ART “4”
“2”-DAY 05 November
v.6.a0 |
| DEATHS:
1525 ALBERTINELLI — 1741 PELLEGRINI
— 1872 SULLY — 1955 UTRILLO
— 1946 STELLA
— 1807 KAUFFMAN
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Died on 05 November 1525: Mariotto Albertinelli di Biagio di Bindo,
Florentine painter born on 13 October 1474. — Albertinelli was trained by Cosimo Rosselli, in whose studio he met Fra Bartolomeo. The two went into partnership in 1508, but soon after this Albertinelli temporarily abandoned painting to become an innkeeper, saying (according to Vasari) that he was fed up with criticism and wanted a 'less difficult and more cheerful craft'. Vasari also says he was a 'restless man, a follower of Venus, and a good liver.' {It is not known whether he took regularly liver pills, but it is known that, if he did, they were not Carter's little ones}. His paintings are elegant but rather insipid. His artistic independence is revealed in certain paintings that are eccentrically archaic and in others that show a preference for conventions more typical of the early Renaissance. His best work is the Visitation (1503). — Franciabigio, Innocenzo da Imola, and Jacopo da Pontormo were students of Arbertinelli. — LINKS — Visitation (1503, 232x146cm) _ Mariotto Albertinelli, the student of Cosimo Rosselli, ran a workshop with Fra Bartolomeo, and like him shared an interest in the painting of Perugino, whose illuminating example is apparent in this work, unanimously considered to be his masterpiece. However, we cannot fail to notice also the monumentality of the figures and the geometrically divided landscape, influences, these, of Fra Bartolomeo. The spatial breadth is still characteristic of Perugino, but the narrative content is more vigorous. — Annunciation (1503, 23x50cm) — Birth of Christ (1503, 23x50cm). — Circumcision (1503, 23x50cm) The predella of the altarpiece with the Visitation shows these three stories from the life of Christ. Despite the small size of the three compartments, Albertinelli succeeds in constructing austere, essential spaces which display a great formal balance. The small, full figures are firmly and vigorously placed in scenes which respect the most rigorous perspective laws of the Florentine Quattrocento. |
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Born on 05 November 1751: Friedrich-Heinrich
Füger, Austrian painter, who died on 08 December 1818. — Füger was a fahionable portraitist and respected master of his period. As director of the Academy in Vienna he guarded the rigid system of Classicism against the new tendencies. He was the master of several Hungarian painters and he worked in Hungary, too. He executed portraits for the Haller family and altarpieces for Pannonhalma. — At the age of eight he was already painting miniature portraits. In 1764 he entered the Hohe Karlsschule in Stuttgart and received drawing lessons from Nicolas Guibal. Overawed by the great historical paintings in the ducal gallery, he lost heart and moved to Halle to study law; but in 1771 public demand for his miniatures encouraged him to return to painting, and in that year he moved to Leipzig, to the school of Adam Friedrich Oeser, where he became acquainted with Classical art. Returning from this two-year training, he was introduced to the works of the Italian Renaissance by Guibal. His fresh and natural miniature portraits on ivory remained in demand; portraits of his parents (1774) also date from these years. During a stay in Dresden, Füger met the British Ambassador, Sir Robert Murray Keith [1730–1795]. In 1774 he followed him to Vienna, where Keith organized numerous portrait commissions at the Austrian court. — The students of Füger included Eustatie Altini, Moritz Michael Daffinger, Peter Krafft, Leopold Kuppelwieser, Johann Baptist Lampi, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Joseph Karl Stieler, Martin von Wagner. — LINKS — Selbstbildnis (print; _ ZOOM) — Selbstbildnis mit dem Bruder Gottlieb Christian aka Der Künstler und sein Bruder am Flügel (1768 print, oval) — Prometheus brings Fire to Mankind (1817, 221x156cm; 2500x1751pix, 4130kb) _ Aeschylus structured the Prometheus legend as a tragic trilogy. As the son of a Titan and a powerful goddess, Prometheus held an intermediary status between god and humankind. According to myth, he created human beings, and was thus the archetypal visual artist. Against the will of the gods, Prometheus secretly lit his torch on the sun chariot and endowed his creatures with the spark of life. Füger presents Prometheus as a victor over the arrogant tyranny of the gods. He holds the flame to the heavens in triumph. Only the finger at his lips indicates the secretive nature of his deed. At his feet rests a creature devoid of life’s warmth. A cold green indicates the lifeless material. Füger’s Prometheus