Claude Viallat is an abstract painter born in Nimes, France in the year 1936. Viallat attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts located in Montpelier, France. He grew up in the south of France.
In this clip we view a show featuring Claude Viallat that took place in 2012:
The artist enjoys mixing mediums and sometimes paints on curtain fabric.
The artist came to the United States and enjoyed viewing the works of Jackson Pollack. Viallat enjoyed the work of other Abstract Expressionists. Viallat also enjoyed looking at Native American Art. (I hope he was able to see some First Nations Artists of Canada also!) So much good art to see and so little time!
Viallat has also taught at the collegiate level. He was a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts located in Marseille, France. Years later the artist would also work at the Ecole Des Beaux-Arts Superior located in Paris, France.
Here we view a show featuring other artists part of the Support and Surface movement. A work of Claude Viallat is shown and discussed by James Kalm at the 2:06 part of the clip:
Price range information: Print works start at $1,000. Works in watercolors, acrylics, and gouache range from $5,000 to $70,000.
The artist has been a participant in the famed Venice, Biennial.
Hippolyte Petitjean was born in 1854 in the city of Macon, France. Petitjean painted in a realist manner and also a pointalist style. I attended the wonderful show celebrating Parisian painters at the Denver Art Museum, and was fascinated at the look of this work from far away.
Hippolyte Petitjean began an apprentice ship with a local artist when he was thirteen years old. At that time he also began taking evening drawing lessons. The lessons paid off and the artist won a city scholarship to attend the Ecole des Beaux- Arts in Paris, France. A major influence at the institution was the founder of the Society of the Beautiful Arts named Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. Chavannes had a strong impact on the painter.
In the mid 1870s he joined the Neo-Impressionist group after being asked to join by Georges Seurat.
Over his career he would earn a living as a drawing teacher and a painter. As a painter he would go through periods of painting more realistically with a palette of muted greys. He would also go through periods of time where he painted with a pointalist style that emphasized many droplets of color.
The artist passed away in 1929.
Price range information: Works are in watercolor and oils and range from $5,000 to $100,000.
The work of Hippolyte Petitjean really impressed me in person at the Denver Art Museum. It was my favorite pointalist painting!
Lovell Birge Harrison was an American painter born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the year 1854. Harrison was renowned for his landscapes and paintings of the western genre. Harrison was a tonalist painter. If you enjoy tonalist works make sure and check out my entry on Montana painter Russell Chatham.
For his artistic education Birge Harrison attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1874. Here he was able to study from master figure painter Thomas Eakins.
Deciding he needed more schooling he took off for Paris and with the help of John Singer Sargent decided to study under the famed Carolus-Duran at the famed Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
Harrison met his future wife when he was doing some summer landscapes. She too was an artist named Eleanor Ritchie. His first wife would die whilst expecting the couples first baby. Harrison remarried and moved to Plymouth, Massachusetts.
By 1910 Birge Harrison had become famous for landscapes of the winter season.
Harrison was a member of the National Academy of Design.
Birge Harrison passed away in 1929.
Price range information: Sorry none available.
In the next few posts I will cover his brother, T. Alexander Harrison.
Birge Harrison also was great at design with clouds.
Gaston LaChaise was a French artist who worked with the figure in a modern style. Gaston LaChaise was born in Paris, France in the year 1882. His father was a cabinet maker. For his artistic education LaChaise began lessons at the age of thirteen with a school specializing in decorative arts. LaChaise went on to study in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
Though an American LaChaise was schooled in Europe and is credited with bringing the modernist movement to the United States.
After college LaChaise found employment with the design firm of Rene Lalique. Lalique has been profiled here as one of the leading sculptors of the Art Nouveau movement.
Price range information: Works range from pencil drawings in the $3,000 range to larger sculptures at the quarter million dollar mark.
LaChaise emigrated to the United States in 1906. He worked for nearly fifteen years as a sculptors assistant before striking out on his own.
