Posts in Category: 20th Century
Lawren Harris
Lawren Stewart Harris, October 23, 1885 – January 29, 1970, was a Canadian painter born in Brantford, Ontario. He attended St. Andrew’s College and the University of Toronto before studying art in Berlin from 1904 to 1907, principally under Adolf Schlabitz and Franz Skarbina.
After returning to Toronto, Harris painted urban subjects and helped finance the Studio Building for Canadian artists. He was a founding member of the Group of Seven in 1920 and worked in Algoma, along Lake Superior, in the Rocky Mountains, and in the Arctic; during the 1930s he increasingly turned to abstraction and helped establish the Canadian Group of Painters and the Transcendental Painting Group.
Harris settled in Vancouver in 1940 and continued painting and writing about abstraction until his death there in 1970. His work is held by the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, and the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Giovanni Fattori
Giovanni Fattori, September 6, 1825 – August 30, 1908, was an Italian painter and printmaker born in Livorno. He studied there with Giuseppe Baldini before moving to Florence, where he trained with Giuseppe Bezzuoli and at the Academy of Fine Arts.
In Florence, Fattori frequented the Caffè Michelangiolo and became a leading member of the Macchiaioli. He painted historical subjects, scenes of military and rural life, landscapes, portraits, and later produced many etchings; from 1869 he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts, where his students included Plinio Nomellini and Amedeo Modigliani.
Fattori remained active in Florence until his death in 1908. Major holdings of his work are in the Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori, Livorno; the Gallery of Modern Art in the Pitti Palace, Florence; and the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rome.
Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis
Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, September 22, 1875 – April 10, 1911, was a Lithuanian painter, composer, and cultural worker. He studied piano and composition at the Warsaw Music Institute from 1894 to 1899 with Tadeusz Brzeziński, Antoni Sygietyński, and Zygmunt Noskowski, then composition and counterpoint at the Leipzig Conservatory with Carl Reinecke and Salomon Jadassohn.
Čiurlionis attended drawing classes in Warsaw in 1902–1903 and studied at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts from 1904 to 1906 under Kazimierz Stabrowski. He participated in the Lithuanian Art Society, helped organize Lithuanian art exhibitions, worked with its chorus, and was active in the cultural life of Vilnius and St Petersburg.
The principal collection of his work is held by M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art, Kaunas, Lithuania. Other works are held by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, National Museum in Warsaw, and the State Russian Museum.
Hiroshi Yoshida
Hiroshi Yoshida, September 19, 1876 – April 5, 1950, was a Japanese painter and printmaker. Born Hiroshi Ueda in Kurume, he was adopted in 1891 by his art teacher, Yoshida Kasaburō. He studied painting in Kyoto with Tamura Sōritsu and then Western-style painting at Koyama Shōtarō’s Fudōsha school in Tokyo.
Yoshida joined the Meiji Fine Arts Society and helped establish the Taiheiyō Gakai (Pacific Art Society) in 1902. He traveled in the United States and Europe from 1899, published his first woodblock print in 1920, and later founded the Japan Mountain Painting Association. His sons Tōshi Yoshida and Hodaka Yoshida also became artists.
Yoshida’s work is held by the British Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum.
Fernand Khnopff
Fernand Khnopff, September 12, 1858 – November 12, 1921, was a Belgian painter, draftsman, printmaker, photographer, sculptor, and writer associated with Symbolism. Born in Grembergen, he spent part of his childhood in Bruges before his family moved to Brussels. He began legal studies at the Université libre de Bruxelles and entered the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1876; he also worked in Paris from 1879 to 1880.
Khnopff was a founding member of Les XX in 1883 and exhibited with the group. He met Joséphin Péladan in 1885 and later exhibited with the Salon de la Rose+Croix. From 1892 until 1914, he wrote the Brussels correspondence for *The Studio*; in the following decade, he designed costumes and sets for productions at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels.
His works are held by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Groeningemuseum, the Neue Pinakothek, the Musée d'Orsay, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, and other public collections.
