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Philip Absolon (1960– )

Philip Absolon
Philip Absolon
Born	24 November 1960 Erith, Kent, England
Nationality	British
Field	Painting
Training	Medway College of Art and Design, Epsom College of Art
Movement	Stuckism
Works	Job Club

Philip Absolon (born 24 November 1960) is an British artist and a founder member of the Stuckists art group, exhibiting in the group shows, including The Stuckists Punk Victorian at the Walker Art Gallery in 2004, and taking part in Stuckist demonstrations against the Turner Prize. He has had long-term unemployment problems, depicted in his work with imagery of skeletons; his other main subject is cats, which he studies and depicts in motion.

Life and career

Philip Absolon was born in Erith, South East London, and is the great-great-grandson of the Victorian watercolourist John Absolon (1815-1895). He attended Rede School, Strood, and Educational Special Unit, Chatham (he is dyslexic). 1977–79, he was at the Foundation Art course, Medway College of Art and Design, along with future Stuckist artists, Billy Childish and Bill Lewis, who in 1979 formed The Medway Poets performance group with Charles Thomson and three others. This group—with which Absolon read, although he was not a formal member- was the core of the Stuckism art group founded in 1999.

Philip Absolon. Primal Scream.

1979–82, he did a Diploma course at Epsom College of Art, where his paintings were thrown in a skip on the orders of the Principal. 1982–93 was spent either unemployed or in job training schemes for computer or office work. In 1984, his application for the Slade School of Art was rejected, and so in 1987 was his application for the Royal College of Art, to which he submitted pictures of cats. 1993–94, he was on a Fine Art Access course at Maidstone College of Art, then accepted for a part-time degree, which financial constraints made him unable to accept; he was then awarded a grant for a full-time course, but his application was rejected. In 1999, he was accepted for an NVQ in horse care, which he could not finish as he had to undertake a mandatory Government Project Work placement. Childish provided a source of support during Absolon's difficult times.

Left to right: Emily Mann, John Bourne and Philip Absolon at the 2006 Stuckist Turner Prize demonstration

In 1999, he was one of the founder members of the Stuckists art group, launched by Thomson and Childish; he has regularly exhibited in Stuckist shows, and also participated in most of the group's demonstrations against the Turner Prize at Tate Britain. 2003–04, he was Artist-in-Residence at the Rochester Adult Education Centre, Kent. In 2004, he was one of the fourteen "founder and featured" artists in The Stuckists Punk Victorian held at the Walker Art Gallery for the Liverpool Biennial.

Philip Absolon. Job Club, c.1999.

John Davies, a Liverpool Church of England vicar chose Absolon's Job Club as his picture of the month in February 2005, saying, "Of all the striking paintings in The Stuckists: Punk Victorian exhibition ... Philip Absolon's hit me hardest. I get the impression a lot of Stuckists are well used to life on society's fringes, on the receiving end of welfare-to-work policies which just don't work for many. Absolon's pictures - many in this style and on this theme - seem born out of the awful experience of sitting in places like Job Clubs and feeling, well, skeletal, living dead."

In July 2006, he was selected by Matt Price for the Saatchi Gallery Your Gallery: Critic's Choice. Absolon was one of the ten "leading Stuckists" in the Go West exhibition at Spectrum London gallery in October 2006.

He travels Europe by train in order to visit art museums and palaces. He has a strong interest in the German Hohenzollern Empire (1871–1918), and likes The Arts Club in Mayfair, London. He lives in a cottage in Norfolk, England.

Art

Philip Absolon. Nicholas.

Absolon has drawn regularly since he was sixteen, and still attends courses on sculpture, life drawing and painting. He always carries a sketch book with him, drawing, for example, customers in cafées. He studies cats in movement and draws them. Cats and skeletons are the main subjects in his work, which can be compared to Outsider Art, but has much greater depth.

His working method is to enlarge the original drawing on a photocopier and then trace it onto the canvas with dressmaker's tracing paper. He usually paints 8 – 10 at night; a painting taking up to a month to complete.

