Horace Mann

The American educational reformer and humanitarian Horace Mann (1796-1859) was enormously influential in promoting and refining public education in Massachusetts and throughout the nation in the 19th century.

Horace Mann was born in Franklin, Mass., on May 4, 1796. He labored on the family farm and learned his letters at home and in the district school, supplemented by long hours in the town library. Guided by his parents, he developed an appetite for knowledge. Mann's father died in 1809. The next year, when his older brother drowned while swimming on a Sunday, the local Congregational minister elaborated on the dangers of breaking the Sabbath, instead of consoling the family. This confirmed Mann's growing alienation from the Church.

After briefly attending an academy in Wrentham and intensive tutoring by an itinerantschoolmaster, Mann entered the sophomore class of Brown University in 1816. He developed a lively interest in debating, frequently speaking in support of humanitarian causes. He graduated as valedictorian in 1819. A growing interest in public affairs led him to study law after graduation. He interrupted his legal education to serve as tutor of Latin and Greek at Brown but returned to legal study in 1821 at the famous school of Tapping Reeve in Litchfield, Conn. He was admitted to the bar in 1823.

Mann practiced in Dedham and Boston, acquired an admiration for Whig politics, and was elected to the Massachusetts Legislature in 1827. Essentially an activist, Mann came to believe that public education, which he called "the great equalizer of the conditions of men," was more likely to yield the general social improvements he desired than piecemeal efforts in behalf of prison reform, humane treatment of the insane, and temperance. A fellow legislator had studied educational conditions in Massachusetts and reported that barely a third of the school-age children were attending school; that teachers were ill-prepared, poorly paid, and unable to maintain discipline; and that public schools were avoided by those who could afford private education. As a result, in 1837 the assembly created the Massachusetts State Board of Education. The board was required to collect and disseminate information about public schools and, through its secretary, report annually to the legislature.

First Secretary of the State Board

Mann abandoned his promising political career to become secretary of the board. For 12 years he campaigned to bring educational issues before the people. He toured the state speaking on the relationship between public education and public morality, developing the theme of education as "the balance wheel of the social machinery." He believed that social and economic distinctions, unless reduced by a common educational experience, would create communities of interest that would eventually harden into warring factions.

In publicizing his cause, Mann found arguments attractive to all segments of the community, but he sometimes irritated powerful interests. Because he admired the Prussian system of education, his loyalty to democratic institutions was questioned. Because he believed the schools should be nonsectarian, he was attacked as antireligious. His advocacy of state supervision antagonized local politicians. His criticism of corporal punishment angered the influential Boston schoolmasters.

All the reform impulses of the American 1830s and 1840s converged in Mann's devotion to the cause of the common schools. He created teachers' institutes to improve teaching methods and arranged public meetings to discuss educational theory. He established and edited the Common School Journal. With private benefaction and state support he established three state normal schools for teacher education, the first in the country. His annual reports were lucid examinations of educational issues. Widely distributed and discussed, they exerted a powerful influence on public opinion in Massachusetts and the nation.

In Massachusetts, Mann's leadership produced dramatic change. The school curriculum was broadened and related more closely to the social outcomes he admired. Teaching methods, especially the teaching of reading, and the professional status and salary of teachers were improved. Facilities and equipment were increased, and more than 50 new high schools were established. Mann's influence became national and international.

Later Years

In 1848 Mann resigned his secretaryship to accept election to the U.S. Congress. He now enthusiastically entered the slavery debate, opposing the extension of slavery into the territories. His stand generated such hostility that he declined to run in the 1852 election and, instead, unsuccessfully campaigned for the governorship as a Free Soil candidate.

In 1852 Mann was elected president of Antioch College in Ohio. He discharged his new duties with customary zeal, creating a curriculum, doing much of the teaching, and contending with difficult economic problems. But the work proved too much for Mann, in ill health since boyhood. He died on Aug. 2, 1859, 2 weeks after telling the graduating class to "be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

Further Reading

The Republic and the School: The Education of Free Men (1957), edited by Lawrence A. Cremin, contains a thorough analysis of Mann's educational positions and extracts from his annual reports. E. I. F. Williams, Horace Mann: Educational Statesman (1937), is somewhat eulogistic but complete and well documented. Louise Hall Tharp, Until Victory: Horace Mann and Mary Peabody(1953), is a popular treatment, well written and rich in background but sometimes casual in documentation. Jonathan Messerli, Horace Mann (1972), is a perceptive and revealing biography, particularly informative on Mann's 12 years as secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education.

George, Henry (1839 - 1897)

Birth:

2 September 1839,Philadelphia,Pennsylvania, United States of America

Death:

28 October 1897, New York, New York, United States of America

Cultural Heritage:

• American

Occupation:

• social reformer
• taxation reformer

GEORGE, HENRY (1839-1897), social reformer, was born on 2 September 1839 in Philadelphia, United States of America, the first son of Richard Samuel Henry George and his wife Catherine Pratt, née Vallance. Brought up in a puritanical family George was educated at Mrs Graham's school, Mount Vernon Grammar School, the Episcopal Academy and after five months at high school became a messenger boy and then a clerk. In 1855 he sailed for Melbourne in the crew of the Hindoo, went on to India and thence to America in April 1856. In December he was in San Francisco where in 1858-59, between bouts of gold-prospecting, he worked as a typesetter. He joined the Methodists and on 3 December 1861 married Annie Corsina, Sydney-born daughter of Major John Fox and his wife Elizabeth, née McCloskey. Irregular employment kept them poor until he became managing editor of the San Francisco Times in 1866. By then he had perfected a simple but emotional literary style studded with biblical allusions. A maturing curiosity for social and political problems had emerged in 1865 when he turned from protection to free trade. In 1868 his article 'What the Railroad Will Bring Us' analysed the tendency to concentrate increasing national wealth in fewer hands, a conviction confirmed by a visit to New York. He was an active Democrat but his pamphlet, Our Land and Land Policy (1871), argued against private ownership of land, exposed the predatory nature of rent and stressed the need for a tax on land values only. In 1879 his definitive Progress and Poverty won him repute as a leading American reformer. In 1880 he settled in New York. In 1880-89 he made several visits to Britain and with the publication of Social Problems (1883) became an international figure.

George's theories spread to Australia chiefly through the Bulletin in 1883. In 1887 the Land Nationalisation League was founded in Sydney to propagate his and A. R. Wallace's beliefs. Reformed in 1889 as the Single Tax League it was led by F. Cotton, John Farrell, E. W. Foxall, C. L. Garland, (Sir) William Johnson and P. Meggy. In America in 1889 Garland arranged for George to visit Australia and with Farrell as campaign director he arrived in Sydney on 6 March 1890 in theMariposa. His reforming appeal was still strong but his remedies had been devastatingly criticized even by Australians. His antagonism to socialism and trade unionism alienated much working-class and radical support at a time of political and industrial turbulence and his objections to private property frightened land-owners. Above all, his free-trade views, even in New South Wales, isolated him from the rising tide of protection. This diverse but powerful hostility was increased by the intense fervour of George's supporters: at a banquet on 7 March Garland had introduced him with 'Ecce Homo!' The result of his campaign in Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales was negligible. The Bulletinespecially, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age helped to ensure that Georgeism had no future in Australia. He left in June 1890 and died on 28 October 1897 in New York and was buried in Greenwood cemetery, Brooklyn.

George's influence has been overrated by several historians and publicists. None of his doctrines was original and all were theoretically and practically flawed however beguilingly propagated. His views on leasehold and taxation of unimproved land value were held independently by many Australians and their partial legislative adoption owed little to George. His central ideas of the 'unearned increment' and single tax are now historical curiosities.

Biography Nelson Mandela

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. "

- Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on July 18, 1918.He was the son of a local tribal leader of the Tembu tribe. As a youngster Nelson, took part in the activities and initiation ceremonies of his local tribe. However, unlike his father Nelson Mandela gained a full education, studying at the University College of Fort Hare and also the University of Witwatersrand. Nelson was a good student and qualified with a law degree in 1942. During his time at University Nelson Mandela became increasingly aware of the racial inequality and injustice faced by non white people. In 1994, he decided to join the ANC and actively take part in the struggle against apartheid.

