Category Archives: Art History

April 28

Yves Klein’s Art: Into the Void

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On the 28th of April 1928, the early postmodernist Yves Klein was born in Nice, France, to an Impressionist painter father and an Art Informel artist mother.  From a young age, Klein was fascinated with space. Allegedly, at the age of nineteen, him and his friends lay on a beach in the south of France, […]

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April 26

Simonetta Vespucci and Quattrocento Femininity

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On the 26th of April 1476, Simonetta Cattaneo de Candia Vespucci died from tuberculosis in Florence, Italy, aged just 23. An Italian Renaissance noblewoman from Genoa, at the tender age of fifteen she married Marco Vespucci, son of Piero, close to the Florentine Medici family, as well as a cousin of the Florentine explorer and […]

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April 17

‘Being an Artist is a state of mind’: Louise Nevelson’s Creative Drive

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On the 17th of April 1988, American sculptor Louise Nevelson died in New York. Regarded as one of the most significant figures of 20th-century American sculpture, she serves as an example of incredible persistence in fulfilling one’s personal ambition. Born to Jewish parents in Tsarist Russia in 1899, at the age of six she moved […]

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April 15

Leonardo da Vinci, Freud and Psychoanalysis

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On the 15th of April 1452, Leonardo da Vinci was born in Vinci (hence the name), Italy. Generally considered the quintessential Renaissance Man, his input reached fields as various as painting, sculpture, architecture, music, mathematics, engineering, invention, anatomy, geology, cartography, botany and literature. His instatiable craving for knowledge is as much as a mystery as […]

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April 11

Chris Burden: The Artist Who Shot Himself

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On the 11th of April 1946, the American performance artist Chris Burden was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the US. “ Among other things, Burden has been described as a masochist; an avant-garde novitiate; a social therapist; an existential populist; a hero; the alter ego of the biblical Samson; a helpless, passive victim; a heroic victim; […]

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April 08

Classicism to Surrealism: Dali’s Venus with Drawers

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On the 8th of April 1820, the statue of Venus de Milo was discovered by a peasant called Yorgos Kentrotas within a buried niche in the ancient city ruins of Milos (currently Tripiti) in the Aegean. Between 130 and 100 BC when the work was created, Milos was still part of the Ottoman Empire. Perhaps […]

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April 07

Was El Greco Astigmatic?

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On the 7th of April 1614, the famous painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance El Greco, née Doménikos Theotokópoulos, died in Toledo, Spain. Adored by many and criticised by some, during his lifetime he had undergone a long journey starting with Crete, the place of his birth, through Venice, then Rome where he […]

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April 06

Surreal Memories: Leonora Carrington’s Trip Down Below

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On the 6th of April 1917, the Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington was born in Clayton-le-Woods, Lancashire, England. The artist and writer lived most of her adult life in Mexico City, and was one of the last surviving participants of 1930s Surrealism. Carrington had a famous love affair with the German artist Max Ernst whose work […]

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April 05

The Art of Swinging According to Jean-Honoré Fragonard

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  On the 5th of April 1732, the French painter and printmaker Jean-Honoré Fragonard was born in Grasse, France. He was one of the greatest French painters in the two brilliant and productive pre-Revolution decades; although, due to his highly individual style, he was officially less recognised than, for example, his teacher, Boucher. In his […]

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April 04

Quaker Ideals in Edward Hicks’ Painting

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On the 4th of April 1780, American painter and minister Edward Hicks was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania to Anglican parents, but was raised in the Quaker faith by one of his mother’s friends after she passed away when Hicks was still a baby. Trained as a coach painter, he later became a Quaker preacher. […]

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