marks the end of the 18th century. The clear formal language of Classicism has replaced the excesses of the Baroque and the sweetness of Rococo art. Füger brings sculptural qualities to his mastery of this monumental format. The powerful figure of Prometheus is reminiscent of the colossal statues of the Monte Cavallo horse tamers in Rome — János Batsányi (1808, 68x51cm) _ János Batsányi [09 May 1763 – 12 May 1845] was Hungary's leading political poet of the age of Hungarian Enlightenment during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods, and he was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Science. His political poetry was anti-royalist and advocated revolution and radical social change. His most famous political poem is A franciaországi változánokra (“On the changes in France”). He was imprisoned in Hungary for a year and in 1796 moved to Vienna and later to Paris, where the Austrians seized him after the fall of Napoléon and interned him in Linz for the remaining 30 years of his life. Batsányi also wrote fine lyric poems. _ Batsányi János a magyar felvi-lágosodás egyik legjelentosebb költoje. A jako-binus mozgalomban való részvétele miatt börtön-büntetést, majd Napoleonnak a magyarokhoz intézett kiáltványa fordításáért számuzetést szen-vedett. Mind a költo, mind felesége, a népszeru bécsi költono, Baumberg Gabriella, viszontag-ságos életük során mindig a legjobb osztrák muvészekre; bízták arcvonásaik megörökítését. Így képmásukat Friedrich Heinrich Füger mellett Vinzenz Georg Kininger és Johann Niedermann is megfestette. A Füger mellképen a költoi hivatásra utaló attribútumok, a háttérben elhelyezett köny-vek nem játszanak túlságosan nagy szerepet, hogy a jellemábrázolás legfontosabb tényezoje az arc minél teljesebben érvényesülhessen. Ezt emeli ki haj szürkéje, a nyakravaló fehérje és a sárgásbarna drapéria is. A balról beeso fény a plaszticitást fokozza. A bécsi klasszicizmus jeles mestere Batsányi képmásával az egyik legszebb magyar íróarcképet alkotta meg. –- Apollo und die Musen (1780; 705x930pix, 58kb) —(061104) |
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Died on 05 November 1741: Giovanni
Antonio Pellegrini, Italian painter born on 29 April 1675.
— Born in Venice. Pupil of Ricci and Pagani. 1716 painter to Prince-Elector of the Palatinate, traveled to Antwerp, the Hague (painted ceiling of the Mauritshuis), England.Died in Venice 05 November 1741 (or possibly up to 3 days earlier) — Venetian decorative painter, who was a student of Sebastiano Ricci and one of the most important of Tiepolo's predecessors. Like Pittoni, he worked for many foreign patrons and travelled widely. He was first recorded as a painter in 1703 and soon after this he married the sister of Rosalba Carriera, who mentions him in her diary on several occasions. In 1707 Lord Manchester went on an embassy to Venice; he commissioned a picture to celebrate the event from Carlevaris and brought Pellegrini and Marco Ricci back to London with him in 1708. Pellegrini soon had considerable success and became a Director of Kneller's Academy in 1711. Pellegrini 'painted prodigious quick, had a very noble and fruitfull invention' which may be seen in the decorations at Kimbolton Castle (now a school), done for Lord Manchester, or in the decorations at Castle Howard (1709, mostly destroyed in 1941). In these decorative series Pellegrini shows that he was a true precursor of Tiepolo in the lightness and gaiety of his touch which contrasts with the duller history painting of Pittoni. In 1713 he went to Germany and Flanders; returning to England in 1719 when he was less successful because Marco Ricci had sent for his uncle Sebastiano, who was generally agreed to be a better painter. Pellegrini also painted a splendid ceiling for the Bank of France (since destroyed) in Paris, decorated the Great Hall in the Mauritshuis in The Hague (1718), and worked in Prague, Dresden and Vienna. There is a sketch of 1710 which may represent his design for the cupola of Saint-Paul's for which 'he made several designs and a moddle for painting the Cupolo at St Paul's for which he was paid tho' he had not the cupolo to paint'. — LINKS — Sacrifice of Iphigenia . — Allegory of Painting (1730, 143x132cm) — Allegory of Sculpture (1730, 142x132cm) _ Very early in his career, Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, considerably influenced by Luca Giordano, absorbed the examples of Magnasco and Sebastiano Ricci and turned his style towards a refined decorative freedom in airily elegant works of pure rococo taste; and through his stays in several European artistic centres London, Düsseldorf, The Hague, Antwerp, Paris, Prague Dresden and Vienna, his work gained a certain popularity. The Allegory of Sculpture and the Allegory of Painting belong to his last years. They are an interweaving of the lightest of figural rhythms, a colored web of impalpable, rarified weightlessness, shot through with silvery transparencies which recall the pastels of the artist's sister-in-law, Rosalba Carriera. Like hers, the paintings of Pellegrini are emblematic of the skin-deep spiritual frivolity of a part of the eighteenth century. |
