Michael Ancher, 1885, "Girl with Sunflowers"
 
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Abildgaard, Nicolai Abraham (1743-1809)
Danish leading neo-classicist painter and architect. He was born in Copenhagen, and he died in his house Spurveskjul in Frederiksdal. His paintings revealed both Neo-classical and Romantic interests and include history paintings as well as literary and mythological works. In addition to painting, he produced decorative works, sculptures and furniture. Abildgaard was
commissioned the responsibility for modernizations in French Empire style in King Christian VIII's Palace (one of the four royal palaces in the Amalienborg complex in Copenhagen). The Liberty Memorial in Copenhagen
(1792-97) was erected in memory of the abolition of the adscription in 1788, and Abildgaard was the artistic leader and designer. The Liberty Memorial is an obelisk made of sandstone from the Danish island Bornholm, and its base is made of Norwegian marble. The four allegorical statues ("Loyalty", "Hard Work", "Bravery" and "Civic Virtue") were executed by Wiedewelt, Weidenhaupt and Dajon and two relief's "Justice" and "Liberation" by Wiedewelt and Weidenhaupt. The Liberty Memorial was renovated in 1999. 
 
Spurveskjul (Sparrow-shelter) nearby Virum north of Copenhagen. Spurveskjul was a modest country house when Abildgaard bought it in 1805. During his journeys to Italy Abildgaard got influenced by the architecture of the houses in Northern Italy, he designed the present two-storeyed house, which was build next to the elder buildings, in Neo-Classical style. Today Spurveskjul is still a private house.
  Portrait of Abildgaard, 1772, executed by Jens Juel  
 
  The Liberty Memorial in Copenhagen, 1797.
Click
here for full size images
 
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1 The Liberty Memorial. The Relief "Justice" executed by Johannes Wiedewelt, based on Abildgaard's drawings
2 The Liberty Memorial. The Relief "Liberation" executed by Andreas Weidenhaupt 
3 The Liberty Memorial, the allegorical statue "Civic Virtue", executed by Nikolaj Dajon.
4 The Liberty Memorial, the allegorical statue "Bravery" by Nikolaj Dajon. The lion symbolizes strength, the flag wrapped around the stick symbolize the virtues of the nation, liberty and unity.
5 The Liberty Memorial, the allegorical statue "Loyalty", by Johannes Wiedewelt. The dog is a symbol of loyalty.
6 The Liberty Memorial, the allegorical statue by Andreas Weidenhaupt "Hard Work" symbolized with a plough and a cornucopia.
 
  "The wounded Philoctetes", 1775. The Danish National Gallery.
There are some similarities between Philoctetes and Michelangelo's High Renaissance figures on the  Sistine Chapel ceiling. The painting shows physical pain. The archer Philoctetes was bitten on his foot by a snake on his way to the siege of Troy. His life became an endless round of shrieking agonies. His comrades abandoned him alone on an island, and sailed on.
"Philoctetes Wounded And Other Plays" by Elsa Gress, published 1969,  Decenter, Åsø Gl. Skole (Glumsø).

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1 "The Girl From Andros 2", 1802. To the right Abildgaard's dog Iordano. The Danish National Gallery.
2 "Ymer Sucks at the Cow Audumbla's Udder", 1775. The Danish National Gallery. Ymer was the giant in The Nordic Mythology, from whose single parts of the body the world was created. Ymer lived of the milk from the cow Audumbla.
3 Ymer's Well, Faaborg's main street, the original by Kai Nielsen, 1913, is placed in Faaborg Museum, Funen, Denmark.
4 "Theology. Allegorical Figure". 1800. The Danish National Gallery.
5-6 Paintings. The Danish National Gallery.
7-8 "Temple of Fortune", 1875, painted on a fire screen and Abildgaard's illustration to the Danish poet Johannes Ewald's short story "Temple of Fortune", 1764.
 
