03.09.1861–31.12.1919
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Artists
Biographies, facts and images with open sources and verified rights.
Found: 1775
15.10.1885–13.04.1972
Jóhannes Sveinsson Kjarval
Jóhannes Sveinsson Kjarval (1885–1972) was born into poverty, grew up as an adopted child in eastern Iceland and worked as a fisherman until the age of twenty-seven. Money from fishermen and trade unions helped him study in Copenhagen. He left thousands of drawings and paintings: lava fields where elves and trolls can be made out among the rocks, landscapes with a Cubist shift, and late abstractions.25.10.1938–?
Vija Celmins
Vija Celmins was born in Riga in 1938 and arrived in Indianapolis at ten, speaking no English, and began with drawing. In the 1960s in California she painted everyday objects and scenes of violence from photographs, then gave up painting for almost twelve years in favour of graphite. Her main subjects are the ocean, the surface of the Moon, star fields and spider webs.22.11.1877–17.11.1970
Andrejs Upīts
Andrejs Upīts grew up in a peasant family in Skrīveri, taught himself reading and languages, and from 1899 published prose. His main work is the Robežnieks cycle of eight novels, on which he worked from the 1900s to the 1930s. In the Soviet period he headed the Latvian Writers’ Union and the Institute of Language and Literature, and received the Stalin Prize for the novel “Verdant Land”.22.08.1931–?
Ruy Guerra
Ruy Guerra was born in 1931 in Lourenço Marques, today Maputo, studied cinema in Paris and from 1958 worked in Brazil. His “Os Fuzis” (1964) won a prize at the Berlin festival and took its place among the main films of Brazilian Cinema Novo. In 1980 he made “Mueda, Memória e Massacre” in Mozambique and helped found the country’s national film institute. He also acted for other directors, among them Werner Herzog.18.11.1906–28.12.1997
Corneliu Baba
Corneliu Baba (1906–1997) made his debut at the Bucharest salon in 1948 with “The Chess Player” and was soon afterwards arrested. He later became the leading Romanian portraitist of his day, taught in Iași and Bucharest, and showed work in Venice and Brussels. In the 1970s and 1980s he painted a series of harlequins and “mad kings”.28.04.1994–?
Princess Rajwa Al Hussein
Rajwa Al Saif was born in Riyadh and studied architecture at Syracuse University in the United States, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 2017. She worked at an architecture firm in Los Angeles and at a design studio in Riyadh, where she handled interiors and event design. Since 1 June 2023 she has been the wife of Hussein, Crown Prince of Jordan, with the title Princess Rajwa Al Hussein.05.10.1869–12.01.1954
Ellen Thesleff
Ellen Thesleff (1869–1954) began with dark Symbolist portraits and by 1905–1906 had arrived at bright, almost Fauvist colour. She studied in Helsinki and Paris and for many years worked in Italy, where she built herself a house, returning in summer to the family estate at Murole. Her paintings are in the Ateneum and the Kuopio museum; in 1951 she received the Pro Finlandia medal.19.07.1898–17.03.1936
Vilho Lampi
Vilho Lampi (1898–1936) was born in Oulu but spent almost his whole life in Liminka, on his father’s farm, and painted its plain, his neighbours and himself. In fourteen years of work he made about 550 paintings, many of them on plywood. Today a museum devoted to him operates in Liminka, and his life has inspired a novel, films and plays.20.11.1857–05.04.1938
Helena Westermarck
Helena Westermarck studied at the School of the Finnish Art Society and at the Académie Colarossi in Paris, and in 1889 won an honourable mention at the Paris World's Fair for her painting “The Ironers”. She then gave up painting and turned to writing: stories, novels and books about women of the past. From 1892 she took part in the women's movement, and in 1895 she founded the magazine “Nutid”.1941–present
Oja Kodar
Oja Kodar was born in Zagreb in 1941 and from the early 1960s worked almost entirely on projects by Orson Welles: she acted in “The Deep”, co-wrote “F for Fake” and contributed to scripts. As a director she debuted with “Jaded” (1989), followed by the war drama “Vrijeme za…” (1993). “The Other Side of the Wind”, which Welles never finished, was released only in 2018.07.01.1977–?
Tomm Moore
Tomm Moore (born 1977) co-founded the animation studio Cartoon Saloon in Kilkenny and directed three feature films based on Irish folklore: The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea and Wolfwalkers. All three were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. He began with Irish-language comics about Saint Patrick.19.07.1932–?
