05.04.1929–19.03.2008
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Artists
Biographies, facts and images with open sources and verified rights.
Found: 1775
05.02.1940–12.05.2014
H. R. Giger
H. R. Giger (1940–2014) began with ink drawings in school and underground magazines, and from 1972 painted with an airbrush: bodies fused with machines, which he called “biomechanical”. For Ridley Scott’s “Alien” he created the creature and the spaceship, and shared the Academy Award for visual effects. His work is collected in the museum that bears his name in Gruyères.01.05.1857–25.01.1891
Theo van Gogh
Theo van Gogh (1857–1891) worked for twenty years at the firm of Goupil & Cie and rose to its head office in Paris. In 1888 he showed ten paintings by Monet made at Antibes, and later put on exhibitions of Pissarro and Degas. From the winter of 1880–1881 he sent his older brother Vincent money and painting materials; the surviving correspondence between the brothers became the main source for the painter’s life.11.04.1869–12.03.1943
Gustav Vigeland
Gustav Vigeland (1869–1943) was born into the family of a cabinetmaker in Mandal under the surname Thorsen, and learned wood carving before he learned modelling. He made about a hundred portrait busts and statues of Niels Henrik Abel and Henrik Wergeland, and in 1901 won the competition for the Nobel Peace Prize medal. For his last two decades he worked on the sculpture park in Frogner, Oslo.23.12.1908–13.07.2002
Yousuf Karsh
Yousuf Karsh came to Canada at fifteen as a refugee, knowing no English, and by thirty he ran a portrait studio in Ottawa. His photograph of Winston Churchill, taken on 30 December 1941, made him internationally famous. Over half a century he photographed presidents, writers and actors, and more than twenty of his portraits appeared on the cover of Life magazine.11.09.1743–04.06.1809
Nicolai Abildgaard
Abildgaard painted a series of pictures on Danish history for the Knights' Room at Christiansborg Palace, and in February 1794 seven of the ten canvases burned. He taught painting, mythology and anatomy at the Copenhagen academy, served as its director, and taught Thorvaldsen and Eckersberg. He also designed furniture and the Freedom Monument.23.07.1851–21.11.1909
Peder Severin Krøyer
Peder Severin Krøyer was born in Stavanger, grew up in Copenhagen in the household of his zoologist uncle, and from 1882 worked in Skagen, on the northern tip of Jutland, almost every summer. The circle of the Skagen Painters formed around him. He painted fishermen, bathers on the beach, group portraits and summer evenings by the sea; his canvases are in the Skagens Museum and the Hirschsprung Collection.10.07.1862–23.01.1946
Helene Schjerfbeck
At four Helene Schjerfbeck fell down a flight of stairs and was left with a limp for life; at eleven she entered the drawing school of the Finnish Art Society. She studied in Paris, painted historical scenes and portraits, and from 1902 lived for more than two decades in Hyvinkää, away from the capital's art world. Her first solo exhibition came only in 1917, and her last self-portraits were painted in Sweden.20.12.1946–?
Uri Geller
In 1973 Uri Geller walked into Johnny Carson’s studio, failed to bend any of the objects prepared for him, and became better known than before. He was born in Tel Aviv, began as a photographic model and nightclub performer, appeared in the United States and Europe from the 1970s and hosted television shows. Magician critics showed how his routines can be reproduced. In 2021 he opened a museum in Old Jaffa.20.10.1620–15.11.1691
Aelbert Cuyp
Aelbert Cuyp of Dordrecht painted golden river views, herds at sunset and horsemen against a low sun. He was active for about two decades, from 1639 to 1660, and after his marriage almost gave up painting for church and civic offices. His name is borne by a market in the Pijp district of Amsterdam.06.04.1890–23.12.1939
Anthony Fokker
Anthony Fokker (1890–1939) flew a home-built aeroplane around the tower of St Bavo’s Church in Haarlem at the age of twenty-one, and during the First World War ran a large factory at Schwerin. His Eindecker fighters, fitted with a synchronisation gear for firing through the propeller, gave German aviation a temporary advantage. After the war he returned to the Netherlands to build transport aircraft, then worked in the United States.12.01.1923–14.04.2010
Alice Miller
Alice Miller (1923–2010) ran a psychoanalytic practice in Zurich for twenty years, then gave it up in 1980 to study childhood systematically. Her book “The Drama of the Gifted Child” (1979) became an international bestseller. Later she resigned from the psychoanalytic societies, began painting in 1972 and in 2006 published a book about her own life told through 66 of her works.05.05.1938–?