He described the origin of his painting,

Writing

His poetry collection, Illicit Meeting, was published in 1994, and Fear of Desire in 1999.

Gallery

Cat Cleaning	College Canteen

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil	Turner Prize

Breakdown	Fit for Work
Cassie Thinking About Cubism	Cat Cleaning and Dead Mouse

Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard (1743–1809)

Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard (September 11, 1743 – June 4, 1809), Danish artist, was born in Copenhagen, the son of Sren Abildgaard, an antiquarian draughtsman of repute, and Anne Margrethe

Engraving from 1868, showing Nikolaj
Abildgaard

Life

Training as an artist

He trained under a painting master before coming to the new Royal Danish Academy of Art (Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi) in Copenhagen, studying under Johan Edvard Mandelberg and Johannes Wiedewelt.

He won medallions at the Academy from 1764 to 1767. The large gold medallion from the Academy won in 1767 included a travel stipend, which he waited five years to receive.

He assisted Professor Mandelberg of the Academy as an apprentice ca. 1769, painting decorations for the royal palace at Fredensborg. These paintings are classical, influenced by French classical artists such as Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. Mandelberg had studied in Paris under François Boucher.

Student travels

Although artists of that time typically traveled to Paris for further study, he chose to travel to Rome, where he stayed during the years 1772-1777. He took a side trip to Naples in 1776 with Jens Juel. His ambitions lay in the genre of history painting. While in Rome he studied Annibale Carracci's frescoes at the Palazzo Farnese, and the paintings of Rafael, Titian and Michaelangelo. In addition he studied various other artistic disciplines (sculpture, architecture, decoration, wall paintings), and developed his knowledge of mythology, antiquities, anatomy and perspective.

In the company of Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel and painter Johann Heinrich Füssli he began to move away from the classicism he learned at the Academy. He developed an appreciation for the literature of Shakespeare, Homer and Ossian, legendary Gaelic poet. He worked with themes from Greek, as well as Norse mythology which placed him at the forefront of Nordic romanticism.

He left Rome in June 1777 with the hope of becoming professor at the Academy in Copenhagen. He stopped for a stay in Paris, and arrived in Denmark in December of the same year.

An Academic and artistic career

His admission into the Academy went quickly, and he was named professor in 1778.

He was an Academic painter of the Neoclassical school. During the years 1777-1794 he was very productive as an artist, in addition to his role at the school, where he taught painting, mythology and anatomy. He produced not only monumental works, but also occasionally smaller pieces, such as vignettes and illustrations. He designed old Norse costumes. He illustrated the works of Socrates and Ossian. Additionally he did some sculpting, etching and authoring. He was interested in all manner of mythological, biblical and literary allusion.

Among his students were Asmus Jacob Carstens, sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and painters J. L. Lund and Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, both of which took over his vacated professorship at the Academy after his death. Eckersberg, as professor at the same Academy went on to lay the foundation for the period of art known as the Golden Age of Danish Painting, and is referred to as the "Father of Danish painting."

Cabinet painted in trompe l'oeil fashion by Abildgaard

Around 1780 as royal historical painter, he was requested by the Danish government to paint large monumental pieces, a history of Denmark, to decorate the entirety of the Knights' Room (Riddersal) at Christiansborg Palace. It was a prestigious and lucrative assignment. The paintings combined not only historical depictions, but also allegorical and mythological elements that glorified and flattered the government. The door pieces depicted in allegory four historical periods in Europe's history. Abilgaard used pictorial allegory like ideograms, to communicate ideas and transmit messages through symbols to a refined public that was initiated into this form of symbology. Abildgaard's professor Johan Edvard Mandelberg supplied the decorations to the room.

He married Anna Maria Oxholm on March 23, 1781.

He made a failed attempt to be elected to the post of Academy Director in 1787. He was unanimously elected to the post two years later, serving as Director during the period 1789-1791. He had the reputation for being a tyrant, and for taking as many of the academy's monumental assignments as possible to himself.