As one of the few qualified lawyers, Nelson Mandela was in great demand; also his commitment to the cause saw him promoted through the ranks of the ANC. In 1956, Nelson Mandela, along with several other members of the ANC were arrested and charged with treason. After a lengthy and protracted court case the defendents were finally acquitted in 1961. However, with the ANC now banned, Nelson Mandela suggested an active armed resistance to the apartheid regime. This led to the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe, which would act as a guerrilla resistance movement. Receiving training in other African countries, the Umkhonto we Sizwe took part in active sabotage.

In 1963, Mandela was again arrested and put on trial for treason. This time the state succeeded in convicting of plotting to overthrow the government. However, the case received considerable international attention and the apartheid regime of South Africa became under the glare of the international community.

Mandela’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and from 1964 –1981 he was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town. In prison the conditions were sparse; however, Mandela was with many other political prisoners and there was a strong bond of friendship which helped to make more bearable prison conditions. Also, in prison Nelson Mandela was highly disciplined, he would try and study and take part in exercise every day. He later said these year of prison were a period of great learning, even if painful.

During his time in prison, Mandela became increasingly well known throughout the world. Mandela became the best known black leader and opposition to the apartheid regime. Largely unbeknown to Mandela, his continued imprisonment led to world wide pressure for his release. From the mid 1980s, the apartheid regime increasingly began to negotiate with the ANC and Mandela in particular. On many occasions, Mandela was offered a conditional freedom. However, he always refused wishing to put the political ideals of the ANC above his own freedom.

Eventually Nelson Mandela was released on February 11, 1990. The day was huge event for South Africa and the world. His release symbolic of the impending end of apartheid. Following his release there followed protracted negotiations, (often interspersed with tribal violence). However, eventually in April 1994, South Africa had its first full and fair elections. The ANC with 65% of the vote were elected and Nelson Mandela became the first President of the new South Africa.

" The time for the healing of the wounds has come. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come. The time to build is upon us."

- Nelson Mandela

As President, he sought to heal the rifts of the past. Despite being mistreated he was magnanimous in his dealing with his oppressors. His forgiving and tolerant attitude gained the respect of the whole South African nation and considerably eased the transition to a full democracy.

"If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness. "

- Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela retired from the Presidency in 1999, to be succeeded by Thabo Mbeki. Recently ill health has curtailed his public life. However, he does speak out on certain issues. He has been very critical of the Bush led invasion of Iraq. He has also campaigned to highlight the issue of HIV / AIDS in South Africa.

He is currently married to his third wife Graca Machel

Nelson Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 (jointly with F W De Klerk)

Biography of Henri Mastisse

Henri Matisse was born on December 31, 1869, as the son of a grain merchant in the Picardy in Le Cateau–Cambrésis, France. He grew up at Bohain-en-Vermandois and studied law in Paris from 1887 to 1888. By 1891, he had abandoned law and started to paint (When Henri Matisse was 21 years old he became seriously ill as he had an acute attack of appendicitis. During the phase of convalescence Matisse started painting and discovered his love for art, which should become his life-long passion. he began to paint after ). In Paris, Matisse studied art for brief periods at the Académie Julian and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts with Gustave Moreau.

In 1901, Matisse exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris and met another future leader of the Fauve movement, Maurice de Vlaminck. His first solo show took place at the Galerie Vollard in 1904. Both Leo and Gertrude Stein, as well as Etta and Claribel Cone, began to collect Matisse’s work at that time. Like many avant-garde artists in Paris, Matisse was receptive to a broad range of influences. He was one of the first painters to take an interest in primitive art. Matisse abandoned the palette of the Impressionists and established his characteristic style, with its flat, brilliant color and fluid line. His subjects were primarily women, interiors, and still lifes. In 1913, his work was included in the Armory Show in New York. By 1923, two Russians, Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morosov, had purchased nearly 50 of his paintings. From the early 1920s until 1939, Matisse divided his time primarily between the South of France and Paris. During this period, he worked on paintings, sculptures, lithographs, and etchings, as well as on murals for the Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania, designs for tapestries, and set and costume designs for Léonide Massine’s ballet Rouge et noir. While recuperating from two major operations in 1941 and 1942, Matisse concentrated on a technique he had devised earlier: papiers découpés (paper cutouts). Jazz, written and illustrated by Matisse, was published in 1947; the plates are stencil reproductions of paper cutouts.

In 1948, he began the design for the decoration of Chapelle du Rosaire at Vence, which was completed and consecrated in 1951. The same year, a major retrospective of his work was presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and then traveled to Cleveland, Chicago, and San Francisco. In 1952, the Musée Matisse was inaugurated at the artist’s birthplace of Le Cateau–Cambrésis. Matisse continued to make large paper cutouts, the last of which was a design for the rose window at Union Church of Pocantico Hills, New York. He died on November 3, 1954, in Nice.

The Master of Colors
After an exhibition of their works in 1905 at the Salon d'Automne the group around Matisse and Andre Derain was ironically and pejoratively dubbed Les Fauves, which literally means The Wild Beasts. His earlier work, especially Luxe, Calme, et Volupte, was very pointilistic as he was very much influenced by Seurat. Matisse became Neo-Impressionistic, using both colors and shapes boldly. From 1905 to 1906 Matisse painted one of his best paintings, The Joy of Life. It is considered to be one of the most important works of Twenty Century art and was bought by the famous art collector Dr. Albert C. Barnes. This painting and the whole Barnes collection was veiled from the public for 72 years. Finally the collection of the Barnes Foundation was opened to the art world again in 1993 and can be visited outside Philadelphia. The American writer Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo were early collectors and supporters of Matisse paintings. Another admirer became Pablo Picasso with whom he exchanged paintings in 1907. After World War I, Matisse had gained a high reputation and was an internationally recognized artist. His later work emphasized the saturation of color and a simplicity of lines. In several works, he exhibits a plasticity of forms that complements his simplistic and saturated use of color. In some of his paintings, he transposed patterns which diminished the sense of space in his work. Matisse was a primary mover of the Fauves and was widely recognized, making various connections with the American community in France. Matisse sculpted in clay, bronze and ceramics as well. He also ran an art academy for three years. Many of his paintings featured views out of windows and partial interiors. In 1908, Matisse published "Notes d'un Peintre" which embodied his personal statement as an artist.In 1917 he left Paris and settled in Nice in the South of France where he remained until the end of his life. In 1925 he was honoured with the French Legion of Honor award.

The Late Years
In 1941 Matisse had an abdominal cancer surgery which had a devastating effect on his health and ability to paint. He was unable to stand upright in front of an easel. The artist therefore turned to another form of artistic ex-pression. He created paper cut-outs in the same vivid, strong colors and daring compositions known from his paintings. He had an assistant and could work lying in bed or sitting comfortably in an arm-chair. Henri Matisse died on November 3, 1954 in Nice as an internationally well known and highly reputable artist. He had continued creating paper cutout works until the day of his death. Pablo Picasso once said about the artist: "All things considered, there is only Matisse".

Henri Matisse Citations
"I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have the light joyousness of springtime, which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me."

"In modern art, it is undoubtedly to Cezanne that I owe the most."

"A colorist makes his presence known even in a single charcoal drawing."

"The essential thing is to spring forth, to express the bolt of lightning one senses upon contact with a thing. The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction."

Biography of Dennis Loren

Dennis Loren is a well known accomplished graphic designer specializing in music related marketing materials and publication design. He has created album covers, posters, and print ads for Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters, Paul McCartney, The Velvet Underground, Rick James and many others.

Dennis was born in Detroit in 1946. After graduating from high school in 1964 he worked full time while attending art classes until he was drafted in 1965. In the spring of 1967 he was briefly stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco. He was discharged there and decided to stay since it was really happening there. that time. Excited by the music scene he decided to form a band with guitarist Joe Toschi called "Mercury Vapor". His musical high point was jamming with BB King and Charlie Musselwhite at the Fillmore West in February of 1970.

