07.12.1930–29.05.2021
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Artists
Biographies, facts and images with open sources and verified rights.
Found: 1775
17.03.1892–01.02.1981
Aleksandra Beļcova
Aleksandra Beļcova was born in Surazh, studied in Penza alongside refugee artists from Latvia and in Petrograd under Nathan Altman, and in 1919 moved to Riga with her future husband, Romans Suta. She painted portraits and still lifes, worked at the Baltars porcelain-painting workshop and exhibited with the Green Crow group. She began as a Cubist and later turned to realism.28.10.1888–19.02.1942
Kārlis Zāle
Kārlis Zāle (1888–1942) was born in Mažeikiai, in present-day Lithuania, grew up in Liepāja, studied in Kazan and Petrograd, and returned to Latvia in 1923. He made the sculpture for the Freedom Monument in Riga, unveiled in 1935, and worked for almost twelve years on the ensemble of Riga’s Brothers’ Cemetery. From 1936 he headed the sculpture studio of the Academy of Art.14.10.1906–04.03.1993
Anšlavs Eglītis
Anšlavs Eglītis graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia and taught drawing for several years, but he became known as a prose writer and journalist. In October 1944 he left Riga for Courland, then went on to Germany and Switzerland, and from 1950 he lived in California. In exile he wrote about fifty novels and short stories and reviewed theatre productions and films.1970–present
Mounir Fatmi
Mounir Fatmi (born 1970 in Tangier) works in video, installation, drawing and sculpture, and takes obsolete technology as his material: VHS tapes, antenna cables, typewriters, copiers. In 1993 he won first prize at the Biennial of Young Moroccan Painting, later the Grand Prix of the Dakar Biennale and the Cairo Biennale prize. His work has been shown in Europe, the United States, Africa and Asia.31.08.1929–04.12.1994
Julio Ramón Ribeyro
Julio Ramón Ribeyro (1929–1994) published his first story as a student in Lima, then spent more than ten years in Europe living on odd jobs. His stories, collected in “La palabra del mudo” (87 of them), made him one of the leading short story writers of Latin America. He also wrote novels, plays, essays and diaries, worked for Agence France-Presse and represented Peru at UNESCO.04.12.1920–11.12.2013
Nadir Afonso
Nadir Afonso trained as an architect although he dreamed of painting, worked for Le Corbusier in Paris and Oscar Niemeyer in Brazil, and in 1958 showed an “animated” painting, “Espacillimité”, at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. In 1965 he returned to his native Chaves and painted geometric abstractions until the end of his life, the best known of them the Cities series.10.01.1979–?
Anna Lesko
Anna Lesko was born in Chișinău, came to Romania with a ballet troupe at sixteen or seventeen and stayed in Bucharest. She began her solo career as a singer in 2002 with the song “Ard în flăcări”, and her albums “Inseparabili” and “Ispita” went gold in Romania. She also paints: Sabin Bălașa and Mircea Novac advised her, and some of her works are shown at the National Museum of Art of Romania.07.08.1884–12.08.1940
Nikolai Triik
Nikolai Triik studied in Saint Petersburg, Helsinki and Paris, was close to the Noor-Eesti (Young Estonia) circle and drew caricatures for Estonian satirical magazines. He is regarded as the best portrait painter of his time in Estonia. From 1933 he was the first Estonian to hold the title of professor of art, and he taught at the Pallas school in Tartu.31.10.1855–26.06.1929
Amandus Adamson
Amandus Adamson grew up on a farmstead near Baltic Port and at fourteen ran away from school to Saint Petersburg to enter the Academy of Arts. He became an academician, made sculptures for the Singer House and the Eliseev emporium on Nevsky Prospekt, and in Tallinn put up the memorial to the armoured ship Rusalka. After 1918 he lived in Paldiski and made monuments to the War of Independence.23.09.1865–01.12.1933
Pekka Halonen
Pekka Halonen grew up in a farming family in Lapinlahti, where his father took on church decoration for extra income, and became one of Finland’s best-known landscape painters. He studied in Helsinki and Paris, worked under Gauguin in 1893–1894, and from 1899 lived on Lake Tuusula. His winter landscapes, “The Haymakers” and “Log Floating” for Geneva are well known in Finland.09.11.1870–27.11.1925
Magnus Enckell
Magnus Enckell (1870–1925), the son of a pastor from Hamina, studied in Helsinki and at the Académie Julian in Paris, and in the 1900s moved from the subdued tones of his early Symbolism to a bright palette. In 1906–1907 he painted his only fresco, “The Resurrection” for Tampere Cathedral, and from 1915 to 1918 he chaired the Artists’ Association of Finland.0400–0360
Polykleitos the Younger
