(November 30, 1825 - August 19, 1905) was a French academic painter. William Bouguereau was a traditionalist whose realistic genre paintings and mythological themes were modern interpretations of Classical subjects with a heavy emphasis on the female human body. William-Adolphe Bouguereau was born in La Rochelle, France on November 30, 1825, into a family of wine and olive oil merchants. He seemed destined to join the family business but for the intervention of his uncle Eugene, a Roman Catholic priest, who taught him classical and Biblical subjects, and arranged for Bouguereau to go to high school. Bouguereau showed artistic talent early on and his father was convinced by a client to send him to the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, where he won first prize in figure painting for a depiction of Saint Roch. To earn extra money, he designed labels for jams and preserves  Related Paintings of William-Adolphe Bouguereau :. | The Bohemian | The Elder Sister | Portrait of Zenaide de Cambaceres | Daisies | Urban landscape |
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Frantisek Kupka
Czech Abstract Painter, 1871-1957,was a Czech painter and graphic artist. He was a pioneer and co-founder of the early phases of the abstract art movement and orphic cubism (orphism). Kupka's abstract works arose from a base of realism, but later evolved into pure abstract art. Frantisek Kupka was born in Opocno, eastern Bohemia (now Czech Republic). From 1889 to 1892, he studied at the Prague Art Academy. At this time, he painted historical and patriotic themes. In Kupka enrolled at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Vienna, Vienna, where he concentrated on symbolic and allegorical subjects. He exhibited at the Kunstverein, Vienna, in 1894. His involvement with theosophy and Eastern philosophy dates from this period. By spring 1894, Kupka had settled in Paris; there he attended the Academie Julian briefly and then studied with Jean-Pierre Laurens at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Kupka worked as an illustrator of books and posters and, during his early years in Paris, became known for his satirical drawings for newspapers and magazines. In 1906, he settled in Puteaux, a suburb of Paris, and that same year exhibited for the first time at the Salon d'Automne. Kupka was deeply impressed by the first Futurist Manifesto, published in 1909 in Le Figaro. Kupka's 1909 painting "Piano Keyboard/Lake" marked a break in his representational style; his work became increasingly abstract around 1910 C11, reflecting his theories of motion, color, and the relationship between music and painting (orphism). In 1911, he attended meetings of the Puteaux group. In 1912, he exhibited at the Salon des Independants in the Cubist room, although he did not wish to be identified with any movement. Creation in the Plastic Arts, a book Kupka completed in 1913, was published in Prague in 1923. In 1931, he was a founding member of Abstraction-Creation. In 1936, his work was included in the exhibition "Cubism and Abstract Art" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and in an important show with another excellent Czech painter Alphonse Mucha at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. A retrospective of his work took place at the Galerie Manes in Prague in 1946. The same year, Kupka participated in the Salon des Realites Nouvelles, where he continued to exhibit regularly until his death. During the early 1950s, he gained general recognition and had several solo shows in New York. Between 1919 and 1938 Kupka was financially supported by his good friend, art collector and industrialist Jindich Waldes who accumulated a substantial collection of his art. Kupka died in Puteaux, France. Kupka had a strong interest in color theory; around 1910 he began developing his own color wheels, adapting a format previously explored by Sir Isaac Newton and Hermann von Helmholtz. This work in turn led Kupka to execute a series of paintings he called "Discs of Newton" (1911-12).
William Maw Egley
English painter , (1826-1916) was a British artist of the Victorian era. The son of the miniaturist William Egley, he studied under his father. His early works were illustrations of literary subjects typical of the period, such as Prospero and Miranda from The Tempest. These were similar to the work of The Clique. William Powell Frith, one of The Clique, hired Egley to add backgrounds to his own work. Egley soon developed a style influenced by Frith, including domestic and childhood subjects. Most of his paintings were humorous or "feelgood" genre scenes of urban and rural life, depicting such subjects as harvest festivals and contemporary fashions. His best known painting, Omnibus Life in London (Tate Gallery) is a comic scene of people squashed together in the busy, cramped public transport of the era. Egley always showed great interest in specifics of costume, to which he paid detailed attention, but his paintings were often criticised for their hard, clumsy style. In the 1860s Egley adopted the fashion for romanticised 18th century subjects.
Chevannes, Pierre Puvis de
French Symbolist Painter, 1824-1898