He was also known as a religious freethinker and an advocate of political reform. In spite of his service to (and in his artwork the glorification of) the government, he was hardly a great supporter of the monarchy, and of the state church. He supported the emancipation of the farmers, and participated in the collection of monies for the Freedom Monument (Frihedsstøtten) in 1792. He contributed a design for the monument, as well as for two of the reliefs at its base. He came into conflicts with the authorities often at the end of the 1700s with his published words and satirical drawings. He was excited by the French Revolution, and in 1789-1790 he tried to give place for these revolutionary ideals in the Knights' Room at Christiansborg Palace. The King rejected his design.

His showdowns with the establishment culminated in 1794 when his allegorical painting "Jupiter weighs the fate of mankind" (Jupiter vejer menneskenes skæbne) was exhibited at the Salon. He was politically isolated, cut out of the public debate by censors, and he never again received any official assignment.

The fire at Christiansborg Palace in February 1794, also had a dampening effect on his career when 7 of the 10 monumental paintings he had already delivered to the grandiose project were destroyed. The project was stopped, and so were his earnings.

However devastating, the fire also brought him new decorative assignments, and also the opportunity to practice as an architect. He headed the decoration of the Levetzau Palace, now known as Christian VIII's Palace, at Amalienborg (1794-1798), the recently occupied home of King Christian VII of Denmark's half-brother Frederik. His young friend Bertel Thorvaldsen headed the sculptural efforts.

He also worked up plans for the rebuilding of Christiansborg Palace, but the assignment did not go to him.

At the start of the 1800s his interest in painting was restored, when he painted four scenes from Tenet's comedy "Andria". This coincided with his second marriage in 1803 to Juliane Marie Ottesen, which was a very happy situation for the aging Abilgaard. The marriage resulted in two sons and a daughter. He bought a lovely little place in the country for the family, Spurveskjul (Sparrow hideaway).

He was once again selected to serve as the Academy's Director from 1801 until his death in 1809. He is buried in Copenhagen's Assistens Cemetery.

In 1804 he received a commission for a series of painting for the throne room in the new palace, but disagreements between the artist and the crown prince put a halt to this project. He continued however to provide the court with designs for furniture and room decorations.

Works

Nightmare (1800) after Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare (1781).

He was a cold theorist, inspired not by nature but by art. His style was classical, though with a romantic trend. He had a remarkable sense of colour. As a technical painter he attained remarkable success, his tone being very harmonious and even, but the effect, to a foreigner's eye, is rarely interesting.

His works are scarcely known out of Denmark, where he won an immense fame in his own generation, and helped lead the way to the period of art known as the Golden Age of Danish Painting.

A portrait of him is painted by Jens Juel, and made into a medallion by his friend Sergel. August Vilhelm Saabye sculpted a statue of him in 1868 based on contemporary portraits.

Reference:

KID Kunst Index Danmark ("Art Index Denmark")
Danish Biographical Encyclopedia ("Dansk biografisk Leksikion")

Josef Abel (1768–1818)

Josef Abel (1768, Aschach an der Donau–4 October 1818, Vienna) was an Austrian historical painter and etcher.

Abel visited the Academy in Vienna, which was at the time directed by Friedrich Heinrich Füger, and was one of his best scholars. Abel developed an interest for the ancient world, reflecting a popular direction in the art of the beginning of the XIX century in Germany and France. During the years 1801–1807, he studied in Italy, then returned to Vienna where he became member of the Academy on 8 February 1815 and remained there till his death in 1818.

Among his famous works are paintings and etchings of Klopstock in Elysium, Orestes and Electra, Socrates and Theramenes as well as Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. He also painted the figural part of the Burgtheater under directions of Füger.

Edwin Austin Abbey (1852–1911)

Edwin Austin Abbey (April 1, 1852 – August 1, 1911) was an American artist, illustrator, and painter. He flourished at the beginning of what is now referred to as the "golden age" of illustration, and is best known for his drawings and paintings of Shakespearean and Victorian subjects. His most famous work, The Quest of the Holy Grail, resides in the Boston Public Library.

