1758-1810 British John Hoppner Galleries John Hoppner (April 4?, 1758 - January 23, 1810), English portrait-painter, was born in Whitechapel. His father was of German extraction, and his mother was one of the German attendants at the royal palace. Hoppner was consequently brought early under the notice and received the patronage of George III, whose regard for him gave rise to unfounded scandal. As a boy he was a chorister at the royal chapel, but showing strong inclination for art, he in 1775 entered as a student at the Royal Academy. In 1778 he took a silver medal for drawing from the life, and in 1782 the Academy's highest award, the gold medal for historical painting, his subject being King Lear. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy In 1780. His earliest love was for landscape, but necessity obliged him to turn to the more lucrative business of portrait painting. At once successful, he had throughout life the most fashionable and wealthy sitters, and was the greatest rival of the growing attraction of Lawrence. Ideal subjects were very rarely at tempted by Hoppner, though a "Sleeping Venus," "Belisarius," "Jupiter and Io," a "Bacchante" and "Cupid and Psyche" are mentioned among his works. The prince of Wales visited him especially often, and many of his finest portraits are in the state apartments at St. James's Palace, the best perhaps being those of the prince, the duke and duchess of York, of Lord Rodney and of Lord Nelson, Among his other sitters were Sir Walter Scott, the Duke of Wellington, Frere and Sir George Beaumont. Competent judges have deemed his most successful works to be his portraits of women and children. A Series of Portraits of Ladies was published by him in 1803, and a volume of translations of Eastern tales into English verse in 1805. The verse is of but mediocre quality. In his later years Hoppner suffered from a chronic disease of the liver. He was confessedly an imitator of Reynolds. When first painted, his works were much admired for the brilliancy and harmony of their colouring, but the injury due to destructive mediums and lapse of time which many of them suffered caused a great depreciation in his reputation. The appearance, however, of some of his pictures in good condition has shown that his fame as a brilliant colourist was well founded. His drawing is faulty, but his touch has qualities of breadth and freedom that give to his paintings a faint reflection of the charm of Reynolds. Hoppner was a man of great social power, and had the knowledge and accomplishments of a man of the world. The best account of Hoppner's life and paintings is the exhaustive work by William McKay and W Roberts (1909  Related Paintings of John Hoppner :. | Jupiter and Io | Portrait of the Frankland Sisters | Sir George Beaumont | Richard Brinsley Sheridan | Portrait of George IV |
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Hans Holbein
German 1497-1543 Hans Holbein Galleries Holbein always made highly detailed pencil drawings of his portrait subjects, often supplemented with ink and colored chalk. The drawings emphasize facial detail and usually did not include the hands; clothing was only indicated schematically. The outlines of these drawings were then transferred onto the support for the final painting using tiny holes in the paper through which powdered charcoal was transmitted; in later years Holbein used a kind of carbon paper. The final paintings thus had the same scale as the original drawings. Although the drawings were made as studies for paintings, they stand on their own as independent, finely wrought works of art. How many portraits have been lost can be seen from Holbein's book (nearly all pages in the Royal Collection) containing preparatory drawings for portraits - of eighty-five drawings, only a handful have surviving Holbein paintings, though often copies have survived. David Hockney has speculated in the Hockney-Falco thesis that Holbein used a concave mirror to project an image of the subject onto the drawing surface. The image was then traced. However this thesis has not met with general acceptance from art historians. A subtle ability to render character may be noted in Holbein's work, as can be seen in his portraits of Thomas Cromwell, Desiderius Erasmus, and Henry VIII. The end results are convincing as definitive images of the subjects' appearance and personality.
Nash, Paul
English, 1889-1946 Painter, printmaker, designer, writer and photographer. Although he briefly attended the Slade School, London, in 1910, he was essentially self-taught. His first one-man show was held in 1912 at the Carfax Gallery, London, where he showed a set of shadowy landscapes and imaginative drawings that look back to the Pre-Raphaelites and late 19th-century illustration. Between 1910 and 1914 he paid little attention to Post-Impressionism and the modern movements in London.
ALTICHIERO da Zevio
Italian Gothic Era Painter, ca.1330-1390 Altichiero da Verona (also called Aldighieri da Zevio; c. 1330 ?C c. 1390) was an Italian painter of the Gothic style. A follower of Giotto, Altichiero is credited with founding the Veronese school. He worked in Verona and Padua ?? works by him survive in the church of Sant'Anastasia in Verona and in the basilica of Sant'Antonio and the Oratorio di San Giorgio in Padua (where the credit for the work has been generally shared with Jacopo d'Avanzi, about whom little is known). Altichiero was probably born somewhere near Zevio. He became an important member of the della Scala's household, and around 1364 painted a series of frescoes based upon Flavius Josephus's The Wars of the Jews at the della Scala palace of Sala del Podest??. There are frescoes by him in the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua. In conjunction with D'Avanzo Veronese, he frescoed the chapel of St. James for which he was paid 792 ducats. The first seven frescoes on the life of St. James the Elder were by Altichiero.