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Born on 05 November 1619: Philips de
Koninck (or Koningh) — Dutch painter who died on 04
October 1688. — Cousin of Salomon
Koninck. — Philips Koninck is the best-known member of a family of artists. He studied with his brother Jacob [1615 – >1690] in Rotterdam, and he was also a student of Rembrandt in Amsterdam, where he settled in 1641. Although he painted various subjects (the poet Vondel praised his portraits and history pictures) his fame now rests on his landscapes. He specialized in extensive views, and his work has a majesty and power that rivals the similar scenes of Ruisdael; the National Gallery in London has four outstanding examples. Like many Dutch painters he had a second occupation; he ran a prosperous shipping firm and evidently painted little in the last decade of his life. His wealth enabled him to collect drawings. He was a prolific draftsman himself and his sketchy penmanship can be deceptively close to Rembrandt's. — Among his contemporaries, Philips Köninck (also Coning, Coningh, Coningh, Koning, Konnink) was known as a figure painter, specializing in portraits, genre and religious scenes. But nowadays he is known and praised as a landscape-painter. Philips was born in Amsterdam, the son of a successful goldsmith, and trained in the studio of his brother Jacob, a painter, who taught him from 1639 to 1641 in Rotterdam. Subsequently he returned to Amsterdam, where he lived for the rest of his life. Köninck was a wealthy man, owning a company, which operated horse-drawn passenger barges between Rotterdam and Amsterdam. He seems to have been a friend rather than a student of Rembrandt but he was certainly influenced by the great master in his manner of rendering biblical subjects. Köninck’s landscapes are characterized by a high viewpoint and a sky, which occupies at least half of the picture space. They are cloudscapes as much as extensive landscapes. Wide stretches of flat or slightly hilly land under a great expanse of sky are the realistic view of Holland. Waterways and paths intersect the land; houses are dotted in the foreground. These landscapes were mostly carried out in warm, brown-yellow tones. The landscape with a high sky was particularly in favor in the 1650s and 1660s, not only in the work of Köninck, but also in that of Jacob Isaackszoon van Ruisdael [1628 — 10 Mar 1692] and also in the etched landscapes of Rembrandt van Rijn [15 Jul 1606 – 04 Oct 1669]. — LINKS — Distant View with Cottages Lining a Road (1655, 133x168cm) _ When he painted this river landscape, Philips Koninck drew his inspiration from the countryside of Gelderland, although this is probably not a depiction of an actual location. The artist based his work on observations but carefully composed the painting in his studio. Using small strokes of the brush, he painted a panorama with a meandering river. The country road on the left draws the eye past farmhouses to a distant town. Koninck employed largely subdued earth-colored tints in this painting. Here and there he added a colour highlight, like the red roof tiles of the farmhouse and the fisherman's jacket. These colors and the loose style of painting with visible brushstrokes betray the influence of Rembrandt. Koninck signed and dated the work in the bottom left corner: 'P. Koninck 1655'. This is an excellent example of the artist's use of tiny dabs of thick paint. The landscape contains relatively few living creatures. But the fisherman appears to have caught something: a glistening fish is struggling at the end of the line. Fifteen years after Koninck painted his river landscape, Jacob van Ruisdael produced View of Haarlem (43x38cm). As in Koninck's work, Van Ruisdael's painting is dominated by the cloudy sky. The landscape is composed of horizontal strips with the shadows cast by the clouds rendered as bands of light and dark. Yet the two vistas are clearly different. Van Ruisdael's colors have more contrast. He also painted with greater detail in almost indiscernible strokes of the brush, while Koninck's loose strokes are more suggestive than representational. — Wide River Landscape — Distant view in Gelderland (1655) — Adoration by the Magi — Panoramic landscape (1665) — Plain in Holland (1670) — The baptism of the Chamberlain — Dutch Landscape Viewed from the Dunes (1664, 122x165cm) If Koninck's development had stopped in the middle of the seventeenth century, he would be remembered