gogh's work, Marc became interested in the inner being of the animals which were his favourite motifs. Marc's first exhibition took place in 1910 at Brakl's modern art gallery, with the support of Bernhard Koehler, his patron. That same year the 'Neue Künstlervereinigung München' mounted its second exhibition, which was roundly criticised. Marc's review caused him to be taken into Wassily Kandinsky's circle. However, the group was so fraught with internal tensions that 'Der Blaue Reiter' was formed. In addition to an exhibition by the 'Neue Künstlervereinigung München' ('NKVM'), the Thannhauser Gallery mounted an exibition in 1911 devoted to 'Der Blaue Reiter', which toured Germany, being shown at Cologne, Berlin, Bremen, Hagen and Frankfurt. In 1912 the second 'NKVM' was held and, in parallel, the second 'Blauer Reiter' show featured prints and the circle of artists exhibiting work was enlarged to include 'Die Brücke' with Paul Klee and the Russian artists Malevich, Goncharova and Larionov. That same year the 'Almanach Der Blaue Reiter' was published by Marc and Kandinsky. Franz Marc's style changed following a trip he took to Paris with August Macke in autumn 1912, where they visited Delaunay. Impressed by Delaunay's window pictures, Marc began to break down his pictorial forms prismatically and to use more pure colour and contrasts. He incorporated representations of animals in these refracted pictorial forms as the vehicles for symbolism. Marc was by now far on his way to abstraction yet the figurative symbolic animal forms continued to recur because to him they meant spiritual purity and redemption. Marc did his well-known painting 'Tirol' (1914) while under the spell of a trip to the South Tyrol (1913) with Maria Marc. In summer 1914 Marc painted his most important works, 'Der Turm der Blauen Pferde' and 'Tierschicksale'. In them Marc has achieved a pictorial idiom that is entirely and distinctively his own through his use of animal symbolism although the influence of the French avant-garde is evident. That year Marc planned to produce an illustrated Bible in collaboration with Kandinsky, Kubin, Klee, Heckel and Kokoschka. Marc volunteered when the first world war broke out and was sent to France. He fell at Verdun on 4 March 1916. Franz Marc's last work is his 'Skizzenbuch aus dem Felde' ['Sketchbook from the Battlefield'].

Pablo Picasso (October 25, 1881 - April 8, 1973)

Walter van Ed Prescher was born in 1916 in Dresden, Germany.  He studied at the Academy of Arts Dresden and was a pupil of Edward Karl Max and Paul Rossler.  In 1948 he was a professor at the Academy of Art in Berlin and later in Dresden.

Van Ed studied and painted in Paris, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, and New York during his career. He passed away in 1988 at the age of 72.

10 and 11 already covered

Louis Justin Laurent Icart was born in Toulouse in 1890 and died in Paris in 1950.Toulouse was the home of many prominent writers and artists, the most, of course being Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Icart entered the l’Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Toulouse in order to continue his studies for a career in business, particularly banking (his father’s profession). However, he soon discovered the play writings of Victor Hugo (1802-1885), which were to change the course of his life. Icart borrowed whatever books he could find by Hugo at the Toulouse library, devouring the tales, rich in both romantic imagery and the dilemmas of the human condition. It was through Icart’s love of the theater that he developed a taste for all the arts, though the urge to paint was not as yet as strong for him as the urge to act. It was not until his move to Paris in 1907 that Icart would concentrate on painting, drawing and the production of countless beautiful etchings, which have served (more than the other mediums) to indelibly preserve his name in twentieth century art history. Art Deco, a term coined at the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, had taken its grip on the Paris of the 1920s. By the late 1920s Icart, working for both publications and major fashion and design studios, had become very successful, both artistically and financially. His etchings reached their height of brilliance in this era of Art Deco, and Icart had become the symbol of the epoch. Yet, although Icart has created for us a picture of Paris life in the 1920s and 1930s, he worked in his own style, derived principally from the study of eighteenth-century French masters such as Jean Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Jean Honoré Fragonard. In 1914 Icart had met a magical, effervescent eighteen-year-old blonde named Fanny Volmers, at the time an employee of the fashion house Paquin. She would eventually become his wife and a source of artistic inspiration for the rest of his life. Icart’s portrayal of women is usually sensuous, often erotic, yet always imbued an element of humor, which is as important as the implied or direct sexuality. The beautiful courtesans cavort on rich, thick pillows; their facial expressions projecting passion, dismay or surprise, for the women of Louis Icart are the women of France as we have imagined them to be – Eve, Leda, Venus, Scheherazade and Joan of Arc, all wrapped up into an irresistible package.

(Austrian, 1855-1920)

Piero Dorazio was born on June 29, 1927 in Rome, where he studied architecture at the University of Rome from 1945 to 1951. About the same time he joined the Arte Sociale group. In 1947 he co-founded Forma 1, the first group of Italian abstract artists. Also in 1947 Dorazio was awarded a scholarship to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he spent a year and met Jean Arp, Georges Braque, Le Corbusier, Sonia Delaunay and Vantongerloo. In 1950 he co-founded the influential cooperative gallery “Age d’Or” in Rome and Florence and in 1955 he published the first book on international Modern art to appear in Italy: "La Fantasia Dell-Arte Nella Vita Moderna".

In 1953 he traveled to the United States, where he met Rothko, Motherwell, Kline and Clement Greenberg. In the same year he gave his first personal exhibitions at the Rose Fried Gallery and the Wittenborn One-Wall Gallery, both in New York. After returning to Rome in 1954, Dorazio periodically visited Paris, London and Berlin. In 1957 a year of extensive travel to Spain, Anibes and Switzerland he held his first one-man show in Roma at the “Galleria La Tartaruga”. From 1960 to 1969 he taught at the Graduate School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania. After visits to Greece, Africa and the Middle East in the early seventies he settled in a hermitage in Todi, Italy. He was included in the famous exhibition "The Responsive Eye" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965. The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris held a major Retrospective in 1979, and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo organized a traveling retrospective in 1980. In 1983 the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome showed a personal exhibition of his work. He also exhibited regularly in New York (where the Guggenheim Museum holds a substantial collection of his work). He participated at major international shows, such as the Venice Biennale, where the artist exhibited in 1960, 1966 and 1988. During the following years he had numerous private and public commissions such as the creation of large-scale mosaics in Rome’s subway system. The artist died in Perugia in May 2005. Dorazio had a long and fruitful collaboration with Aras. The gallery held numerous exhibitions of his work including a comprehensive retrospective in 2002, which later traveled to the Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM). Aras published Dorazio's largest graphical cycle "Amici Colori" comprising fifteen original serigraphs and several other graphic works.