He returned to Detroit in 1971 where he continued his art and music. He recorded a album with Ted Lucas in 1976. He also worked with Stanley Mouse on a Ted Lucas solo album cover design. Also in 1976 he began working at the Detroit Sun with Gary Grimshaw and John Sinclair. In 1978 Dennis became the Art Director for Goldmine Magazine. During this time he also began to work for indie labels as a freelance designer. Throughout the 70's and 80's he did hundreds of flyers, posters, record covers for Detroit area bands. In 1986 he again worked with Gary at Creem magazine. When Cambray Publishing, which owned Creem, decided to relocate to Los Angeles Dennis became the Art Director. That lasted until Creem was sold in 1991. Dennis started freelancing fulltime with labels like Rhino, Bomp, Ichiban, Del-Fi, and Curb among others. He has also done a couple of posters for the House Of Blues in LA. The Whisky-A-Go-Go has asked him to design a commemorative series of posters which will be available soon. These will feature all the major artists that played the historic venue! He is currently working on the packaging for a collection of Frank Zappa's early recordings for Del-Fi records.

Biography of Erickson Kerne

Kerne Erickson, a graduate of the prestigious Los Angeles Art Center College of Design, Erickson spent years as a freelance graphic artist compiling an arsenal from the innumerable and varying demands exerted by his considerable clientele, the culmination of this freelance experience is a style that bares rich evidence of the hand, brush and paint, but without distracting from the total impact of a completed image. For the last three years Erickson has applied his talents to the gradual expansion of the vivid Travel and Aloha images offered by Greg Young Publishing. Although close to twenty of Erickson’s pieces in the line now focus on travel to the Hawaiian Islands, there is an almost equal share of the line that depicts among the most recognizable landmarks from all over the United States and the world, the New York skyline and the Eiffel Tower being just two examples of these. A meticulous researcher, Erickson tracks the slightest details—from license plates to period clothing—to render them historically accurate for a finished work which appeals to both the aviation-travel historian and any admirer of fine art.

Erickson is a member of the National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society recipient of the Most Innovative Painting Award at the National Oil and Acrylic Painters Exhibit in Osage Beach, MO. Other recent awards among his numerous honors include the Patron Purchase Award at the 1997 Watercolor USA Juried Show in Springfield, MO., as well as the Gold Award at the 1994 California Discovery Awards Juried Competitio.

Biography of Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera was born on December 8, 1886, in Guanajuato, Mexico. At the age of two, before Diego was even able to read, his father set up a studio for him. The family lived in Guanajuato until 1892, when they moved to Mexico City. At the young age of 10, Diego decided he wanted to become an artist. So he began taking evening classes at the Academy of San Carlos in Mexico City. He enrolled in military college at the request of his father. But Diego did not like the strict regimen and after two weeks, in 1898, he attended San Carlos as a full-time student. At the school’s annual show, he exhibited for the first time with 26 works and became and established painter. But Rivera was unhappy with the new art director at the academy. And so he decided to leave the school where he had been a student for the last six years.

Diego Rivera's art was one of the columns on which one of the strongest movements in american painting was to find support: Mexican Muralism. His art greatly depends on a vocabulary born from a mixture between Gauguin and the aztec and mayan sculptures. His works range from murals and pencil drawings to book illustrations and political writings. Diego Rivera, using simplified forms and vivid colors, brilliantly rescued the precolombine past, as well as the most important moments of Mexico's history: the land, the factory and land workers, the customs and the popular way of life. Diego Rivera's contribution to modern mexican art was decisive in murals and conventional painting; he was a revolutionary painter who wanted to take the art to a broad audience, to the street and buildings, using a precise and direct language with a realistic style, full of social meaning. Parallel to his creative effort, Diego Rivera teached and gathered a magnificent collection of mexican popular art.

Early Years of Diego Rivera
Diego María Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, better known as Diego Rivera, was barely ten years old, Diego's family moved to Mexico City. There, he obtained a government scholarhip to attend to the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos (San Carlos' Fine Arts Academy), in which he remained until he was expelled in 1902, due to his participation in the student revolts of that year. The influences he received while in Mexico's capital were varied, going from those received from his first teacher, who was a pupil of Ingres,to those from José Guadalupe Posada, engraver in whose workshop Diego worked and whose influence was to be decisive in his subsequent artistic development. Five years later, Diego had his first exposition, which was a great success among the public; this earned him a Veracruz's government scholarship to continue his pictoric education in Spain, at the San Fernando de Madrid school. From there he traveled to France, Belgium, Holland and Great Britain, between 1908 and 1910, until he finally moved to Paris in 1911. During this trip he was influenced by post-impresionism, mainly by Paul Cézanne's art. This moved him to experiment with cubism and some other new styles, in whose languages Diego unfolded freely, creating original artworlks full of harmony. In 1910 he also exhibited forty of his artworks in Mexico, with which, even though his vigorous style was not fully developed, he obtained a favorable reaction from the public.

Journey Continued ...
In 1909, through his friend and fellow painter Maria Gutierrez, he met a young Russian painter by the name of Angelina Belhoff. She later became his common law wife for the next twelve years. They traveled Europe together and spent a lot of time in Paris where Diego participated in several exhibitions. During this time, they had many friends who were Russian. In 1918, Rivera met Elie Faure, which began a lifelong friendship between the two men. Faure reawakened Rivera’s enthusiasm for murals and encouraged him to go to Italy and study the works of the masters. While in Italy, he was exposed to frescoes from hundreds of years earlier. They were often painted on the walls of churches so that everyone in the towns could enjoy and appreciate them. After fourteen years away from Mexico, he left Paris and Angelina Belhoff and returned home and participated in what is known as the Mexican Renaissance.

Jose Vasconcelos, the new minister of public education, initiated a national program which included adding mural art to public buildings. He offered Rivera an indoor wall at the National Preparatory School, part of the University of Mexico. Here, Rivera painted one of his most popular works, Creation. In 1922, he married Guadalupe Marin, whom he met while on travels in Mexico to study the various landscapes and history. Over the next four years, Rivera worked on 124 frescoes on the courtyard walls of the Ministry of Public Education. This particular work made him famous in the Western world and truly began the revival of mural painting.

In the Fall of 1927, Diego traveled to the Soviet Union to take part in the tenth anniversary celebrations of the October Revolution. He traveled as a member of an official delegation of the Mexican Communist Party. When he returned to Mexico, his marriage to Guadalupe Marin, the mother of his two children, ended. In 1928, he went on to meet Frida Kahlo, at a weekly party. He and Kahlo married in 1929, the year he was also appointed the head of the Department of Plastic Crafts at the Ministry of Education, a position he held until 1938. Rivera, with the help of David Siqueiros and Jose Clemente Orozco, created the Labor Union of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors. In November of 1930, Rivera began work on his first two major American commissions: the American Stock Exchange Luncheon Club and the California School of Fine Arts. But it was in 1932 that Nelson Rockefeller asked him to paint a mural in the Radio Corporation Arts building in Rockefeller Center. And in 1933, he began the mural entitled Man at the Cossroads. However, conflict arose over the mural in which Rivera included Lenin, leader of the Soviet Union. As a result, the mural was never completed and was chipped off the wall and destroyed in February of 1934. Rivera was determined to compete the mural but in a different location. His new version called Man, Controller of the Universe, was done in Mexico City and included a portrait of Lenin and Leon Trotsky. Rivera returned to Mexico at the end of 1933.

In the 1930 decade, his fame expansion took Rivera to show his art in New York, and was asked to paint big murals at the Detroit Art Institute and at the Rockefeller Center in New York, where his fresco "Hombre en la encrucijada (Man at the crossroads)", received a lot of criticism because of the resemblance of one of his figures with Lenin. The mural was destroyed by the Rockefeller Center, and substituted by antoher from Brangwyn, but Diego later reproduced it for the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Palace) in Mexico City. In his numerous assignments decorating public buildings, Rivera used the buon fresco, technique, which he fashioned again, as well as the use of old encaustic methods.

Alberto Pani, a politician who had befriended Rivera in Europe, was asked to ascertain if Mexico would permit Leon Trotsky immediate political asylum. Rivera sought out President Cárdenas, who agreed to give Trotsky refuge. Trotsky and his wife lived in Rivera’s home of Coyoacán. Along with André and Jacqueline Bretón, the Trotsky and Rivera families socialized and traveled together until personal and political conflicts developed between Diego and Trotsky. In 1940, Diego and Frida were separated, divorced, and remarried in December of the same year. Rivera went to San Francisco to participate in the 1940 Golden Gate international exposition. Meanwhile, Trotsky’s life was in danger when Siqueiros led an assassination attempt on him in his Coyoacán house. Just months later, Trotsky was assassinated by Ramón Mercader in August.

