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, […]
Tag Archives: Paris
Vajda Lajos: A Hungarian Modernist
posted by ArtLark
On the 6th of August 1908, artist Lajos Vajda was born in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary. He was the youngest child born into a poor Jewish family of five. In 1916, his father moved the family to Serbia in search of a better life. Here the young Lajos came into contact with religious Byzantine-Orthodox art for the […]
The Forgotten Abstractions of Ana-Eva Bergman
posted by ArtLark
On the 24th of July 1987, Norwegian painter Ana-Eva Bergman, wife of Tachiste abstract artist Hans Hartung, died in Grasse, on the French Riviera. Whilst Bergman’s talent was recognized during her lifetime, she held a marginal position in the European avant-garde during her life. Anna-Eva Bergman had a turbulent and difficult childhood. Shortly after she […]
Bernard Buffet – Picasso’s Nemesis?
posted by ArtLark
On the 10th of July 1928, French artist Bernard Buffet was born in Paris. Buffet belonged to a group – “L’Homme Témoin (The Witness)” – along with Bernard Lorjout and André Minaux, considered as a new school of figurative painting. Going against the emerging trend of abstraction in modern painting, Buffet remained an Expressionist through […]
The Feminine Side of Cubism: Marie Laurencin
posted by ArtLark
On the 8th of June 1956, Cubist artist Marie Laurencin died in Paris at the age of 72. During her lifetime, Laurencin achieved a successful international reputation, especially in the 1920s and 1930s. Even earlier though at the Salon des Indépendants (1910-1911) and the Salon d’Automne (1911-1912) she exhibited alongside Pablo Picasso, and Cubists associated […]
The Story Behind Gauguin’s Biographic Noa Noa
posted by ArtLark
On the 8th of May 1903, the iconic French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin died in Atuona, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. In 1891, Gauguin sailed to French Polynesia allegedly to escape European civilization and “everything that is artificial and conventional”. As a record of his travels, he ended up writing a book titled Noa Noa describing his experiences […]
Yves Klein’s Art: Into the Void
posted by ArtLark
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, […]
Victor Lusting: The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower… Twice!
posted by ArtLark
On the 11th of March 1947, Victor Lusting, a Czech con artist, best known as ‘The man who sold the Eiffel Tower’, died in Springfield, Missouri. At the time of his death, he was still serving his sentence of twenty years in Alcatraz Island for major money forgery. A glib and witty man, he spoke […]
Alice B. Toklas and Her Famous Pot Fudge
posted by ArtLark
On the 7th of March 1967, Alice Babette Toklas, a longtime lover, secretary, editor, cook, and companion of the writer Gertrude Stein, died in Paris, France. An American of Polish descent, Toklas met Stein in Paris on the 8th of September 1907, and fell in love with her. The feeling was mutual, and so the […]
Artist Nina Hamnett, Jazz Age’s Wildest Party Girl
posted by ArtLark
On the 14th of February 1890, Welsh artist, writer and bohemian party girl Nina Hamnett was born in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Her emerging artistic skill helped her escape an unhappy childhood. She moved to London where she studied at Pelham Art School, then the London School of Art and in 1914 she went to Montparnasse, […]