as a talented Rembrandt follower. But from about 1649-1650 until about 1665 he created a series of very large panoramic views in a distinctive personal style. They are closely related to the classical phase of Dutch landscape painting and are amongst the great glories of Dutch art. — An Extensive Landscape with a Hawking Party (132x160cm) The human figures on the painting were done by J. Lingelbach. — Panorama View of Dunes and a River (1664, 94x120cm) _ Philips Koninck was a member of Rembrandt's entourage. His drawings and early painted landscapes show that he learned from Rembrandt. However, by the middle of the century he began to paint large panoramic views that are independent of the master's style. They rank with the most grandiose of the age. Where Molenaer and Houckgeest more or less assumed a specific viewing position outside the pictorial space, and Saenredam's perspective suggests looking from within it, many landscape painters positioned the beholder in undefined or even impossibly high positions. Koninck often suggested such a bird's-eye view in his sweeping panoramas of Dutch fields and rivers beneath imposing skies. The absence of one fixed viewpoint implies that the viewer is seeing an objective record of a city or landscape, recorded without human intervention. It has been suggested that, by positing such a freely surveying eye, these landscapes resemble the exquisite maps produced in great variety and quantity in the Dutch Republic. The maps depicted in genre scenes, hung on walls like paintings, indeed indicate that seventeenth-century viewers did not make the modern distinction between paintings as "art" and maps as "knowledge." — An Extensive Landscape with a Road by a Ruin (1655, 137x167cm) _ Among his contemporaries, Philips Koninck was known as a figure painter, specializing in portraits as well as in genre and religious scenes, rather than as a landscapist as he is known today. He was born in Amsterdam, the son of a successful goldsmith, and trained in the studio of his brother, Jacob, who worked in Rotterdam. Subsequently he returned to Amsterdam, where he lived for the rest of his life. Koninck was a wealthy man, owning a company which operated trekschuiten (horse-drawn passenger barges) between Rotterdam and Amsterdam. He seems to have been a friend rather than a student of Rembrandt but he was certainly influenced by him in his manner of painting(and drawing) biblical subjects. Koninck's landscapes are characterized by a high viewpoint and a sky which occupies at least half of the picture space. They are cloudscapes as much as extensive landscapes. He emphasizes the flatness of Holland, a more realistic approach than, for example, that of Aelbert Cuyp, who attempts to make his landscapes more varied by the inclusion of hills and mountains taken from his imagination rather than from his observation of the Dutch countryside. The landscape with a high sky was particularly in favor in the 1650s and 1660s, not just in the work of Koninck, but also in that of Jacob van Ruisdael and also in the etched landscapes of Rembrandt. This painting of 1655 is an outstanding example of Koninck's landscape art. The colors, which in some of his canvases have sunk into uniform browns and greys with the passage of time, are particularly vivid and the painting is remarkably well preserved. — Village on a Hill (1651, 61x83cm) Koninck is one of the last generation of Dutch landscape painters. In the 1660s, there was a general tendency to "upgrade" the various genres. During this period, the interiors of Vermeer and de Hooch became increasingly elegant, and even the still-lifes were freighted with "noblesse". In the work of Koninck, this trend even affected the landscapes, in which he positioned courtly figures and palatial architecture. In the 1650s, by contrast, when Koninck was at the height of his creative powers, he produced landscapes of exceptional purity, bringing the flat panoramic landscape to its greatest perfection. A soft and golden light is cast across the flat countryside, illuminating things that are, in themselves, uninteresting: sandy dunes, the occasional tree, some water, a village. There is nothing remarkable or jarring. The sensation is where the brown earth is bathed in sunlight to a golden hue. Koninck was influenced by Rembrandt's landscape painting, which represents a chapter in its own right within his enormous oeuvre. Rembrandt's influence is evident in the golden-brown tone of his paintings and in the way Koninck occasionally integrates unexpected and fantastic objects such as a glittering bridge spanning the water, a ruin or a fairy-tale castle. —(051104) |
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Died on 05 November 1872: Thomas Sully,
English-born (19 June 1783) US artist, specialized in portraits.
