(born Niko Pirosmanashvili; May 5, 1862-1918) was a Georgian primitivist painter. Pirosmani was born in the Georgian village of Mirzaani to a pleasant family in the Kakheti province. His family owned a small vineyard. He was later orphaned and put in the care of his two elder sisters. He moved with them to Tbilisi in 1870. In 1872 he worked as a servant for wealthy families and learned to read and write Russian and Georgian. In 1876 he returned to Mirzaani and worked as a herdsman. Pirosmani gradually taught himself to paint. One of his specialties was painting directly into black oilcloth. In 1882 he opened a workshop in Tbilisi which was unsuccessful. In 1890 he worked as a railroad conductor, and in 1895 worked creating signboards. In 1893 he co-founded a dairy farm in Tbilisi which he left in 1901. Throughout his life Pirosmani, who was always poor, was willing to take up ordinary jobs including housepainting and whitewashing buildings. Although his paintings had some local popularity (about 200 survive) his relationship with professional artists remained uneasy; making a living was always more important to him than abstract aesthetics.  Related Paintings of Niko Pirosmanashvili :. | Childless Millionaire and a Poor Woman Blessed with Children | Feast in the Grape Pergola or Feast of Three Noblemen | Shepherd in a Sheepskin Cloak on a Red Background | A Shepherd with His Flock | Walking Gazelle |
Related Artists:
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.
Francisco Rizi
Spanish painter, 1614-1685
Frederick Macmonnies
American Sculpture 1863-1937,American sculptor and painter. During his apprenticeship in New York (1880-84) with Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who discovered and encouraged his talent, he rose from menial helper to assistant, studying in the evenings at Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design. Through Saint-Gaudens he met two architects who later became invaluable colleagues: Stanford White and Charles F. McKim, who lent him money in 1884 to go to Paris. He studied drawing at Colarossi's then went to Munich, attending drawing and portrait classes at the Akademie (1884-5) and worked for Saint-Gaudens again (1885-6). In Paris he studied sculpture with Alexandre Falguiere at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,