In 1947, Rivera went on to form the Commission of Mural Painting, an arm of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA), with Orozco and Siqueiros. Controversy followed Rivera once again when he completed his mural at the Hotel del Prado. He included a slogan reading “God does not exist”, which kept the mural from public view for nine years. Once again, one of Rivera’s works was removed in 1952. This time, it was in the Palacio Nacional de Bellas Artes, where his painting of The Nightmare of War and the Dream of Peace included Stalin and Mao Tsetung.

Last Years
From the end of the 1930 decade he painted landscapes and portraits. In his last paintings, he developed an indigenist and social style of great popular atractive. , in November 25th 1957 at Mexico City. Rivera suffered a great loss in July of 1954 when his wife Frida Kahlo died. But one year later, he married Emma Hurtado, his dealer since 1946. Following an operation towards the end of the year, Rivera went through cobalt treatments. In April of 1956, he returned to his native Mexico and recuperated at the home of his friend Dolores Olmedo. On November 24, 1957, Rivera died of heart failure in his San Angel studio. He was buried in the Rotunda of Famous Men in Civil Pantheon of Mourning. His most ambitious and greates project, an epic mural based on Mexico's history for the National Palace, was left unfinished due to his death. No wonder, he is still considered a Latin American folk hero.

Biography of Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko was born on Sept. 25, 1903, in Gvinsk, Russia, and immigrated to the United States in 1913, settling in Seattle. He enrolled at Yale University in 1921 and at The Art Student's League in New York in 1925. In 1936, Rothko joined the WPA (Works Project Administration) easel painting division in New York where he met Adolph Gottlieb, Milton Avery and William Baziotes. In 1948, with Robert Motherwell, Clifford Still and Barnett Newman, Rothko formed 'The Subjects of Artists School,' a group that met to discuss the content of abstract painting. By the late 1940's, Rothko was considered a seminal figure in the Abstract ex-pressionist movement. Rothko's images became abstract under the influence of the European Surrealist's, and like the Surrealists, he was interested in mythology and universal symbols. By the late 1940's, Rothko had established his signature style of rectangular forms defined by an irregular, undefined edge painted on a one-color field. Celebrated for his use of color, Rothko developed a process in which he used thinned oils applied in layers to attain the effect of translucent and luminous watercolor. For extensive periods throughout his career Rothko taught at colleges and universities.

Rothko's first solo exhibition in New York was held at the Contemporary Arts Gallery in 1933. In 1935, he was a founding member of the Ten, a group of artists sympathetic to abstraction and ex-pressionism [more]. He executed easel paintings for the WPA Federal Art Project from 1936 to 1937. By 1936, Rothko knew Barnett Newman. In the early 1940s, he worked closely with Gottlieb, developing a painting style with mythological content, simple flat shapes, and imagery inspired by primitive art. By mid-decade, his work incorporated Surrealist techniques and images. Peggy Guggenheim gave Rothko a solo show at Art of This Century in New York in 1945. In 1947 and 1949, Rothko taught at the California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco, where Clyfford Still was a fellow instructor. With William Baziotes, David Hare, and Robert Motherwell, Rothko founded the short-lived Subjects of the Artist school in New York in 1948. The late 1940s and early 1950s saw the emergence of Rothko's mature style, in which frontal, luminous rectangles seem to hover on the canvas surface. In 1958, the artist began his first commission, monumental paintings for the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, gave Rothko an important solo exhibition in 1961. He completed murals for Harvard University in 1962 and in 1964 accepted a mural commission for an interdenominational chapel in Houston. Rothko took his own life February 25, 1970, in his New York studio. A year later, the Rothko Chapel in Houston was dedicated.

Rothko's images became abstract under the influence of the European Surrealist's, and like the Surrealists, he was interested in mythology and universal symbols. By the late 1940's, Rothko had established his signature style of rectangular forms defined by an irregular, undefined edge painted on a one-color field. Celebrated for his use of color, Rothko developed a process in which he used thinned oils applied in layers to attain the effect of translucent and luminous watercolor.

Rothko's paintings are viewed by many to be quasi-religious although they have represent no object or symbol of faith. They are spiritual, timeless and personal, transcendent and emotional.

Biography of Alphonse Mucha

Alphonse Mucha was born in 1860 in Ivancice, Moravia, which is near the city of Brno in the modern Czech Republic. It was a small town, and for all intents and purposes life was closer to the 18th than the 19th century. Though Mucha is supposed to have started drawing before he was walking, his early years were spent as a choirboy and amateur musician. It wasn't until he finished high school (needing two extra years to accomplish that onerous task) that he came to realize that living people were responsible for some of the art he admired in the local churches. That epiphany made him determined to become a painter, despite his father's efforts in securing him "respectable" employment as a clerk in the local court.

Like every aspiring artist of the day, Mucha ended up in Paris in 1887. He was a little older than many of his fellows, but he had come further in both distance and time. A chance encounter in Moravia had provided him with a patron who was willing to fund his studies. After two years in Munich and some time devoted to painting murals for his patron, he was sent off to Paris where he studied at the Academie Julian. After two years the supporting funds were discontinued and Alphonse Mucha was set adrift in a Paris that he would soon transform. At the time, however, he was a 27 year old with no money and no prospects

For five years he played the part to perfection. Living above a Cremerie that catered to art students, drawing illustrations for popular (ie. low-paying) magazines, getting deathly ill and living on lentils and borrowed money, Mucha met all the criteria. It was everything an artist's life was supposed to be. Some success, some failure. Friends abounded and art flourished. It was the height of Impressionism and the beginnings of the Symbolists and Decadents. He shared a studio with Gauguin for a bit after his first trip to the south seas. Mucha gave impromptu art lessons in the Cremerie and helped start a traditional artists ball, Bal des Quat'z Arts. All the while he was formulating his own theories and precepts of what he wanted his art to be.

The breakthrough came in December 1894. Mucha became famous with a commission for a poster for the actress Sarah Bernard. On January 1, 1895, he presented his new style to the citizens of Paris. Called upon over the Christmas holidays to created a poster for Sarah Bernhardt's play, Gismonda, he put his precepts to the test. The poster, at left, was the declaration of his new art. Spurning the bright colors and the more squarish shape of the more popular poster artists, the near life-size design was a
sensation.Sarah Bernard was a very famous actress and celebrity of her time. His poster design for the play Gismonda became a sensation in Paris. Sarah Bernhard was delighted. He received an exclusive contract for six consecutive years by the actress. In the following years, he not only designed all her posters, but her theater decorations and costumes as well. From now on the artist was swamped with commissions for all kind of commercial print advertising.

Art Nouveau ("New Art" in French) can trace it's beginnings to about this time. Based on precepts akin to William Morris' Arts and Crafts movement in England, the attempt was to eradicate the dividing line between art and audience. Everything could and should be art. Burne-Jones designed wallpaper, Hector Guimard designed metro stations, and Mucha designed champagne advertising (at right) and stage sets. Each country had its own name for the new approach and artists of incredible skill and vision flocked to the movement. Overnight, Mucha's name became a household word and, though his name is often used synonymously with the new movement in art, he disavowed the connection. Like Sinatra, he merely did it "my way." His way was based on a strong composition, sensuous curves derived from nature, refined decorative elements and natural colors. The Art Nouveau precepts were used, too, but never at the expense of his vision.

His fame spread around the world and several trips to America and resulted in covers and illustrations in a variety of U.S. magazines. Portraiture was also commissioned from U.S. patrons. At the end of the decade he was prepared to begin what he considered his life's work. Mucha was always a patriot of his Czech homeland and considered his success a triumph for the Czech people as much as for himself. In 1909 he was commissioned to paint a series of murals for the Lord Mayor's Hall in Prague. He also began to plan out "The Slav Epic" - a series of great paintings chronicling major events in the Slav nation. Financing was provided by Charles Crane, a Chicago millionaire. Mucha had hoped to complete the task in five or six years, but instead it embraced 18 years of his life. Twenty massive (about 24 x 30 feet) canvasses were created and presented to the city of Prague in 1928. Covering the history of the Slavic people from prehistory to the nineteenth century, they represented Mucha's hopes and dreams for his homeland. In 1919 the first eleven canvases were completed and exhibited in Prague, and America where they received a much warmer welcome.

