Category Archives: Art History

September 28

English Utopia in the Art of Helen Allingham

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On the 28th of September 1926, Victorian water-colourist and illustrator Helen Allingham, born Helen M. E. Paterson, died in Haslemere, Surrey, England. Her career “was circumscribed by, relied upon, and exceeded accepted norms of landscape painting in the nineteenth century. She painted out-of-doors, for example, a common mode of practice none the less considered suspect […]

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September 27

Drawing with Light: The Photographs of Olive Cotton

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On the 27th of September 2003, modernist photographer Olive Cotton died in Koorawatha, New South Wales, Australia. Her work shows an interchange between the pictorialist style and ‘modernism’ (New Photography), which superseded the former in Australia in the 1930s. Cotton was introduced to the arts, science and a love of nature at an early age. Her mother, Florence, […]

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September 25

Aesthetic Delirium in Jack Smith’s ‘Flaming Creatures’

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On the 25th of September 1989, American filmmaker, photographer, performance artist, and pioneer of underground cinema Jack Smith died in New York City, New York. From the early 1960s through most of the 1980s, he was a key figure in American avant-garde film and theatre. His works, marked by a deceptively playful camp sensibility, combine […]

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September 23

Paul Delvaux: Secret Facets of Surrealism

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On the 23rd of September 1897, Belgian painter and printmaker Paul Delvaux was born in Antheit, Belgium. His original style and the mysterious, almost mystical, themes he employed in his art, place him outside ‘the box’ of any formal art movement. Between 1920 and 1924, Delvaux studied at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. His […]

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September 22

The Musical Brush of M. K. Ciurlionis

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On the 22nd of September 1875, Lithuanian painter, composer and writer Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis was born in Senoji Varėna, the Russian Empire. Čiurlionis contributed to symbolism and art nouveau at the turn of the century and is seen as one of the earliest experimenters with abstraction in European art. The majority of his paintings are housed in the […]

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September 21

Modernity and the Body: Sascha Schneider’s Bodybuilders

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On the 21st of September 1870, German painter and sculptor Sascha Schneider was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. During his childhood his family lived in Zürich, Switzerland, but following the death of his father, Schneider moved to Dresden, Germany, where in 1889 he became a student at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. In 1903 […]

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September 19

Impressionism in Photography: George Davidson

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On the 19th of September 1854, English photographer, and a proponent of pictorial or impressionistic photography, George Davidson was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England. He is noted as one of the most important figures in the development of Pictorial photography at the end of the nineteenth century. Born into a comparatively modest family – his […]

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September 17

Ettore De Grazia’s Experiments in Art and Music

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On the 17th of September 1982, American artist Ettore “Ted” De Grazia died in Tucson, Arizona. He was an impressionist, western pop painter, sculptor, and lithographer best known for his pastel images of wide-eyed Native American children, which were used by UNICEF as cover art for their greeting cards. De Grazia was born into a […]

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September 15

Grand Designs: André Le Nôtre and the Gardens of Versailles

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On the 15th of September 1700, French landscape architect, and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France, André Le Nôtre died in Paris. Regarded as one of the greatest landscape designers of all time, Le Nôtre was responsible for the design and construction of such famous French gardens as Chantilly, Fontainebleau, Saint-Cloud, Saint-Germain, […]

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September 14

Richard Gerstl, Self-Portraits of a Tortured Soul

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On the 14th of September 1883, Austrian painter and draughtsman Richard Gerstl was born in Vienna; he is remembered for his insightful portraits and haunting self-portraits. He was born into a wealthy bourgeois family as the son of Emil Gerstl, a Jewish merchant, and Maria Pfeiffer, a Catholic woman who later converted to the faith. Against the wishes […]

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