Erró
The Icelander Guðmundur Guðmundsson, known as Erró, studied in Reykjavík and Oslo, learned mosaic in Florence and Ravenna, and has worked in Paris since 1958. His paintings are built from found images: comics, advertisements, newspaper photographs. In 1986 he represented Iceland at the Venice Biennale, and in 1989 he donated his works to the Reykjavik Art Museum.05.06.1934–28.12.2019
Vilhjálmur Einarsson
Vilhjálmur Einarsson (1934–2019) won silver in the triple jump at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, the first Olympic medal in Iceland’s history. After his sporting career he ran three schools, taught mathematics and painted landscapes that were shown in galleries across the country. His Icelandic triple-jump record, 16.70 m, has stood since 1960.08.11.1931–09.05.1978
George Maciunas
George Maciunas (Jurgis Mačiūnas) was born in Kaunas, fled with his family from the advancing Red Army in 1944 and lived in the United States from 1948. In 1961–1962 he opened the AG Gallery in New York and organised the first Fluxus festivals in Wiesbaden, then spent many years assembling and designing Fluxus publications. In 1966 he began artists’ cooperatives in SoHo.10.08.1970–?
Carlos Moedas
Carlos Moedas was born in Beja, in southern Portugal, studied civil engineering in Lisbon and Paris, and then worked for the Suez group, for banks and for investment companies. From 2014 to 2019 he was European Commissioner for research, science and innovation, and since 18 October 2021 he has been mayor of Lisbon.29.02.1936–08.12.1996
Marin Sorescu
Marin Sorescu (1936–1996) made his debut in 1964 with a collection of parodies, “Alone Among Poets”, and became one of the most widely read Romanian authors of his time: poems, plays, novels, essays. His play “Iona”, about the prophet inside the whale, was staged in Bucharest in 1969 and quickly withdrawn. Some of his poems could not be printed under Ceaușescu. He also painted and exhibited his pictures.01.02.1868–28.06.1916
Ștefan Luchian
Ștefan Luchian (1868–1916) studied painting in Bucharest, Munich and Paris, in 1896 became one of the organisers of the “independents” exhibition opened opposite the official Salon, and later took part in the Ileana society. He painted landscapes, flower still lifes and portraits in oil and pastel. In his last years he worked paralysed, with the brush tied to his wrist.13.06.1935–31.05.2020
Christo Javacheff
Christo Javacheff, known as Christo, fled Bulgaria in 1956 and settled in New York in 1964. With Jeanne-Claude de Guillebon he wrapped buildings, bridges and stretches of coastline in fabric, among them the Pont Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin. “The Gates” in Central Park cost about 21 million dollars; the artists paid for it themselves by selling preparatory drawings and collages.20.11.1926–12.04.2011
Miroslav Tichý
Miroslav Tichý (1926–2011) spent almost all his life in the Moravian town of Kyjov. For many years he photographed women in the streets and by the swimming pool with cameras assembled from cardboard, tin cans and Plexiglas, and he polished his lenses with toothpaste and cigarette ashes. These pictures became widely known only when he was nearly eighty, through exhibitions in Seville and Zurich and a prize at Arles.12.06.1930–22.05.2016
Adolf Born
Adolf Born was born in the border town of České Velenice and lived in Prague from the age of five. He drew for magazines, made etchings, lithographs and bookplates, illustrated “The Three Musketeers” and “Mach and Šebestová”, and in 1966 animated the first screen version of “The Hobbit” together with Gene Deitch. He designed dozens of postage stamps, including the first stamp of the third millennium.19.02.1924–27.01.1999
František Vláčil
František Vláčil (1924–1999) began as an art history student in Brno, made training and army films, and directed his first feature at thirty-six. He worked for six years on “Marketa Lazarová”, which Czech critics voted the best Czech film in 1998. In 1994 he received a Czech Lion for his contribution to cinema.02.08.1853–19.06.1928
Maria Wiik
Maria Wiik studied in Helsinki and with Tony Robert-Fleury at the Académie Julian in Paris, exhibited at the Paris Salon and won a bronze medal at the 1900 Exposition Universelle for her painting “Out into the World”. Most of her works are small; the largest, “Bad Conscience” (1886), measures 128 × 81 cm. Her friendship with Helene Schjerfbeck shaped many of her journeys.1871–1960