 
 
   
Agam, Yaacov (1928). Israeli Painter and Sculptor, son of a Russian rabbi and author. Although his religion was against drawing and painting, he was not forbidden to do so by his family, who acknowledged his talent. In 1946 he became a student at "Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design" in Jerusalem. In 1950 he went to Zurich and became a student of Johannes Itten at the "Art and Craft School", where he met Frank Lloyd Wright and Siegfried Giedion, whose ideas about the time-dimension in art and architecture impressed him.    
In 1951 he went to Paris, where his works were admired by the surrealistic painters. His first exhibition in "Galerie Craven" in Paris in 1953 shows kinetic art and became a success.
 
 
Max Ernst the famous surrealist painter, was the first to buy one of his works. Agam became the leading exponent of optical and kinetic art, and is best known for his three-dimensional paintings and sculptures. (Op art)
 
1 "Festival"?
2 Israel 35 Years of Independence
3 Fountain, La Défense, Paris
4 Fountain, 2005, Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv
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La Défense, Paris
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Fountain, 2005, Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv, Israel
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  Alechinsky, Pierre (1927). Belgian artist born in Brussels of Russian parents. In the period 1944-46 he studied book illustration and graphic techniques at "l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture et des Arts Décoratifs" in Brussels. In 1947 he became member of a group of Avant-Garde Artists "La Jeune Peinture Belge", formed on the initiative of Robert L. Delevoy, an art critic, and René Lust, a lawyer - promoting young contemporary artists through exhibitions, this was their intention. The same year Alechinsky had his first solo-exhibition in Brussels at "Galerie Lou Cosyn". He was one of the founders and the youngest member of the CoBrA movement. With a number of colleagues he set up a type of research centre and meeting-place in Brussels - "Les Ateliers du Marais".
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He was also active in the CoBrA publications. CoBrA dissolved in 1951, Alechinsky moved to Paris where he still lives. In 1955 he went to Japan to study the art of calligraphy, and adopted the Oriental manner of painting - paper spread on the floor and the artist leans over the work holding the bottle of ink. In 1956 he made the film "Calligraphie japonaise". Alechinsky paints with his left hand "the one that has known only liberty and pleasure".

He participated in international festivals, such as: The VII Sao Paulo Biennale, 1963, The Venice Biennale, 1967 and 1972, received the award for engraving at the Krakow Biennale, 1967.

Selected Exhibitions:
1958 Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. 1959 Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, with Tapies and Messagier. 1961 Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, with Reinhoud. 1964-87 Galerie Birch, Copenhagen. 1967 Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas. 1969 Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark. 1970 Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 1974 Mathildenhoehe, Darmstadt, Germany. North Jutland Museum of Art, Aalborg, Denmark. 1977 Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1978 Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris. 1979 Musée d'Ixelles, Brussels, with Karel Appel. 1980 Museo de arte moderno, Mexico. 1981 Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal. Museum of Modern Art, New York. 1983 Museo espafiol de Arte contemporaneo, Madrid, with Alberto Gironella. 1987 a retrospective exhibition at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. 1989 Centre culturel de la ville de Tunis. 1992 Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan. 1994 Henie-Onstad Art Center, Hovikodden, Norway, Silkeborg Museum of Art, Denmark.  (Abstract, Cobra)
 
 
 
  Crucifixion c 1520. Click here for full size image  
  Altdorfer, Albrecht (1480-1538). German painter, engraver, architect and leading member of the "Danube School" of German painting. His graphic style was influenced by the German painter and engraver Albrecht Dürer. Altdorfer was considered as one of the first painters of landscapes in European art. He became city architect and member of the city council in Regensburg in Northern Germany, where he spent most of his life. 
His painting was expressive
ranging from the playful to the grandiose and from the picturesque to the incredible. His most famous work was the altarpiece from 1518 for the Austrian monastery St. Florian in which he used night scenes, rarely seen at that time. Of the German "Little Masters", Altdorfer was the earliest, the "Little Masters" were known for designs on a small scale. The corpus of Altdorfer's works comprises more than 50 panels, over 100 drawings together with woodcuts, engravings, etchings, paintings on parchment and fragments from a mural for the bathhouse of the Kaiserhof in Regensburg.
"The Danube Valley near Regensburg" (1510). "The Battle of Alexander" (1529). "Loth and his daughters" (1537).
(Renaissance)