Jerzy Skolimowski
Jerzy Skolimowski began with poems and screenplays: he wrote the script of Andrzej Wajda’s “Innocent Sorcerers” and the dialogue for Roman Polanski’s “Knife in the Water”. As a director he made his debut with “Identification Marks: None”, won the Golden Bear for the Belgian film “Le Départ”, worked for decades in Britain and the United States, and returned to Poland in 2008. He also paints; Venice gave him its Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in 2016.15.12.1870–07.05.1956
Josef Hoffmann
Josef Hoffmann grew up in the Moravian town of Brtnice in a textile manufacturer’s family and gave up the idea of a legal career for architecture. A pupil of Otto Wagner, he took part in founding the Vienna Secession and in 1903, with Koloman Moser, founded the Wiener Werkstätte. His best-known building is the Stoclet Palace in Brussels (1905–1911), a World Heritage Site.23.09.1897–20.07.1994
Paul Delvaux
Paul Delvaux (1897–1994) meant to become an architect as a young man, but failed mathematics and turned to painting. His mature style took shape in the late 1930s: nude women, skeletons, railway stations and classical ruins by moonlight. In sixty years he produced about 450 paintings, painted several large murals and taught at La Cambre, the art school in Brussels.11.09.1656–26.07.1693
Ulrika Eleonora of Denmark
The Danish princess Ulrika Eleonora pawned her jewels and her engagement ring to feed Swedish prisoners of war, and for five years regarded herself as the fiancée of an enemy king. From 1680 she was Queen of Sweden, the wife of Charles XI. She painted at Karlberg, patronised the court’s amateur theatre and founded a school of woven wall hangings and a home for widows.15.03.1885–28.07.1940
Gerda Wegener
Gerda Wegener (née Gottlieb) grew up in a country vicar’s family in Jutland, settled in Paris in 1912 and became a sought-after illustrator there: she drew for Vogue, La Vie Parisienne and the satirical magazines of the war years, and decorated luxury illustrated books. At the 1925 World’s Fair she won two gold medals and a bronze. She died in Frederiksberg in 1940.30.03.1934–24.04.2014
Hans Hollein
Hans Hollein (1934–2014) began with a tiny candle shop in Vienna, fourteen square metres in all, and ended with museums in Mönchengladbach, Frankfurt and St. Pölten. He designed buildings, furniture, spectacles, lamps and a stage set for the Burgtheater, and made “Everything is architecture” his slogan. In 1985 he received the Pritzker Prize.21.02.1921–30.11.2011
Zdeněk Miler
Zdeněk Miler (1921–2011) came up with the Mole after being commissioned to make an educational film about flax: he disliked the script and went looking for an animal hero. The first film appeared in 1957 and won an award in Venice, and the Mole then began to communicate in sounds, recorded by the author’s daughters. Miler made about seventy films, and in roughly fifty of them the Mole is the hero.04.09.1934–?
Jan Švankmajer
Jan Švankmajer was given a home puppet theatre for Christmas at the age of eight, and puppets stayed with him for life: from black theatre and the first short films of the 1960s to the feature-length “Alice” (1988). His films were banned, “Dimensions of Dialogue” won the Grand Prix at Annecy and the Golden Bear, and since 1970 he has belonged to the Czech surrealist group.07.09.1817–29.09.1898
Louise of Hesse-Kassel
Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel grew up in Copenhagen from the age of three and studied painting with Martinus Rørbye and Wilhelm Marstrand. In 1842 she married Christian of Glücksburg, and her claim to the Danish throne became the basis of his succession. She was Queen of Denmark from 1863 to 1898; through the marriages of her six children the court in Copenhagen became linked with Russia, Britain and Greece.24.02.1929–21.02.2005
Zdzisław Beksiński
Zdzisław Beksiński trained as an architect, spent several years on building sites and as a bus designer in his home town of Sanok, and became known as a photographer and painter. He painted the works of his “fantastic period” in oil on hardboard panels he prepared himself, and gave none of them a title. In 1977 he moved to Warsaw, and from the second half of the 1990s he worked with digital image manipulation.24.09.1821–23.05.1883
Cyprian Norwid
Norwid was born in 1821 in a Masovian village, left grammar school at sixteen for a private school of painting, and in his early twenties went abroad, never to return to Poland. He wrote poems, plays and prose, drew, made prints and studied sculpture, lived in Rome, Paris and New York, and spent his last years in a Polish nursing home at Ivry. Recognition came only after his death.03.01.1924–05.01.1997