England/Australia Painter , 1801-1878 Australian painter, lithographer and librarian of English birth. Son of a London merchant, he studied c. 1816 under Copley Fielding. His training was as a watercolourist and his most important works are watercolours, although he also produced paintings in oils. His early work displays the taste then current for the Picturesque. Francis Danby, David Cox and Turner were artists he admired. Martens left for India in 1832 or 1833 but at Montevideo joined Charles Darwin's expedition, replacing Augustus Earle as topographical draughtsman aboard the Beagle. The work strengthened his observation of detail and skill as a draughtsman. He left the expedition in October 1834 and, travelling via Tahiti and New Zealand, arrived in Sydney in April 1835. There he worked as a professional artist, in the 1840s and 1850s producing lithographic views of the Sydney area to augment his income. In 1863 he was appointed Parliamentary Librarian, which secured his finances. The skills he had acquired aboard the Beagle helped to gain him commissions to depict the estates around Sydney. However, his admiration for Turner, and with this the desire to elevate landscape as a subject, prompted him to subordinate line to mood in a Romantic treatment of the landscape. His thoughts were clearly stated in a lecture on landscape painting given in 1856 at the Australian Library, Sydney (see Smith, 1975).   Related Paintings of Conrad Martens :. | Coastal Scene near Exmouth | Sydney Harbour Looking Towards the North End | Australian Landscape with cattle and a stockman at a creek | Cloud study | Rio Santa Cruz |
Related Artists:
Meade, Francis
American, Approx. 1807-1870
Werner van den Valckert
Though he was born in Amsterdam, he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in the Hague between 1600 - 1605. By 1614 he had moved to Amsterdam, because his daughter was baptized there. His earliest dated etchings are from 1612. His surviving paintings are historical allegories and portraits. He also made a prestigious schutterstuk, which features the Amsterdam burgermeester Albert Burgh. According to Houbraken, he was a student of Hendrik Goltzius. He painted a series of 4 paintings showing a doctor as angel, Christ, a man, and the devil; these were all based on engravings by Goltzius. These paintings are now in the possession of the Boerhaave Museum, which has other similar series on display.
Carl Gustaf Pilo
Swedish Painter, 1711-1793,Swedish painter. His father, Olof Pijhlou (1668-1753), was an artist. Pilo may have travelled to Vienna and Germany, and it is probable that he studied at the Drawing Academy established in Stockholm in 1735. From 1737 he was engaged as a portrait painter by members of the southern Swedish aristocracy (e.g. Baron Malte Ramel; evedskloster, priv. col.). About 1740 he settled in Copenhagen, where he swiftly rose to a position of importance: following the enthusiastic reception of his portrait of Louise of England, the wife of the future Frederick V (Copenhagen, Stat. Mus. Kst, on loan to Amalienborg Castle), he was appointed court painter in 1745 and drawing-master to Crown Prince Christian (later Christian VII) in 1759. Pilo was appointed professor at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen in 1748 and for the next two decades was recognized as the foremost portrait painter in Denmark.