— {Could anything sully Sully? or did Sully sully others?} — Sully immigrated to the US in 1792 with his family, who were theater and circus performers. He made at least one appearance on stage as an acrobat in 1794 and was then apprenticed to an insurance broker, after which he was placed with his brother-in-law, Jean Belzons, a miniature painter. After an argument with Belzons, Sully fled and in September 1799 joined his older brother Lawrence Sully [1769–1804], also a miniature painter, in Richmond, Virginia. Thomas Sully also studied under Henry Benbridge [bap. 27 May 1744 – 25 Jan 1812 bur.], Thomas Lawrence [13 Apr 1769 – 07 Jan 1830], and Benjamin West [10 Oct 1738 – 11 Mar 1820]. In 1801 the Sully family moved to Norfolk VA, where Thomas painted his first miniature, a likeness of his brother Chester. In January 1803 Lawrence and his family returned to Richmond. Thomas remained in Norfolk for another six months but in July 1803 returned to Richmond, where he opened his own studio. — Mary Peale {she had a Peale appeal}, George Inness [01 May 1825 – 03 Aug 1894], and Alfred Jacob Miller [10 Jan 1810 – 1874] were students of Sully. — LINKS –- The Reverend Thomas Stockton (1843, 91x71cm; 1003x875pix, 41kb) –- Alfred Sully (1839, 61x51cm; 1124x883pix, 56kb_ .ZOOM to 2110x1785pix, 561kb) head and shoulders, a young man in a soldier's uniform, holding a rifle with fixed bayonet. –- Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1826, 49x38cm; 792x792pix, 54kb_ .ZOOM to 1584x1583pix, 157kb) — Mother and Son (1840, 145x115cm; 600x470pix, 53kb _ ZOOM to 2581x2024pix, 467kb) — Eliza Ridgely aka The Lady with the Harp (1818, 215×143cm; xpix, kb _ ZOOM to 2397x1576pix, 228kb) This has been adapted by the pseudonymous Sam Clense in the much more unusual _ Lady Holding Up Two Harps Being Played by a Disembodied Double Arm Which is Not Attracting Her Attention (2005; 718x539pix, 43kb _ ZOOM to 2155x1618pix, 275kb). — George Washington (1820, 239x152cm; 2000x1277pix, 1205kb) _ This painting is an exact copy of one of the best-known portraits of George Washington (1800; 800x514pix, 81kb), by George Stuart. Sully made many copies of Stuart's portraits of President Washington for government buildings and historical societies because Stuart could not meet the astonishing demand for them. In this portrait, Washington's right hand rests on a copy of the Constitution. The sword alludes to his military heroism. — Lady on the Battlements of a Castle (56x36cm) — Daniel de la Motte (1813, 92x74cm) — Robert Fielding Stockton (1849, 74x91cm) _ about 3 year old — Mrs. Fitzgerald and her Daughter Matilda (76x64cm) —(061103) |
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Born on 05 November 1914:
Alton S. Tobey, US muralist, portraitist, and illustrator,
who died on 04 January 2005. — His mother provided him with pencils and paper when he was three years old, thus setting him on a career that spanned over six decades. Tobey's Realistic portraiture and murals were his "bread and butter" work, and were often reproduced in print and on collectibles. What he called his "artistic double life" led him to Abstraction, Pre-Columbian explorations and Photorealism. He was also both teacher and mentor to many aspiring artists, and established a scholarship for them. He was best known for portraits and his floor-to-ceiling murals, which he called “symphonies of painting”. Two of his most acclaimed works are Inca Trephination and Contemporary Cultural Mutilations in Pursuit of Beauty. He did a six-piece series on the life of Gen. Douglas MacArthur for the MacArthur Memorial Building in Norfolk VA. His portraits were of presidents, Supreme Court justices, Pope John Paul II, artists and Albert Einstein, whom he happened upon serendipitously and first sketched while he was an art student in the late 1930's. His acquaintance with Einstein