Alphonse Mucha with his decorative posters has become a kind of trademark and synonym for the Art Nouveau movement. In the sixties his poster reproductions had a revival and were popular again among the flower-power and hippie generation. Alfons Mucha - his Academic Training Alfons Maria Mucha was born in Ivancice, a small provincial town in the Czech Republic.

In 1990 the artist had his first one man show in Paris with 448 works on display. His art work was not confined to the printing media. He designed tissues, stamps and even bank bills. In 1900 he received a commission by the Austrian government to decorate the Austrian pavilion for the World Fair in Paris of 1900. He became also active in designing jewelry. Between 1904 and 1921 Mucha traveled frequently to the United States. He took commissions in the US and taught art at art academies in New York and Chicago. In 1939 the German Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia. The popularity of the artist made him a number one target for the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police. He was arrested, interrogated and realeased. Shortly afterwards, Alphonse Maria Mucha died on July 14, 1939 in Prague. The city of Prague has dedicated an Alphonse Mucha Museum to the artist.

Biography of Will Rafuse

Will Rafuse was born in Calgary, Alberta. After spending many years living on the Prairies he moved to Vancouver in 1986. He received a diploma in Graphic Arts and Illustration from Capilano College in North Vancouver and continued his education at Vancouver Community College, receiving a diploma in Computer Graphics and Multimedia. Intrigued by the works of Modigliani, Gauguin and Balthus, Will works mostly in oils and is known for his bright colors and the slightly animated twist of the subjects he paints. Aside from illustrating for a number of corporations, he has been a regular at "Painters' Corner" in Stanley Park, Vancouver. His art is in the collection of corporations and individuals around the world.

Although he was born in Calgary, Alberta, Will has been a resident of Vancouver for 17 years. Despite his lifelong interest in art, it was only in 1994 when Will decided to pursue his interest in painting. Will began his professional painting career in Stanley Park's Painter's Corner, not knowing that his colorful characters will soon become a permanent fixture in the Vancouver art scene and in both private and corporate collections worldwide. His signature style can be recognized in movies and television shows.

Working exclusively in oils, Will has the ability to make his subject matter come alive with the use of stunning, bold colors, an element that has become part of his signature style. His art has a universal appeal to those who are looking to add a light hearted, witty image to their environment. His work ranges from loveable animals to animated characters to delectable pastries and cocktails, but his trademark style remains unmistakable.

After graduating from Capilano College's Graphic Art and Illustration program in 1996, Will continued his work at Stanley Park until the year 2000. Soon after completing his education, the Robson Street Business Association selected Will to design the banners that adorned Robson Street from May to October of 1996. In 1997, his artwork penetrated the open edition poster market, when he signed a partnership with Canadian Art Posters. Since then, his collection of vibrant imagery has gained popularity worldwide, quickly making him one of CAP's top selling artists. In addition to his originals and open edition prints, Will's images have also been licensed for a variety of products including coasters, dish ware, textiles, decorative clocks, among others, and have remained in high demand in the licensing industry.

Though his schedule is always full, Will thoroughly enjoys contributing to the community and never fails to make time to support local and national non-profit organizations. Through the years, Will has donated original pieces to many of Vancouver's charities such as The Shooting Star Foundation, Loving Spoonful, and Canuck Place Hospice. Also, he has contributed artwork to help raise funds for American Express' "Taste of the Nation", fighting hunger in the community, the Ronald McDonald House, the Arizona Animal Welfare League and Robert Mondovi's campaign in support of Canada's Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Despite his tremendous success, Will maintains his down-to-earth and friendly nature that makes him a well respected and esteemed individual in all the ventures that he embarks upon. He continues to work hard at his craft and constantly strives for growth as an artist and as a person. In 2003 Will was nominated and has become a member of the "International Who's Who Historical Society."

Biography of James Blakeway

James Blakeway is founder, president and chief panoramic photographer for Blakeway Worldwide Panoramas, Inc., in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Blakeway was born and raised in Fargo, North Dakota, and received a B.S. in marketing from the University of North Dakota. After holding several marketing positions with Procter & Gamble, he decided to start his own business. Unsure which direction his business should take, he seized an opportunity to travel to Australia, thinking that he might find a business idea there. Indeed he did: he met two men who had created a phenomenal panoramic photograph of the Sydney Harbor. Blakeway worked with them until his visa expired, sold them his share of the business in exchange for a few hundred posters and returned to the United States to start his own panoramic photo business.

In California, Blakeway and a partner began selling photos from Blakeway's garage and from the trunk of his car. Later, he moved the business to Minneapolis and then to Eden Prairie, where the company is now located. Today Blakeway and his team travel the globe creating some of the most beautiful cityscapes made by anyone in the world. James Blakeway is known for going to extreme lengths to get the picture he wants. This can mean hanging from helicopters, or being suspended by a crane 800 feet up in the air. From these crazy exploits he has managed to take some fantastic city scapes of many of the worlds most famous cities, historical landmarks and golf courses.

James Blakeway uses unconventional ways of getting the panoramic shot he desires. He has hung from a helicopter and been suspended 800 feet in the air from a crane. One of the world's premier skyline photographers, Blakeway makes it his business to get the shot nobody else dares. The result of his aerobic exploits is an impressive collection of more that 120 panoramic lithographs of U.S. and world cities, historic landmarks and golf courses. Blakeway's collection is marketed worldwide through art galleries, framing and art retailers, photography studios and on the Internet.

Biography of Leonetto Cappiello

Born in the Italian resort town of Livorno, Cappiello (1875 – 1942) had a natural talent for drawing and his first ambition was to be a great painter. Leonetto Cappiello is often called the father of the Modern Poster. His posters are a sequel to the works of the artists such as Villemot, Cheret and Pal. The Italian born artist, became famous in 1900 and created posters in Paris for over forty years. Leonetto Cappiello started his career working as a caricaturist. After 1900 he devoted himself to painting and advertising poster design. Soon he became the most acclaimed European artist of that period. He became an innovator of advertising poster techniques, often painting the figures on a monochrome background, achieving an impressive aesthetic effect in combination with vividly colored graphics. In the beginning, he became quite popular as a caricaturist working for magazines. His style was humorous and joyful, with bold colors and he went on to become a successful posterist just at a time when the output of the 1890's had begun to slow. Cappiello was the poster artist to work in the traditions of the nineteenth century. Cappiello had a clear antecedents in his style but he developed an entirely original approach to the means of portraying the pictorial message. By means of wide color planes and highly exaggerated colors and situations, he shocked, surprised and moved. He began his career with a very gestural style and then went on to lead the bold graphic style of the Art Deco movement as it flowered in the 1902's and 30's. He designed posters for ballets, literature, plays and music halls, champagne and spirits bottles and even travel. He produced approximately 3,000 lithographic posters, making him the most prestigious artist in the history of the lithographic poster.

As a painter he decorated many halls of the Galeries Lafayette in Paris and in 1922, he took part in the Biennale of Venice. Later, in 1939, he participated in the Exposition des Arts Decoratives in Paris. He stared studying art with a painter’s career in mind, but meanwhile, purely as a hobby, he would make a quick sketch of anybody who caught his attention- relatives, home town characters, an occasional interesting tourist. Soon, he found that these quick caricatures were always favorably received, and y the time he was 21, he was able to make a little money by having the best of these homespun drawings published in booklet form. That may not have swayed him in itself, but two years later, in 1898, he took a trip to Paris to visit his older brother who happened to be working there a the Stock Exchange. Leonetto found Paris intoxicating, and wanted to put off returning to his sleepy little seaside hometown for a while; the only way to it, of course, was by finding a way to support himself. Why not utilize his gift for caricature again? His brother told him that various magazines might pay a good price for caricatures of celebrities, particularly ones that have not been done to death already. Since that was true of most of the regularly Paris stars, Leonetto to approached two famous visitors who were just then staying in town, and who, being fellow Italian, might be willing to give an untried kid a break: actor Ermete Novelli and composer Giacomo Puccini. They obliged, and Leonetto promptly sold the sketches to Le Rire; they were so well received that within weeks, he became the favored caricaturist of theater and cabaret stars of Paris.