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1 "The Battle of Alexander at Issus", 1529
2 "St George and the Dragon", 1510
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The Battle of Alexander at Issus, 1529
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St George and the Dragon, 1510 
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American Art 1997
John Foster 
(1648-1681)
The Freake 
Limner
  
(active about 
1670-1680)
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Ammi Philips
(1788-1865)
Rembrandt Peale
(1778-1860)
John James 
Audubon
 
(1785-1851)
George Caleb 
Bingham 
(1811-1879)
.
Asher B. Durand
(1796-1886)
Joshua Johnson
(1796-1824)
William Hamett
(1848-1892)
Winslow Homer
(1836-1910)
George Catlin 
(1796-1872)
Thomas Moran
(1837-1926)
Albert Bierstadt
(1830-1902)
Frederic Edwin 
Church
 
(1820-1900)
.
Mary Cassatt  
(1844-1926)
Edward Hopper
(1882-1967)
.
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Grant Wood  
(1891-1942)
Charles Sheeler
(1883-1965)
Franz Kline  
(1910-1962)
Mark Rothko  
(1903-1970)
 
 
  "The Sick Girl", 1882, The Danish National Gallery.
Click here for full size image
 
  Ancher, Michael Peter (1849-1927). Danish Skaw painter. Born on the island of Bornholm. From 1871-75 educated at the The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, where he met e.g. the art historian Karl Madsen, who later became the first curator of the Skaw Museum. In 1874 he visited the Skaw and the following year he went to live there permanently. He got married to the daughter of the hotel proprietor the painter Anna Kirstine Ancher, née Broendum, who gave birth to a daughter, Helga. In the 80s he traveled to Vienna, Paris and Italy. In 1887 he received the Eckersberg Medal. Ancher was among the first Skaw painters, to whose inhabitants and nature he was closely attached. He pictured the family life and everyday life of the fishermen in an earnest realism. He was influenced by the Dutch painters. 
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Map of Denmark The artists' colony at Skagen/The Skaw Painters
The Skaw is a little town in Jutland on the very top of Denmark where light and water from two seas, Kattegat and Skagerak, break above the northernmost tip Grenen. The Skaw was known for its 
very special light that attracted painters in the late 1800's. The painters found their motifs among fishermen and peasants. The Hotel Broendum became the centre of the artists' colony. The artists who visited the hotel had donated their portraits of each other, mounted in a frieze under the ceiling, to hotel proprietor Degn Broendum, the big brother to Anna Ancher.
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Michael Ancher, Anna Ancher, Marie Triepcke who married Peder Severin Kroeyer (Norwegian-born), Viggo Johansen, Carl Locher, Laurits Tuxen, Christian Krogh (Norwegian), Eilif Petersen (Norwegian), Christian Skredsvig (Norwegian, Oscar Bjoerck (Swedish), Holger Drachmann (poet and painter). (Realism
 
 
1 "Girl with Sunflowers", 1885, The Danish National Gallery.
2 "Anna Ancher returns home from field", 1902, Skagen's Museum.
3 "Redningsbåden køres gennem klitterne", 1883, The Danish National Gallery.
4 Michael and Anna Ancher's house has been converted to a museum. Photo: Birgitte
Desirée Pettersen
5 Hotel Broendum.
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Louis Tussaud's Wax Museum, Copenhagen
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1. Poster designed by Peder Stougaard and used with his permission. The artist is director of the Danish Postermuseum situated in Aarhus. 2. H.C. Andersen reading "The Ugly Duckling", Central Park, New York. 3. Henry Luckow-Nielsen's bronze statue of H.C. Andersen, 1961, Copenhagen's Town Hall Square. 4. Andy Warhol, H.C. Andersen. 5. Andersen at Louis Tussaud Wax Museum, Copenhagen. 6.-7. Andersen's house and Museum in Odense.
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Andersen
, Hans Christian (1805-1875)
. Danish papercutter and world-famous fairytale writer - he often sat, surrounded by children, cutting out human, animal or other figures from paper. H.C. Andersen left about 1500 papercuttings.
 