George Hendrik Breitner
George Hendrik Breitner, September 12, 1857 – June 5, 1923, was a Dutch painter, draftsman, printmaker, and photographer. Born in Rotterdam, he received drawing instruction from Christoffel Neurdenburg and studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague from 1876 to 1880. He then lived chiefly in The Hague and Amsterdam; Amsterdam was his principal base from 1886 until his death, apart from 1903–1906 in Aerdenhout.
Breitner joined the artists’ society Pulchri Studio in 1880 and contributed to the Panorama Mesdag in 1880–1881. In The Hague he associated with artists of the Hague School, including Jozef Israëls, Jacob Maris, and Anton Mauve, and he worked alongside Vincent van Gogh in 1882–1883. In Amsterdam he was associated with Amsterdam Impressionism and the Tachtigers; Arti et Amicitiae gave him a retrospective exhibition in 1902. His students included Kees Maks and Marie Henri Mackenzie.
Principal museum collections of Breitner’s work include the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Centraal Museum, Utrecht; Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp; Dordrechts Museum; and RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague.
Kobayashi Kiyochika
Kobayashi Kiyochika, September 10, 1847 – November 28, 1915, was a Japanese painter, print designer, and illustrator active from the late Edo period through the Meiji era. Born in Honjo, Edo, as Kobayashi Katsunosuke, he came from a family connected to the Tokugawa shogunate administration and left with the Tokugawa retinue after the restoration of imperial rule in 1868. He returned to Tokyo in 1874 and began producing woodblock prints there in 1876.
Kiyochika was largely self-taught. He associated with Shibata Zeshin and Kawanabe Kyōsai, though the extent of formal study with either artist is uncertain; he also engaged with Western pictorial methods circulating in Yokohama and Tokyo. From 1876 to 1881, he made ninety-three views of Tokyo, and he later worked in book, magazine, and newspaper illustration, painting, and prints relating to the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars.
In 1894, Kiyochika opened an art school. His students included Inoue Yasuji, Taguchi Beisaku, and Tsuchiya Kōitsu. Principal collections of his work include the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Honolulu Museum of Art; the Ota Memorial Museum of Art; and the British Museum.
Arthur Rackham
Arthur Rackham, September 19, 1867 – September 6, 1939, was an English illustrator and painter born in London. He studied at the City of London School and the Lambeth School of Art.
Rackham worked as a book and magazine illustrator and became one of the best-known British illustrators of the early twentieth century. His illustrated books include Rip Van Winkle, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Grimm's Fairy Tales, The Rhinegold & the Valkyrie, and The Romance of King Arthur.
Rackham worked in pen and ink, watercolor, and book illustration. He died in Limpsfield, Surrey, in 1939.
Gabriel von Max
Gabriel von Max, August 23, 1840 – November 24, 1915, was an Austrian-born painter active mainly in Munich. He studied in Prague, Vienna, and Munich, and became associated with late nineteenth-century Symbolism and academic painting.
His work included religious subjects, literary scenes, portraits, and images connected with spiritualism and psychical research. He was also known for paintings of monkeys, often presenting them in human roles or situations.
Von Max taught at the Munich Academy and built large collections related to anthropology, ethnography, and natural history. His interests in science, mysticism, and animal behavior shaped much of his mature work.
Kuroda Seiki
Kuroda Seiki, August 9, 1866 – July 15, 1924, was a Japanese painter and one of the founders of modern Western-style (yōga) painting in Japan. Born in Kagoshima, he studied law before turning to art, training for nearly a decade in Paris under the academic painter Raphaël Collin.
After returning to Japan in 1893, Kuroda introduced plein-air painting, Impressionist influences, and modern European techniques to Japanese audiences. He taught at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, helped establish the White Horse Society (Hakubakai), and played a central role in the development of Japanese oil painting during the Meiji period.
Kuroda’s paintings include portraits, landscapes, figure studies, interiors, and floral subjects. He later served as director of the Imperial Art Academy and was named to the House of Peers. Today his works are held by the Tokyo National Museum, the Kuroda Memorial Hall, and major museums throughout Japan.