One of the major reasons for the quick acceptance of Cappiello was the fact that his caricatures were never offensive: where other caricaturists would grossly distort their subjects’ facial features and hold them up for ridicule, Cappiello used only subtle exaggeration to spotlight their outstanding characteristics. This gave him access to the one group of performers who previously fought tooth and nail not to be caricatured: the prominent ladies of the stage. When they saw that he meant them no harm, even the most famous names of the day-Sarah Bernhardt, Rejane, Jeannie Granier- were suddenly willing to sit still for caricatures, and the young man from Livorno became the darling of the foremost beauties of Paris. This prompted Alexandre Natanson, co-publisher of La Revue Blanche, one of the magazines that had been using his sketches, to commission Cappiello to publish a portfolio of these drawings under the title “Nos Actrices” (“Our Actresses”), which came out in 1899 and launched his career in earnest.
But he might have remained a professional illustrator if one of the editors to whom he routinely submitted sketches had not asked him to prepare a poster for a new humor magazine he was launching, Le Frou-Frou. Cappiello used a simple caricature in his usual style – a can-can girl kicking up her skirts – but now he had to use color, so he opted for a plain yellow background and a dab of red on the pantaloons peeking out from under the petticoats.

The poster, prepared so quickly in such an offhand way, made a provocative splash on the billboards that no passer-by could resist. Instinctively, Cappiello hit on the right formula: create an eye-catching character and make a bold, loud statement-and everything else becomes immaterial. It brought him immediate further offers from various advertisers, and made him aware of the enormous power of effective communication: he found the field in which he would labor the rest of his life. His technique evolved fundamentally from that of British posterists like Hassal, Hardy and the Beggarstaff Brothers, who used simple drawings and flat colors-only Cappiello added dynamic zest and dramatic impact they had never dreamed of. The designs, for the first few attempts, are firmly rooted in his caricature style; but gradually, he frees his imagination and begins to develop a poster language even more compelling.

In 1981, a major retrospective of Cappiello's work was presented at the Galerie Nationale du Grand Palais in Paris.

Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe was an American artist born on November 15, 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. O'Keeffe is chiefly known for her landscapes and paintings of desert flowers, which are often interpreted as yonic symbols. Her mature style stressed contours and subtle tonal transitions, which often transformed the subject into a powerful abstract image. O'Keeffe studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students' League in New York City. She began teaching in the public schools in Amarillo, Texas in 1914. In 1916 started teaching at Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina. While in South Carolina, a friend showed some of O'Keeffe's drawings to photographer and art gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz. Impressed by the drawings, Stieglitz began negotiations to display her work and she allowed him to exhibit some of them. Stieglitz was especially impressed with O'Keeffe's interpretations of landscapes in the American West. In 1916, Stieglitz arranged for O'Keeffe to move to New York City and secured a place for her to live. Over the next few years O'Keeffe and Stieglitz fell in love, and Stieglitz and his wife divorced. In 1924, O'Keeffe and Stieglitz married, beginning one of history's great creative partnerships. Some of Stieglitz' best work was of O'Keeffe, his muse, and in turn he promoted and encouraged her art throughout his life. Georgia O'Keeffe was an American original, living as she chose, painting what she wanted. It is said that her art is uniquely American, shining with a bright modernism and energy. The lyrical flowers, the New Mexico-inspired vistas of light and shape, the hard-edged, energetic urban landscapes all somehow could only have been painted by an American woman. O'Keeffe painted all her days, committed as always to what she loved: "Art is a wicked thing. It is what we are."

During her years in New York City, O'Keefe produced many paintings, including urban and architectural images. With Stieglitz's connections in the arts community of New York, O'Keefe's work received a great deal of attention and commanded high prices. Yet O'Keeffe tired of the scene in New York and spent increasing amounts of time in the west. Stieglitz, many years older than O'Keeffe and often in ill health, was uncomfortable with travel. Her trips west gave her the solitude she required to pursue her art.

Though O'Keeffe insisted that there was no symbolism behind her work, art critics continue to speculate about the sexual imagery in such paintings as Black Iris (1926) and Jack in the Pulpit No. 6 (1930). Indeed, this generative tension underlying her botanical paintings accounts for much of their force and mystery, and these images exalting life and energy were among her most optimistic and successful. Between 1926 and 1929 O'Keeffe painted a group of views of New York City. New York Night (1929) transformed skyscrapers into patterned, glittering structures that deny their volume. More architecturally characteristic were such paintings as Lake George Barns (1926) and Ranchos Church, Taos (1929). These simple buildings, further simplified in her painting, were America's anonymous folk architecture; in these forms O'Keeffe found a permanence and tranquility that contrasted with the frenetic urban environment.

In 1929 O'Keeffe began spending time in New Mexico; that region's dramatic mesas, ancient Spanish architecture, vegetation, and desiccated terrain became her constant themes. Total clarity characterizes her elemental vistas, and her subjects existed in self-contained worlds. Even her allegories of death in the desert — a sunbleached skull lying in the sand or affixed to a post (as in Cow's Skull with Red, 1936) — were eternalized. She regarded these whitened relics as symbols of the desert, nothing more. "To me, they are strangely more living than the animals walking around — hair, eyes and all, with their tails switching." The dried animal bones and wooden crucifixes of the region which loom in her desert (Black Cross, New Mexico, 1929) were disquieting apparitions.

In 1945 O'Keeffe bought an old adobe house in New Mexico; she moved there after her husband's death in 1946. The house served as a frequent subject. In paintings such as Black Patio Door (1955) and Patio with Cloud (1956) details of doors, windows, and walls were radically reduced to virtually unmodified planes of color. Many of O'Keeffe's paintings of the 1960s, large-scale patterns of clouds and landscapes seen from the air, reflected a romanticized view of nature evocative of her early themes. It Was Blue and Green (1960) used more impressionistic color, and the painting technique was looser, with less reliance on sharp contours. These large paintings culminated in a 24-foot mural on canvas, Sky above Clouds IV (1965). Her paintings of the 1970s were intense, powerful renditions of a black cock. A portrayal of O'Keeffe, In Cahoots with Coyote, from Terry Tempest Williams' 1994 book An Unspoken Hunger, painted a vivid narrative of the artist's entrancement with her beloved New Mexico she first visited in 1917.

"I simply paint what I see," O'Keeffe is quoted as saying, from O'Keeffe's own essays published in Georgia O'Keeffe in 1987. But, narrated Williams, her search for the ideal color, light, stones, parched bones that contained more life in them than living animals, transformed her forays into desert country into a communion with the perfection around her. Once, in a canyon bottom, she was so enthralled by the sight that she laid her head back Coyote-fashion and howled at the sky, terrifying her companions nearby who feared she was injured. "I can't help it — it's all so beautiful," was her response. Another, well-known story related by Williams was of O'Keeffe purloining a perfectly shaped, totally black stone she coveted from the coffee table of friends. They had found it at a canyon riverbed during a search for stones moments before O'Keeffe arrived at the spot, but kept it tantalizingly out of her reach. Obsessed with the stone and seeing it on the table for her to steal if she wanted, she had no doubt she was the rightful possessor of such beauty.

O'Keeffe's boldly original American works encompassed a wide vision from taut city towers to desertscapes in such vivid hues and form "as to startle the senses," according to the narrative. O'Keeffe painted until a few weeks before her death. O'Keeffe spent much of her time in Taos, New Mexico, and when Stieglitz died in 1946, she took up permanent residence there, living in Taos or Santa Fe until her death in March 6, 1986. Her home was in Abiqui, New Mexico. Many of her works found a permanent home among the abode buildings of Sante Fe, New Mexico. The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, designed by New York architect Richard Gluckman, opened in 1997 to hold more of her pastels, drawings, paintings and sculpture than any other museum.