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H.C. Andersen postcard from The Royal Library, Copenhagen
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H.C. Andersen postcard from The Royal Library, Copenhagen
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H.C. Andersen postcard from The Royal Library, Copenhagen
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H.C. Andersen postcard from The Royal Library, Copenhagen
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Christmas Seals 1975
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Christmas Seals 2005
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H.C. Andersen, The Old Town, Aarhus
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H.C. Andersen, The Old Town, Aarhus
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H.C. Andersen, The Old Town, Aarhus
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H.C. Andersen, The Old Town, Aarhus
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1-12 Paper-cuttings.
13-21 ARoS, Andersen and Andy Warhol.
The exhibition "FAIRY TALES FOREVER", 2005, ARoS, Aarhus Museum of Art.
ARoS Aarhus Museum of Art
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Andersen, Mogens Helge Thestrup (1916-2003). Danish painter, graphics artist and writer. Born in Copenhagen. From 1933-39 he studied painting at P. Rostrup Boeyesen's art school, which he later became the head of. In 1935 he had his first exhibition at "The Autumn Exhibition for Painters" in Copenhagen. He was co-founder and member of "Boelleblomsten" (1942-50), an art union where the artists arranged and took part in exhibitions held in "The Free Exhibition Building" in Copenhagen. Member of "Salon de Mai" in Paris (1950-67), and member of the art union "Groenningen" in Copenhagen (1953-65). In 1955 he traveled to Italy and Greece. He settled in France in 1959 and returned to Denmark in 1965. Since 1961 he was a member of "Salon Des Réalités Nouvelles", Paris, and member of "The Free Exhibition", Copenhagen (1967-71). In 1968 he was the Danish participant of the Venice Art Biennale. In 1970 he became guest professor of "The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art" in Copenhagen. In 1971 and 1978 he visit Japan.  His painting was characterized by dark often black colors and he mastered the Abstract and Nonfigurative idioms.
From 1964 he worked together with the Danish tapestry weaver Lise Warburg. He decorated e.g. the council
 
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"Alfa"*, 1998
chamber of the city hall of Gentofte, Denmark (1971), the Copenhague Restaurant in Paris (1973) and Museum Bochum, Germany, (1981). 
He was an art critic at "Arbejderbladet" (The Daily Worker) (1937-39), and had published the book "Modern French Painting"
(1948). In 1981 he illustrated "Moya. Seven Japanese songs opus 57 for singing and piano" written by the musician Vagn 
Holmboe. (Abstract)
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*Danish "Stamp Art", issued October 15, 1998. The motifs are made for stamps by four Danish artists - the stamps themselves are the works of art.
Mogens Andersen
("Alfa"/"Alpha"), Per Kirkeby ("Dansk efteraar"/"Danish Autumn"), Ejler Bille ("Billedtegn"/"Painting idioms") and 
Carl-Henning Pedersen
("Himmelhest"/"Heaven Horse"). 
Engraver: Arne Kühlmann (the work of Per Kirkeby). Typography: Austin Grandjean
 
 
 