Abbey was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1852. He studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Christian Schuessele. Abbey began as an illustrator, producing numerous illustrations and sketches for such magazines as Harper's Weekly and Scribner's Magazine. His illustrations began appearing in Harper's Weekly at an early age: before Abbey was twenty years old. Abbey was an illustrator with Harper's Weekly from 1871-1874. He moved to England in 1878 where he was made a full member of the Royal Academy in 1898. In 1902 he was chosen to paint the coronation of King Edward VII. It was the official painting of the occasion and, hence, resides at Buckingham Palace. In 1907 he declined an offer of knighthood in order to retain his U.S. citizenship. Friendly with other expatriate American artists, he summered at Broadway, Worcestershire, England, where he painted and vacationed alongside John Singer Sargent at the home of Francis Davis Millet

Edwin Austin Abbey
Edwin Austin Abbey, ca. 1870
Born	April 1, 1852(1852-04-01) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	August 1, 1911 (aged 59)
Nationality	American
Field	Painting
Training	Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

He completed murals for the Boston Public Library in the 1890s. The frieze for the Library was titled "The Quest for the Holy Grail." It took Abbey eleven years to complete this series of murals in his England studio. In 1908-1909, Abbey painted a number of murals and other artworks for the rotunda of the new Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His works in that building include allegorical medallions representing Science, Art, Justice, and Religion in the Capitol Rotunda, large lunette murals underneath the Capitol dome, and a number of works in the House Chamber. Unfortunately, Abbey became ill with cancer in 1911 slowing his work. At the time, he was working on the "Reading of the Declaration of Independence Mural" which was later installed in the House Chamber. Abbey was so ill, that his studio assistant, Ernest Board completed the work with little supervision from Abbey. Later in 1911, Abbey died, leaving his commission for the State Capitol of Pennsylvania unfinished. John Singer Sargent, a friend and neighbor of Abbey, and studio assistant Board completed the "Reading of the Declaration of Independence Mural." Abbey's works were installed in the Rotunda and House Chamber. Two rooms from Abbey's commission were left undone, and the remainder of the commission was given to Violet Oakley. Oakley completed the works from start to finish using her own designs.

Abbey was elected to the National Academy of Design and The American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1937 Yale University became the home for a sizable collection of Abbey's works, the result of a bequest from Abbey's widow.

Works by Abbey

The play scene in Hamlet, oil on canvas, 1897

Anne Hutchinson on Trial, 1901

Spirit of Light, Pennsylvania State Capitol rotunda, Harrisburg	Allegorical medal of Science, Pennsylvania

References

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol19/vol19_iss24/record1924.33

Giuseppe Abbati (1836–1868)

Giuseppe Abbati (January 13, 1836 – February 21, 1868) was an Italian artist who belonged to the group known as the Macchiaioli.

Abbati was born in Naples and received early training in painting from his brother Vincenzo. He participated in Garibaldi's 1860 campaign, suffering the loss of his right eye at the Battle of Capua. Afterwards he moved to Florence where, at the Caffè Michelangiolo, he met Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega, and the rest of the artists who would soon be dubbed the Macchiaioli.

While his early paintings were interiors, he quickly became attracted to the practice of painting landscapes en plein air. His activity as a painter was interrupted during 1866 when he enlisted again in the army for the Third Independence War, during which he was captured by the Austrians and held in Croatia.

Returning to civilian life at the end of the year, he moved to Castelnuovo della Misericordia and spent the final year of his life painting in the countryside. Abbati died at the age of thirty-two in Florence after his own dog bit him, infecting him with rabies.


His paintings are characterized by a bold treatment of light effects. He often painted a luminous landscape scene as seen through the doorway of a darkened interior, as in the View from the Wine Cellar of Diego Martelli (1866). Some of his late landscapes are in the greatly elongated horizontal format often favored by the Macchiaioli.