endured, and Einstein's theories on space and time inspired Mr. Tobey's signature curvilinear style of painting, separate from his representational work. Besides the curvilinears, he made fragments paintings and Conceptual works. He furnished the covers and hundreds of illustrations for a dozen volumes of the Golden Books History of the United States, published in the 1960's. He also did illustrations for Life and other national publications. Tobey was an art educator and a historian as well. His son, David Tobey [1954~], is also a painter (and a sculptor and violinist). — Rosalyn Tobey, wife of the artist (1999; 307x415pix, 86kb) _ 50th wedding anniversary portrait. She was a pianist and teacher who died in a car accident in Mexico on 20 July 2002. — Rivera (557x359pix, 22kb _ ZOOM to 1600x1032pix, 96kb) _ Actually only about half the face of Rivera. — Frieda's World (557x829pix, 88kb _ ZOOM to 1075x1600pix, 225kb) — Frieda's Pain (557x440pix, 49kb _ ZOOM to 1600x1264pix, 227kb) _ Greatly influenced by the story of Frida Callo and Diego Rivera, (about ten years before the motion picture about them was released), Tobey felt compelled to express her life as a tribute, and also as a cathartic reaction for the pain he himself felt for her suffering. These last three paintings address this story. — Conquistador (557x357pix, 50kb _ ZOOM to 1600x1027pix, 232kb) — Maria Félix (557x414pix, 25kb _ ZOOM to 1600x1189pix,119 kb) — Spirit Dance (557x526pix, 72kb _ ZOOM to 1600x1512pix, 308kb) — Spirit Dance 2 (557x823pix, 98kb _ ZOOM to 1083x1600pix, 241kb) — Spirit Dance 3 (557x384pix, 62kb _ ZOOM to 1600x1104pix, 304kb) _ The three Spirit Dance paintings show Tobey's involvement with Day of the Dead celebrations and other ceremonial observances, dances and festivities that went along with them. Tobey marries his representationalism with his curvilinear abstract style and uses the curvilinear figures to show the ghostly musician joining along with the masked and costume-clad corporeal figures, as they ceremoniously conduct the special festivities. Spirit Dance 2 takes the spirit aspect to an additional dimension by the subtle depiction of an ancient wise man, diffusely but powerfully present in a state of deep contemplation, as if holding the sacred space for the ceremony. Spirit Dance 3 is completely in the curvilinear style, but this time is built up as a bas-relief using solid materials, string and metal. — Latin Experience (557x737pix, 102kb _ ZOOM to 1209x1600pix, 303kb) — Peruvian Flutists (558x669pix, 71kb _ ZOOM to 1333x1600pix, 246kb) _ As a necessary step in his research for a commission from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, Tobey was sent to Peru for 3 months to study all aspects of the culture and to gather visual material for his mural. Of special interest to him was the study of the unique facial qualities of the natives. His paintings displayed some of the most authentic and unmixed representation of what Incans atop Macchu Picchu would have looked like centuries ago. In the following years, greatly influenced by his Peruvian studies and experiences, bold, dynamic and colorful canvases would emerge as homages to his appreciation and his love of this culture and its musical and artistic forms. — Emiliano Zapata (557x380pix, 40kb _ ZOOM to 1600x1091pix, 196kb) — Santiago (557x433pix, 25kb _ ZOOM to 1600x1243pix, 117kb) — Santiago's daughter (557x410pix, 38kb _ ZOOM to 1600x1179pix, 171kb) _ The portrait of this Mexican child was commissioned by her father, whom Alton and Rosalyn met while visiting an unearthed Guatemalan ruin in the early 80's. Atop a remote pyramid that was only accessible by foot or horseback the Tobeys met Gabriella and Santiago, a couple who would remain dear friends for life. — (Raking the Hay?) (453x600, 84kb) — (Tsarist Law and Order?) (410x333pix, 24kb) _ painted for the cover of a Time issue on the Russian Revolution. == The Golden Book History of The United States: In the early 1960's, Golden Books Publishers planned on creating a 12-volume set of subscription volumes containing more than a thousand pages of illustrations and text on US history, from the discovery of the North American continent in the 15th century to the beginining of the space age in the 1960's. The text in the volumes was written to be understood, appreciated and enjoyed by people of all ages and educational levels. They wanted an artist who could narrate in pictures the most important events in US history with not only imagination, but also with historical accuracy. Having proven himself as one of the US's most succesful painters of historic murals, Alton Tobey was chosen to illustrate the books; and in just over a year and a half, Tobey he made more than 350 individual paintings for this. Here are links to reproductions of a few of them: — Pilgrims boarding The Mayflower (422x913pix, 65kb _ ZOOM to 739x1600pix, 137kb) — Cartier and Agohanna (557x857pix, 73kb _ ZOOM to 1040x1600pix, 172kb) — Old Niewe Amsterdam (557x397pix, kb _ ZOOM to 1600x1139pix, 233kb) — The First Thanksgiving (557x825pix, kb _ ZOOM to 1080x1600pix, kb) — The British ambushed (557x794pix, kb _ ZOOM to 1123x1600pix, kb) — The death of General Wolfe (557x770pix, kb _ ZOOM to 1157x1600pix, kb) _ much inferior to A#>The Death of General Wolfe (1770, 152x214cm) by Benjamin West [10 Oct 1738 – 11 Mar 1820]. — The British surrender at Yorktown. (557x770pix, kb _ ZOOM to 1157x1600pix, 208kb) _ British general Charles Cornwallis [31 Dec 1738 – 05 October 1805] had won some victories during the US War of Independence, notably at Camden, South Carolina (16 Aug 1780). But he is remembered mostly for completing the British defeat by his surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, where he had been besieged by by American and French ground forces under Washington [22 Feb 1732 – 14 Dec 1799] and the comte de Rochambeau [01 Jul 1725 – 10 May 1807] and a French fleet under the comte de Grasse [13 Sep 1722 – 11 Jan 1788]. Few people realize that Cornwallis nevertheless remained popular in Great Britain and later served ably as governor-general of India (23 Feb 1786 - 13 Aug 1793; 1805) and as viceroy of Ireland (1798–1801). — Custer's Last Stand (557x717pix, kb _ ZOOM to 1243x1600pix, kb) — Pershing at Lafayette's grave (557x389pix, kb _ ZOOM to 1600x1117pix, kb) — General Robert E. Lee (557x419pix, kb _ ZOOM to 1600x1205pix, kb) — The assassination of President McKinley (397x993pix, kb _ ZOOM to 696x1600pix, kb) — The great Chicago fire (434x913pix, kb _ ZOOM to 760x1600pix, kb) — A breadline in the Depression (478x913pix, kb _ ZOOM to 837x1600pix, kb) — A World War battle (557x766pix, kb _ ZOOM to 1163x1600pix, kb) — Fireside Chats (557x380pix, kb _ ZOOM to 1091x1600pix, kb) — Scientist Enrico Fermi (557x777pix, kb _ ZOOM to 1147x1600pix, kb) — Brothers United (600x477pix, 82kb) _ John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. — Apollo Astronauts (505x600pix, 99kb) _ The portrait of the three Apollo 11 astronauts, commissioned to celebrate the lunar landing in 1969 is perhaps Tobey's most recognizable group portrait, as millions of reproductions were sold across the USA. Left to right: pilot Edwin Aldrin, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Commander Neil Armstrong. — The Roots of Westchester (1984; 423x950pix, 91kb). _ Tobey painted this mural in honor of the 300th arriversary of his home county, Westchester in New York state. He incorporated more than 100 individual portraits, from George Washington to contemporary county residents. — The Monument at Mount Rushmore (557x798pix, 94kb _ ZOOM to 1115x1596pix, 254kb) — Tobey's web site. |
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