  "Frog with Umbrella", 2001, The Hague  
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Appel, Karel (1921). Dutch abstract expressionist painter, graphic designer, illustrator, sculptor and ceramic artist. Born in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Trained at the "Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten" in Amsterdam, 1940-43. His first solo exhibition was held in 1946 at Beerenhuis in Groningen. 
Appel was influenced by Picasso, Matisse and later Dubuffet. He was a member of "Nederlandse Experimentele Groep", the authors, editors, and publishers of the journal Reflex. He was one of the founders of the CoBrA movement and put his signature to the manifesto in Paris in 1948 together with e.g. Constant and Corneille. In 1949 he completed a fresco for the restaurant of the city hall of Amsterdam, which generated great polemic and was covered up the next 10 years. He moved to Paris in 1950, where the writer Hugo Claus introduced him to Michel Tapié, the organizer of many exhibitions including exhibitions of Appel's works. 
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cobra kat 1950
In 1954 he received the UNESCO Prize at the Venice Biennale and was commisioned to execute a mural for the restaurant og the Stedelijk Museum in 1956. The following year he traveled to Mexico and the USA and won a graphic prize at the Ljubljana Biennial in Yugoslavia (nov The Republic of Slovenia). In the late 60s he moved to the Château de Molesmes southeast of Paris. During the 50s and 60s he executed a great number of murals for official buildings. In 1972 he traveled in South America, Mexico, India, Nepal, Indonesia and Japan. In 1974 he tested various materials such as plastic foam.
In 1976 a collaboration with Pierre Alechinsky led to a series of works on paper which were published along with poems by Hugo Claus in the book entitled "Two Brush Paintings". In the 80s Appel executed a series of stained glass paintings. In 1987, after many years of exploring nudity in painting and drawings, Appel worked with live models, instead of deriving his forms from the fantasy.
His third period of sculptural production began in the early 90s where architecture, painting and sculpture were combined, the result was a total work of art or Gesamtkunstwerk (a Baroque-term).
Together with the Japanese dancer and choreographer Min Tanaka Appel had created scenic concepts for opera performances in France and the Netherlands e.g. Mozart's "The Magic Flute"
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From 1997 Appel lived by turns in Toscana, Italy, where he painted landscapes, and in the US continuing his work with sculptures.
His works has been exhibited in all major museums of modern art in the world. In 2004 he solo-exhibited at Herning Museum of Art, Denmark.
(Abstract, Cobra)
 
 
 
  "Avalanche", 1990, Tel Aviv  
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Arman (Armand Pierre Fernandez) (1928). He later dropped the "d" in his name, the result of a catalogue mistake. French-American artist born in Nice. In 1972 he took American citizenship. His first lessons in painting were given him by his father, an antique dealer. From 1946-49 he was studying painting at "École Nationale d'Art Décoratif in Nice. In 1949, he became a student at École du Louvre, where he was studying archaeology and oriental art, his paintings at this time were influenced by the surrealist painters. In the period 1951-53 he organized events and Happenings with Yves Klein, with whom he  since 1947 had been discussing subjects such as Zen Buddhism and astrology. He completed his military service as a medical orderly in the Indo-Chinese War (1946-1954). His neo-dadaist style and stamp imprints, the Cachets, were influenced by a Kurt Schwitters exhibition in Paris in 1954.
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In 1956 his first solo exhibitions were held in London and Paris. In 1957 he traveled in Persia, Turkey and Afghanistan. In 1959 he did his first "Destructions" e.g. violins he smashed and recomposed on wood panels, his Accumulations and Poubelles (Dustbins). The Accumulations were assemblages of everyday objects. The Poubelles were similar, but used collections of rubbish. In 1960 he became a founding member of the Nouveaux Réalistes. In 1963 he started his Combustions (burned objects). In 1964 he had his first retrospectives at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Polyester now became his most important material. In 1967 he initiated a collaboration between art and industry with the French automobile company Renault and represented France at "Expo '67" in Montreal. From 1967-68 he was instructor at the University of California in Los Angeles. In 1970 he began his Accumulations in concrete and exhibited at the World's Fair in Osaka. In 1971 he began a series with organic garbage embedded in plastic. In 1974 he toured with a retrospective exhibition through five North American cities. Since 1975 he lived alternately in New York and Paris. 
Awards: International Biennale of Prints Tokyo, 1964. Premio Marzotto, Italy, 1966. (Dadaism, Happenings, Pop Art)
 