Biography of Don Li-Leger

Born and raised in British Columbia, Don Li-Leger has painted since childhood, focusing initially on the birds and animals of his native province. Li-Leger's formal training includes studies at the Vancouver School of Art, Simon Fraser University and the Banff Centre School of Fine Art. His work has been featured in exhibitions throughout North America, including the prestigious Leigh-Yawkey Woodson traveling exhibit, and is represented in many private collections. Li-Leger works from the Crescent Beach, British Columbia studio/home he shares with his wife, Cora, also an artist, and their two young children. Li-Leger's original works may be seen at the Petley-Jones Gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Don Li-Leger's paintings reveal the artist’s intimate knowledge and deep sensitivity to the often hidden realms of nature. Born and raised in British Columbia, he has painted since childhood, focusing initially on birds and animals of his native province. In later years, extensive field trips to the Orient and to wildlife sanctuaries throughout North America extended his vision - and the scope of his subject matter.Recently, his work has taken a new departure, with figurative etchings and more improvisational mono-prints and paintings.

Li-Leger’s formal training includes studies at the Vancouver School of Art and the Banff Centre School of Fine Art, and studies in plant ecology at Simon Fraser University. His work has been featured in exhibitions throughout North America, and is represented in many private collections. Li-Leger works from the CrescentHeights studio/home, which he shares with his wife, Cora, who is also an artist. Don Li-Leger has experienced a rich and varied life. He travelled around the world in 1971 before studying plant ecology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. He then studied painting with Terry Frost at the Banff Centre School of Fine Art in 1975 and illustration with Frank Beebe, natural history artist with the B.C. Provincial Museum. In 1977, Don studied print-making at Okanagan College in Kelowna, B.C. where he received a Canadian Nature Artist Scholarship Award. While Don lived here, his paintings of birds and other nature themed pieces became very sought after by collectors.

The paintings in this series grew out of my intensive involvement with monoprints, where I improvised and combined various imagery with broad areas of rolled-on saturated colour. Here, I have returned to painting, in my desire to integrate the spontaneity and liveliness of Oriental brushwork that has long inspired and influenced me. Using Chinese as well as Western bristle brushes, I apply acrylic paint and gels on canvas, often layered transparent colour or rice paper collage to achieve desired effects. As with much of my work, nature remains an underlying theme. In some paintings the calligraphy is taken from ancient and Chinese poems, and reflects my interest and studies in Asian painting, travels and philosophy.

Biography of Henri Silberman

Henri Silberman is an American photographer, born in Paris. In his teenage years, Silberman became fascinated by photography and has subsequently made a highly successful career from his talent and skills, especially in the field of New York urban landscapes. The famous Brooklyn Bridge photograph which is one of the most popular work, features lower Manhattan and a view of the Brooklyn Bridge. Shown between the two piers of the bridge is the South Street Seaport. Across the bridge are the 110 story twin towers of the World Trade Center. Moon Over Manhattan, New York, Sky Over Manhattan, Empire State Building at Night, Flatrion, Chrysler Building are other popular work of Henri Silberma

Biography of Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. He was one of the greatest minds of the Italian Renaissance, and his influence on the painting of the following generations was enormous. Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, near the village of Vinci about 25 miles west of Florence. He was the illegitimate son of Ser Piero da Vinci, a prominent notary of Florence, who had no other children until much later. Ser Piero raised his son himself, a common practice at the time, arranging for Leonardo's mother to marry a villager. When Leonardo was 15, his father apprenticed him to Andrea del Verrocchio, the leading artist of Florence and a characteristic talent of the early Renaissance. Verrocchio, a sculptor, painter, and goldsmith, was a remarkable craftsman, and his great skill and passionate concern for quality of execution, as well as his interest in expressing the vital mobility of the human figure, were important element. Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance architect, musician, anatomist, inventor, engineer, sculptor, geometer, and painter. He has been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" and as a universal genius. Leonardo is famous for his masterly paintings, such as The Last Supper and Mona Lisa. He is also known for designing many inventions that anticipated modern technology but were rarely constructed in his lifetime. In addition, he helped advance the study of anatomy, astronomy, and civil engineering.

Leonardo da Vinci was born on April 15, 1452, in Anchiano, near Vinci, Italy. He was an illegitimate child. His father, Ser Piero da Vinci was a young lawyer and his mother,Caterina, was probably a peasant girl. It has also been suggested, albeit on scanty evidence, that she was a Middle Eastern slave owned by Piero. However, the lattertheory is unlikely to be true. As he was born before modern naming conventions developed in Europe, his full name was "Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci", which means"Leonardo, son of Mister Piero, from Vinci". Leonardo himself simply signed his works "Leonardo" or "Io, Leonardo" ("I, Leonardo"). Most authorities therefore refer to hisworks as "Leonardos", not "da Vincis". Presumably he did not use his father's name because of his illegitimate status.

Leonardo grew up with his father in Florence. Here, he started drawing and painting. His early sketches were of such quality that his father soon showed them to the painterAndrea del Verrocchio who subsequently took the fourteen-year old Leonardo on as an apprentice. Later, he became an independent painter in Florence. Modern criticscontend that Leonardo's love of boys was well-known even in the sixteenth century. Rocke reports that in a fictional dialogue on l'amore masculino (male love) written by the contemporary art critic and theorist Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Leonardo appears as one of the protagonists and declares, "Know that male love is exclusively the product ofvirtue which, joining men together with the diverse affections of friendship, makes it so that from a tender age they would enter into the manly one as more stalwart friends." In the dialogue, the interlocutor inquires of Leonardo about his relations with his assistant, Salai, "Did you play the game from behind which the Florentines love so much?"

From around 1482 to 1499 Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan employed Leonardo and permitted him to operate his own workshop complete with apprentices. It was here thatseventy tons of bronze that had been set aside for Leonardo's "Gran Cavallo" horse statue (see below) were cast into weapons for the Duke in an attempt to save Milan fromthe French under Charles VIII in 1495. When the French returned under Louis XII in 1498, Milan fell without a fight, overthrowing Sforza. Leonardo stayed in Milan for a time,until one morning when he found French archers using his life-size clay model of the "Gran Cavallo" for target practice. He left with Salai and his friend (and the first man todescribe double-entry bookkeeping) Luca Pacioli for Mantua, moving on after 2 months to Venice (where he was hired as a military engineer), then briefly returning toFlorence at the end of April 1500.

In Florence he entered the services of Cesare Borgia (also called "Duca Valentino", the son of Pope Alexander VI) as a military architect and engineer with whom he travelled throughout Italy. In 1506 he returned to Milan, now in the hands of Maximilian Sforza after Swiss mercenaries had driven out the French.

From 1513 to 1516 he lived in Rome, where painters like Raphael and Michelangelo were active at the time, though he did not have much contact with these artists. However, he was probably of pivotal importance in relocation of 'David', one of Michelangelo's masterpieces, against the artist's will. In 1515 Francis I of France retook Milan, and Leonardo was commissioned to make a centrepiece (a mechanical lion) for the peace talks between the French King and Pope Leo X in Bologna, where he must have first met the King. In 1516, he entered Francis' service, being given the use of the manor house Clos Lucé next to the king's residence at the Royal Chateau at Amboise The King granted Leonardo and his entourage generous pensions: the surviving document lists 1000 ecus for the artist, 400 for Melzi (named "apprentice") and 100 for Salai (named "servant"). In 1518 Salai left Leonardo and returned to Milan, where he eventually perished in a duel. Francis became a close friend.

Leonardo da Vinci died in Cloux, France on 2nd May, 1519, in the arms of King Francis. According to his wish, 60 beggars followed his casket. He was buried in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in the castle of Amboise. Melzi was his principal heir and executor, but Salai was not forgotten: he received half of Leonardo's vineyard. Leonardo is well known for his artistry and paintings, such as Last Supper (Ultima Cena or Cenacolo, in Milan) 1498, and the Mona Lisa (also known as La Gioconda, now at the Louvre in Paris), 1503-1506. Though there is significant debate whether Leonardo himself painted the Mona Lisa, or whether it was the work of his students, it is known that it was probably his favorite piece. He most likely kept it with him at all times, and not travelling without it. Thousands of people see it each year in the Louvre, perhaps drawing their own interpretation on what is known as the Mona Lisa's most infamous and enigmatic feature - her smile. Leonardo often planned grandiose paintings with many drawings and sketches, only to leave the projects unfinished. For example, in 1481 he was commissioned to paint the altarpiece "The Adoration of the Magi". After extensive, bitious plans and many drawings, the painting was left unfinished and Leonardo left for Milan. Only seventeen of his paintings and none of his statues survived.

