French Neoclassical Painter, 1770-1837 was a French painter born in Rome, where his father occupied a post in the house of the French ambassador. His mother was Italian. François Gerard was born in Rome, on 12 March 1770, to J. S. Gerard and Cleria Matteï. At the age of twelve Gerard obtained admission into the Pension du Roi in Paris. From the Pension he passed to the studio of the sculptor Augustin Pajou which he left at the end of two years for that of the history painter Nicolas-Guy Brenet, whom he quit almost immediately to place himself under Jacques-Louis David. In 1789 he competed for the Prix de Rome, which was carried off by his comrade Girodet. In the following year (1790) he again presented himself, but the death of his father prevented the completion of his work, and obliged him to accompany his mother to Rome. In 1791 he returned to Paris; but his poverty was so great that he was forced to forgo his studies in favor of employment which should bring in immediate profit. David at once availed himself of his help, and one of that master's most celebrated portraits, of Le Pelletier de St Fargeaumay, owes much to the hand of Gerard. This painting was executed early in 1793, the year in which Gerard, at the request of David, was named a member of the revolutionary tribunal, from the fatal decisions of which he, however, invariably absented himself. In 1794 he obtained the first prize in a competition, the subject of which was The Tenth of August, and, further stimulated by the successes of his rival and friend Girodet in the Salons of 1793 and 1794, Gerard (nobly aided by Jean-Baptiste Isabey, the miniaturist, produced in 1795 his famous Belisaire. In 1796 a portrait of his generous friend (in the Louvre) obtained undisputed success, and the money received from Isabey for these two works enabled Gerard to execute in 1797 his Psyche et l'Amour (illustration). At last, in 1799, his portrait of Madame Mere established his position as one of the first portrait-painters of the day. In 1808 as many as eight, in 1810 no less than fourteen portraits by him, were exhibited at the Salon, and these figures afford only an indication of the enormous numbers which he executed yearly; all the leading figures of the Empire and of the Restoration, all the most celebrated men and women of Europe, sat to Gerard. This extraordinary vogue was due partly to the charm of his manner and conversation, for his salon was as much frequented as his studio; Madame de Staël, George Canning, Talleyrand, the Duke of Wellington, have all borne witness to the attraction of his society. Rich and famous, Gerard was stung by remorse for earlier ambitions abandoned; at intervals he had indeed striven to prove his strength with Girodet and other rivals, and his Bataille d'Austerlitz (1810) showed a breadth of invention and style which are even more conspicuous in L'Entree d'Henri IV Paris (at Versailles), the work with which in 1817 he did homage to the Bourbons. After this date Gerard declined,   Related Paintings of Francois Gerard :. | Madame Recamier (mk09) | Madame Recamier (mk22) | Daphnis and Chloe | Portrait of Katarzyna Starzenska | Ossian on the Bank of the Lora,Invoking the Gods to the Strains of a Harp (mk22) |
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Henry Somm
French, 1844-1907.French painter, illustrator, designer and printmaker. He was trained at the Ecole Municipale de Dessin in Rouen under Gustave Morin (1809-86). He was obliged to sell illustrations to periodicals to make a living, contributing, among others, to Charge, Cravache, LInutile, Chronique parisienne and Courier fran?ais. His drawings were spirited, but because their humour often relied on topicality his fame was short-lived.
Leopold Graf Von Kalckreuth
1855-1928,German painter and etcher. The son of the late Romantic landscape painter Eduard Stanislaus, Graf von Kalckreuth (1820-94), he studied from 1875 to 1878 under Ferdinand Schauss (1832-1916), Willem Linnig (1819-85) and Alexander Struys (1852-1941) at the Kunstschule in Weimar founded by his father. In 1879, after military service, he enrolled at the Akademie in Munich, where he attended Gyula Benczer's drawing classes and continued his study of painting under Karl Theodor von Piloty and Wilhelm von Diez (1839-1907). In 1883 he travelled to the Netherlands and then to Italy and France. In 1885 he accepted a teaching appointment at the Kunstschule in Weimar, but in 1890 he resigned and returned to Munich. During the next five years he worked at Heckricht in Silesia (now Jedrzychowice, Poland), perfecting his oil technique. In 1892 he was a founder-member of the Munich Secession. Kalckreuth's work from this period reflects the influence of several contemporaries; the portrait of the Artist's Wife of 1888 (Leipzig, Mus. Gesch.) recalls the portraits of Franz von Lenbach and Max Liebermann, while the visionary element brought to the genre scene Rainbow (1894-6; Munich, Neue Pin.) is close to the work of Fritz von Uhde.
James Barry
b.Oct. 11, 1741, Cork, County Cork, Ire. d.Feb. 22, 1806, London, England. Irish James Barry Gallery was born on 9th November at Captain Lieutenant Bouchiers quarters at the Old Train Barrack Yard in Ann Street, Belfast, Co. Antrim in the north of Ireland. Although Barry lived his adult life as a man, his true gender is unknown. It is widely accepted that Barry was a woman who chose to live as a man so that he might be accepted as a university student and be able to pursue his chosen career as a surgeon.