Polykleitos the Younger worked in the 4th century BC and is known above all as the architect of the sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus. He is credited with a theatre seating fourteen thousand, with acoustics unusual for antiquity, and with a circular building, the tholos, with Corinthian columns inside. As a sculptor he traditionally made statues of athletes.13.01.1910–20.07.1989
Yannis Tsarouchis
Yannis Tsarouchis (1910–1989) studied with the icon painter Photios Kontoglou, painted sailors, soldiers and the customers of the port cafés of his native Piraeus, and designed sets and costumes for the theatre. In 1938 he held his first solo exhibition in Athens, in 1951 he exhibited in Paris and London, and in 1958 he took part in the Venice Biennale. His house in Maroussi, Athens, has been a museum since 1982.12.07.1888–18.12.1968
Chana Orloff
Chana Orloff arrived in Paris in 1910 to study fashion design and became a sculptor instead: in 1913 she showed work at the Salon d’Automne, and by the mid-1920s she had received the Legion of Honour. She modelled and carved portraits, mothers with children and animals. After the war she worked a great deal in Israel, where she made several monuments and a portrait of Ben-Gurion.23.11.1926–23.03.2019
Rafi Eitan
Rafi Eitan (1926–2019) was born on a kibbutz, went to an agricultural school, served in the Palmach, the strike force of the Haganah underground, while still a teenager, and then spent more than thirty years in Israeli intelligence. In 1960 he led the operation that seized Adolf Eichmann in Argentina, and in 1985 he resigned after the Jonathan Pollard affair. In 2006 he entered the Knesset at the head of a pensioners’ party and became Israel’s first Minister of Senior Citizens.06.06.1988–?
Maria Alyokhina
Maria Alyokhina (born 1988) is known for the “punk prayer” in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour on 21 February 2012, for which she was sentenced to two years in a penal colony. After her release she turned to human rights work, creating Zona Prava and Mediazona together with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. She is the author of the book “Riot Days” and has lived outside Russia since 2022.18.09.1892–08.10.1991
Zośka Vieras
Ludvika Sivickaja, who wrote under the name Zośka Vieras, compiled the first Belarusian botanical dictionary (Vilna, 1924: 302 plants, 424 Belarusian names) and edited the children’s magazines “Zaranka” and “Praleska”. She lived almost a hundred years and from 1923 near Vilnius, where a botanical garden grew around her house in the woods. She drew plants and herbs and left memoirs of Maksim Bahdanovič.04.01.1895–26.02.1938
Gustav Klutsis
Gustav Klutsis (1895–1938) came from a Latvian peasant family, studied in Riga, Petrograd and Kazimir Malevich’s studio, and became one of those who stood at the origins of political photomontage. He made posters, designs for agitation kiosks, stained glass and exhibition pavilions. In January 1938 he was arrested in the “Latvian Operation”, and in February he was shot at the Butovo firing range.27.08.1985–?
Alexandra Nechita
Alexandra Nechita was born in Vaslui in 1985 and grew up in California. Her first solo exhibition took place at eight, in the public library in Whittier; at ten she worked at the Mourlot Studios in Paris, and at twelve she was being called the “Petite Picasso”. In 1997 she designed the program for the Grammy Awards ceremony, and she later graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles.15.02.1850–22.10.1882
Ion Andreescu
Ion Andreescu (1850–1882) became a drawing teacher in the provincial town of Buzău and took up painting in earnest late, at about thirty. In 1878 he went to Paris, and in the summers he painted at Barbizon alongside Nicolae Grigorescu. About five hundred works survive, mostly landscapes, still lifes and portraits. Among them is “The Oak”: the tree in the Crâng park in Buzău believed to be the one in the painting still stands.1800–1881
Kolyu Ficheto
Kolyu Ficheto, as Nikola Fichev was known, was an illiterate stonemason from Dryanovo who became one of the leading builders of the Bulgarian National Revival. He built the bridge over the Yantra near Byala, the Covered Bridge in Lovech and the Church of the Holy Trinity in Svishtov. According to tradition, he lay under the arch of a bridge during its test. His face appeared on the 2,000-lev banknote.07.02.1942–?
Ivan Mládek
Ivan Mládek (born 1942) graduated from a university of economics, but became known as a banjo player, the author of more than four hundred songs and the leader of the Banjo Band. He wrote humorous stories, presented the television shows Čundrcountry show and Country estráda, devised a guitar-shaped synthesizer and paints pictures in reverse perspective. His best-known song is “Jožin z bažin” (1977).29.09.1919–29.08.2003