In Milan he spent 17 years making plans and models for a monumental seven-metre (24-foot) high horse statue in bronze ("Gran Cavallo". Because of war with France, the project was never finished. Based on private initiative, a similar statue was completed according to some of his plans in 1999 in New York, given to Milan and erected there. The Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland has a small bronze horse, thought to be the work of an apprentice from Leonardo's original design. After returning to Florence, he was commissioned for a large public mural, the "Battle of Anghiari"; his rival Michelangelo was to paint the opposite wall. After producing a fantastic variety of studies in preparation for the work, he left the city, with the mural unfinished due to technical difficulties.

Leonardo pioneered new painting techniques in many of his pieces. One of them, a colour shading technique called "Sfumato", used a series of custom-made glazes by Leonardo. It is characterized by subtle, almost infinitesimal, transitions between color areas, creating a atmospheric haze or smoky effect. "Chiaroscuro" is the technique of modelling and defining forms through contrasts of light and shadow.

List of Paintings
Annunciation (1475-1480) - Uffizi, Florence, Italy
Ginevra de' Benci (~1475) - National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, U.S.
The Benois Madonna (1478-1480) - Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia
The Virgin with Flowers (1478-1481) - Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany
Adoration of the Magi (1481) - Uffizi, Florence, Italy
Cecilia Gallerani with an Ermine (1488-90) - Czartoryski Museum, Krakow, Poland
A Musician (~1490) - Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Italy
Madonna Litta (1490-91) - Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
La Belle Ferronière (1495-1498) - Louvre, Paris, France
Last Supper - (1498) Convent of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy
The Madonna of the Rocks (1483-86) - Louvre, Paris, France
Mona Lisa or La Gioconda (1503-1505/1506) - Louvre, Paris, France
The Madonna of the Rocks or The Virgin of the Rocks (1508) - National Gallery, London, England
Leda and the Swan (1508) - (Only copies survive) Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne (~1510) - Louvre, Paris, France
St. John the Baptist (~1514) - Louvre, Paris, France
Bacchus (1515) - Louvre, Paris, France

Personal Details
Name: Leonardo da Vinci
Birth Date: April 15, 1452
Death Date: May 2, 1519
Place of Birth: Vinci, Italy
Place of Death: Amboise, France
Nationality: Italian
Gender: Male
Occupations: artist, painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, scientist

Biography of Alfred Alexander Gockel

Alfred Alexander Gockel was born in 1952 in Ludinghausen, North-Rine Westphalia, Germany. Fascinated early on by the magic of color on paper, Gockel's talent and enthusiasm lead to the publication of his first artwork when he was eight years old. Educated in the areas of typography and graphic design at Polytechnic in Munster, where he graduated in 1977, Gockel worked in the advertising industry for many years. During this time, he also lectured at his alma mater in his specialized fields. Wishing to devote more time to his artwork, he established the art publishing firm of Avant Art in 1983. From his earliest days on, he was fascinated by the magic of colors on paper. This talent and enthusiasm resulted in the release of this first art work by a German publisher at the age of 8. After he graduated from high school, he commenced his studies at the Polytechnic Academy in Munster in 1973. His main emphasis was typography, graphic design and advertising. He graduated in 1977, and in the following years he was active as a freelance artist, designer and lecturer of typography and graphic design at the Polytechnic Academy in Munster. In 1981 his work of art had developed so strongly, that he had to stop with all additional activities and become a full-time artist. This was the beginning of a long and successful career. In 1981 his work of art had developed so strongly, that he had to stop with all additional activities and become a full-time artist. This was the beginning of a long and successful career. In 1983 he and his wife Ingrid founded an art publishing company; Avant Art, today a top ranked player in the abstract segment of the market, with customers in more than 50 countries worldwide.

Since 1987, the procelain, carpet and sportswear industries have made use of Gockel's design work. To meet the demands of this expansion, Gockel purchased a mill in 1988 and converted it to use as a center for graphic printing. This has led to international recognition and the 1990 establishment of two other studios, one in Londoon andthe other in Connecticut.

Gockel's compositions are marked by the bright colors and graceful motion of his characters and are trimmed with powerful black figures and accents, which fade together tocreate an individual image for each viewer. Inspired by society, Gockel's work can be divided into two major categories: unique art work, mostly oil on canvas, and graphics. However, as a premier artist, his work ranges from etching to serigraphy to aquarelles, with his graphic design background most evident in his bold and colorful abstracts.

The bright colors and the graceful motion of his characters mark Alfred’s compositions. This is a perfect reflection of his appearance and inner-self. His hyperactivity is the basis for the large number of different projects he has fulfilled, and his striving for perfection results in the highest quality for each and every one. The competitive nature of his character has led him to an accomplished career, and after 22 years he still gets inspired by society. His creations keep improving, stimulated by a large number of fans, that also keeps increasing. The few spare hours this hasty life gives him, he plays tennis, walks in the German forests with his two dogs, or jumps on two Harley Davidsons with his wife, and drives to their favorite spot at the island Sylt.

Alfred Alexander Gockel’s art collection is subdivided into two major categories: unique art work and graphics. This unique art mostly is oil on canvas, and in some periods he also creates aquarelles. His art is composed with the most beautiful lighted colors, trimmed with powerful black figures and accents. The separate colors and the black trims all fade together, and create an individual image for every spectator, no matter what culture or social position. The graphics are etchings, screen prints and lithographs, and are artistically connected to the unique sector. The distinctive style is automatically recognized as a true Gockel. However, with graphics the production and printing process is just as considerable as the artistic performance. In his collection we can notice the craftsmanship and dedication of a man who started his career at this field of study, and still can seduce his audience with his own passion.

The unique identification of his art, and the ability to load your own emotional batteries with his power, are the most heard purchase arguments. Over the past 20 years, Alfred Alexander Gockel has tried to enrich the world with his artistic view, without influencing his public with deeper messages.He keeps his art pure, the way it's supposed to be.

Biography of Jack Vettriano

Born in Scotland in 1953 of Italian parents, Jack Vettriano began his career as a mining engineer in the Scottish coalfields, painting only in his spare time. In 1988, Vettriano gave up his job as a mining engineer in order to paint full-time. He left school at 16 and became an apprentice mining engineer, but later took up painting as a hobby in his twenties. His earliest paintings were copies or pastiches of impressionist paintings (his first painting was a copy of Monet's Poppy Fields).

Vettriano's breakthrough year was 1988, when he felt ready to display his paintings in public and submitted two canvases for the Royal Scottish Academy annual show. Both paintings sold on the first day and Vettriano was approached by several galleries who wanted to sell his other work. The success and attention contributed to the breakdown of his first marriage and he moved to Edinburgh, changing his name to Vettriano, his mother's maiden name. Further successful exhibitions followed in Edinburgh, London, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, and New York. His paintings are reminiscent of the film noir genre, often with romantic or even pornographic themes. He uses himself and a model for all his paintings. Although his work is generally dismissed by art critics as being vulgar and devoid of imagination, he is one of the most commercially successful living artists. His original paintings now regularly fetch six figure prices, but he is thought to make more money from the sale of reproductions. Each year a new set of limited edition prints are published, and his most popular work, the Singing Butler, sells more posters and postcards than any other painting in the UK. On 21 April 2004 the original canvas of the Singing Butler sold at auction for £744,500 — in stark contrast to 1992 when Vettriano painted the picture and submitted it for inclusion in the Royal Academy summer show, only to be rejected.

Vettriano has studios in Scotland and London. He is represented by the Portland Gallery, London and includes Jack Nicholson and Terrence Conran amongst his collectors. In 2003 he was awarded the OBE. Vettriano's paintings hint at stories of seduction and betrayal in a style that has been compared to some of the great realist painters of America and England. His work has been likened to that of Walter Sickert, Edward Hopper and the photographer Brassai, and to some show influences from Scotland's distinctive Colourist tradition.

Jack Vettriano has reached a level of commercial success in recent years that any artist would envy. This Scottish born painter has become somewhat of a celebrity in England as he continues to have wildly popular exhibitions. Vettriano has had sell-out exhibitions in Edinburgh, London, Hong Kong, Johannesburg and New York. Vettriano, a former mining engineer, works in a film noir style and somewhat sexual overtones can be found in many of his works. He is portrayed in many of his works as the "male predator". Jack Vettriano is exclusively represented by the Portland Gallery in London, England.