Riza Abbasi (1565–1635)

Agha Reza Reza-e Abbasi (also Reza Abbasi) (1565 - 1635) was the most renowned Persian miniaturist, painter and calligrapher of the Isfahan School, which flourished during the Safavid period under the patronage of Shah Abbas I.

Life

He is considered to be one of the foremost Persian artists of all time. He received his training in the atelier of his father, Ali Asghar, and was received into the workshop of Shah Abbas I at a young age.

At the age of about 38 he received the honorific title of Abbasi from his patron, but soon left the Shah's employ, apparently seeking greater freedom to associate with simple people. In 1610 he returned to the court and continued in the employ of the Shah until his death.

Art

His specialty was the Persian miniature, with a preference for naturalistic subjects often portrayed in an effeminate and impressionistic manner, a style which came to be popular during the late Safavid court.

Many of his works depict handsome youths, often in the role of saqi, or "wine pourer," who at times are the focus of the admiring gaze of an older man and according to Louis Crompton, a manifestation of the Persian tradition of "appreciating youthful male beauty" (2003, p.171).

Today his works can be found in the museum that bears his name in Tehran, as well as in many of the major museums of the West, such as the Smithsonian, the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Pacita Abad (1946–2004)

Pacita Abad (1946-2004) was born in Basco, Batanes, a small island in the northernmost part of the Philippines, between Luzon and Taiwan. Her more-than-thirty-year painting career began when she travelled to the United States to undertake graduate studies. She had over 40 solo exhibitions at museums and galleries in the U.S., Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. She also participated in more than 50 group and traveling exhibitions throughout the world. Abad’s work is now in public, corporate and private art collections in over 70 countries.

Life

Abad studied painting at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. and The Art Students League in New York City. She lived on 5 different continents and working in more than 80 countries, including Guatemala, Mexico, India, Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Mali, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Indonesia.

Works

Her early paintings were primarily figurative socio-political works of people and primitive masks. Another series was large scale paintings of underwater scenes, tropical flowers and animal wildlife. Pacita’s most extensive body of work, however, is her vibrant, colorful abstract work - many very large scale canvases, but also a number of small collages - on a range of materials from canvas and paper to bark cloth, metal, ceramics and glass. Abad created over 5,000 artworks and painted a 55-meter long Alkaff Bridge in Singapore and covered it with 2,350 multicolored circles.

Abad developed a technique of trapunto painting (named after a quilting technique), which entailed stitching and stuffing her painted canvases to give them a three-dimensional, sculptural effect. She then began incorporating into the surface of her paintings materials such as traditional cloth, mirrors, beads, shells, plastic buttons and other objects.

Hans von Aachen (1552–1615)

Hans von Aachen (1552, Cologne - March 4, 1615, Prague) was a German mannerist painter.

His name is derived from the birth place of his father, Aachen in Germany. Other variations of the name include Johann von - and - von Achen and various concisions like Janachen, Fanachen, Abak, Jean Dac, Aquano, van Aken etc.

Hans von Aachen began painting in Germany as a pupil of the Flemish master E. Jerrigh. He then moved to Italy in 1574 to study further. He toured Rome and Florence, but eventually settled in Venice. He initially became a pupil of Kaspar Rems, but soon decided to develop his own mannerist technique, by studying Tintoretto and Michelangelo's followers. However, during all of his life he was influenced by the style of Bartholomeus Spranger and Hendrick Goltzius who dominated the art scene in Germany at the time.

He returned to Germany in 1588 where he became well known as a painter of portraits for noble houses. He painted several works for Duke William V of Bavaria. He married Regina, the daughter of the composer Orlando di Lasso in Munich. In Munich he came into contact with the Imperial Court in Prague. In 1592 he was appointed official painter of Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor. However, Von Aachen only moved to Prague in 1601, where he stayed painting commissions from Emperor Rudolph II who conferred knighthood on him in 1605. Von Aachen continued working on commissions under the newly appointed ruler, Matthias I.

Amongst van Aachens pupils were Peter Isaak and Joseph Heinz. His works have been copied by Wolfgang Kilian, Dominicus Custos and Jan Sadeler.