 
 
  "Cupulate Fruit", 1960, placed behind The Church of Our Lady, Copenhagen.  
  Arp, Hans/Jean (1886-1966) (Christian name Hans). French sculptor, painter and writer, a pioneer of abstract art. From 1905-07 he studied at the Academy in Weimar. In 1908 he went to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian. In 1909 he moved to Switzerland, and in 1911 he was the founder of the artists' union "Moderner Bund". In 1912, after meeting Wassily Kandinsky in Munich, Arp exhibited with the Blue Rider group, and in 1913 he participated in the first Autumn Salon in Berlin at the gallery "Der Sturm". After returning to Paris in 1914, he became acquainted with Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Max Ernst, Robert Delaunay, Amadeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso and became influenced by Picasso's cubist paintings. In 1915, he moved to Zurich, where he executed collages and tapestries in collaboration with Sophie Taeuber, later his wife and Sophie Taeuber-Arp. In 1916 Arp was one of the founders of the Dada group, which held its meetings at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Arp continued his involvement with Dada after moving to Cologne in 1919. In 1922, he participated in the "Kongress der Konstruktivisten und Dadaisten" in Weimar and the "Exposition Internationale Dada" at Galerie Montaigne in Paris. He wrote in magazines e.g. "Merz", "Mécano", "De Stijl" and in 1925 to "La Révolution surréaliste". In 1925 his work appeared in the first exhibition of the Surrealist group at the "Galerie Pierre" in Paris. In 1926, he settled in Meudon, France. In 1949 he had a solo exhibition at Curt Valentin’s Buchholz Gallery in New York. He received the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Venice Biennale in 1954. Retrospective exhibitions of his work were held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1958, and at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, 1962. (Dadaism)
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"Cloud Shepherd", 1953, The University City of Caracas, Venezuela.
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"la danseuse"  
(The Dancer), 1925.
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Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
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Audubon, John James (1785-1851) (he was christened Jean Jaques). American self-taught nature painter and ornithologist, he devoted his life to painting all the American birds and other animals. 
Audubon was born in the French colony of Santo Domingo (today Haiti) as the son of a French sailor and his mistress, who died when he was six months old, and he got a stepmother. Audubon was brought up in Nantes in France, and he learned to love nature at an early age and began to draw. In 1803, at the age of 18, he immigrated to the USA to Mill Grove, the Audubon estate northwest of Philadelphia, to escape conscription into Napoleon's army. 
In Mill Grove he lived a carefree life, later he married Lucy Bakewell, they became parents to four children, two sons and two daughters, the two daughters died.  
Audubon collected all kinds of wildlife specimens, which he both preserved and sketched. He taught himself to wire the dead birds in lifelike positions to enable accurate sketching and drawing. In 1810 he met the ornithological illustrator Alexander Wilson, a meeting which convinced Audubon that he should continue with his bird drawings. 
Unable to find support in the US, he went to England and France where his paintings made an impression. In Liverpool, England, he exhibited his watercolors in an effort to raise interest in his "Birds of America-project". He had secured an agreement with William Lizars in Edinburgh for the engraving and printing of his work. After only ten plates were finished Lizars resigned.
Audubon traveled to London where he employed the firm of R. Havell and Son. Production of "Birds of America" began in earnest. 
In 1829 he returned to the USA. Audubon was involved in some less successful financial affairs, he had failed as a businessman - unlucky investments, sent him into bankruptcy. To provide for his family he was doing charcoal portraits on commission. He took 
a job as a taxidermist and he decided to pursue his dream of painting all the American birds, which became reality in "Birds of America" with its 435 life-size, elephant folio engravings, done by a the craftsman, Robert Havell and "The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America". (Naturalism) 
 
  White gerfalcons. Click here for full size image  
Golden Eagle
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