Below is the artist’s famous work titled “Standing Woman.”
In this clip we view a wonderful large sculpture by LaChaise. Upon seeing this video I was reminded of another French artist renown for her work with the female figure I have profiled here, Niki de Saint Phalle:
And a here a work by the aforementioned Niki de Saint Phalle:
Gaston LaChaise passed away in 1935 the age of 53 years old from complications due to leukemia.
LaChaise also did a fair amount of highly rendered sculptures of artists and other well known people. This work below is of the American artist Georgia O’Keefe:
Piero Dorazio was born in Rome, Italy in the year 1927. Dorazio started out studying architecture but went on to become a founder of the abstract movement in Italy. He began school in 1945, at this time he also experimented with abstract painting for the first time. A main subject for the artist were ink ribbons.
Dorazio was given a scholarship to study at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris, France. Dorazio was able to connect with the leading modern painters and bring his knowledge back to Italy where he founded galleries called “Age d’Or” representing the modernist painters of his region in Rome and Florence.
Dorazio also visited the United States for one year and met artists Rothko and Motherwell.
In this clip we see a wonderful work of fabric art made by Dorazio:
Piero Dorazio passed away in 2005.
Price range information: Dorazio worked in many mediums including oils, watercolor, plexiglass, and prints. Many works range from $5,000 to $500,000. At auction Dorazio’s work has sold for more than $4 million.
Dorazio is seen as a wonderful abstract artist, but my favorite images of his are those of the ink ribbons. The repeating pattern displayed in this work reminds of the great British Op Art master, Bridget Riley. Below an example of Bridget Riley’s art.
In the gallery below all works, except the first, are by Georges Rouault. The first one is by his mentor Gustave Moreau.
Price range information: The artist worked in many mediums. Etchings can be had from $100 to $1000. Oils can get up $578,000. Aquatints can range from $1,000 to $20,000.
The artist was born in Paris, France in the year 1871. His family was rather poor. Rouault was an expressionist painter and produced a large amount of original art as well as prints. He loved the arts as a child and was encouraged by his mom. He became an apprentice to a local glass painter at the age of fourteen.
By working with painting glass, this lead the artist to his technique of a heavy black ouline in nearly all his shapes. Whilst he was an apprentice Rouault continued to study art taking evening classes. In 1891 he began studies at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. This is the official art school of France. As a student he became the favorite student of the professor and reknown painter Gustave Moreau. Moreau was a painter of the surreal and painted in a romantic/ mystery genre. Below is an example of Moreau’s singature style. The two had great respect for each other and when Moreau died in 1898, Georges Rouault was made curator of the museum dedicated to Gustave Moreau.
As Rouault became older religous themes made their way into the artists work eventually become his favorite subject matter. The artist made many works of Christ.
Beginning in 1930 the artist had shows worldwide and was reknown internationally.
Like all French artists, this guy was very unique! Toward the end of his life he burned nearly 300 works of art that he started but never finished. He burned them as he thought he wouldn’t live to finish them.
George Rouault passed away in 1958 at the age of 86.
I also found it interesting that his training in painting glass, was apparent in finding his own unique artistic style. Very similar to Grandma Moses who started out doing embroidery and when her hands became too bad to do needlecraft began painting.
The University of San Diego had a special exhibition of the artist’s Miserere series. Here a curator talks about the show.
As an expressionist painter it is thought that the artist was heavily influenced by Vincent Van Gogh.
From a style standpoint I would compare him to another French artist, Bernard Buffet. Both used great colour and flat shapes. Both also used black lines to outline the shapes used in their works. I wrote about Buffet not long ago, he was very productive and when he could no longer create art due to Parkinsons disease, he put his head in a plastic bag, taped it around his neck, and committed suicide. Both artists had oustanding use of colour and enjoyed flat shapes.
Try an expressionist painting today!
Only two more days until I see Vincent Van Gogh again!
Diattaart Blog 