Famous Artists

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (also called Giambattista Piazzetta or Giambattista Valentino Piazzetta) (February 13, 1682 or 1683 – April 28, 1754) was an Italian rococo painter of religious subjects and genre scenes.

Piazzetta was born in Venice, the son of a sculptor Giacomo Piazzetta, from whom he had early training in wood carving. Starting in 1697 he studied with the painter Antonio Molinari. By Piazzetta's account, he studied underGiuseppe Maria Crespi while living in Bologna in 1703–05, although there is no record by Crespi of formal tutelage. Thanks to Crespi, Carlo Cignani's influence reached Piazzetta. Piazzetta did find inspiration in Crespi's art, in which the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio was transformed into an idiom of graceful charm in his pictures of common folk. He was also greatly impressed by the altarpieces created by another Bolognese painter of a half-century earlier, Guercino.

Cristofano Allori (17 October 1577 – 1 April 1621) was an Italian portrait painter of the late Florentine Mannerist school. Allori was born at Florence and received his first lessons in painting from his father, Alessandro Allori, but becoming dissatisfied with the hard anatomical drawing and cold coloring of the latter, he entered the studio of Gregorio Pagani, who was one of the leaders of the late Florentine school, which sought to unite the rich coloring of the Venetians with the Florentine attention to drawing. Allori also appears to have worked under Cigoli.

His pictures are distinguished by their close adherence to nature and the delicacy and technical perfection of their execution. His technical skill is shown by the fact that several copies he made of Correggio's works were thought to be duplicates by Correggio himself. His extreme fastidiousness limited the number of his works. Several specimens are to be seen at Florence and elsewhere.

Francesco I (25 March 1541 – 17 October 1587) was the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, ruling from 1574 until his death in 1587. He was the second grand duke of the house of Medici.

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (27 February 1863 – 10 August 1923) was a Spanish painter. Sorolla excelled in the painting of portraits, landscapes, and monumental works of social and historical themes. His most typical works are characterized by a dexterous representation of the people and landscape under the sunlight of his native land.

Amelia Peláez del Casal (5 January 1896 – 8 April 1968) was an important Cuban painter of the Avant-garde generation.

Amelia was born in 1896 in Yaguajay, in the former Cuban province of Las Villas (now Sancti Spíritus Province). In 1915, her family moved to Havana, to the La Víbora district, and this gave her the opportunity to enter the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes "San Alejandro" at the rather late age of 20 years (students at this academy usually start at 12–13 years of age). She was among Leopoldo Romañach's favourite students. By 1924, she exposed her paintings for the first time, along with another Cuban female painter, María Pepa Lamarque. She transferred to Europe in 1927, and established herself in Paris, although she paid short visits to Spain, Italy and other countries.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (November 30, 1825 – August 19, 1905) was a French academic painter and traditionalist. In his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body. During his life he enjoyed significant popularity in France and the United States, was given numerous official honors, and received top prices for his work. As the quintessential salon painter of his generation, he was reviled by the Impressionist avant-garde. By the early twentieth century, Bouguereau and his art fell out of favor with the public, due in part to changing tastes. In the 1980s, a revival of interest in figure painting led to a rediscovery of Bouguereau and his work. Throughout the course of his life, Bouguereau executed 822 known finished paintings, although the whereabouts of many are still unknown.

Nicolò dell' Abate, sometimes Niccolò, (1512 – 1571) was an Italian painter and decorator. He was of the Emilian school, and was part of the staff of artists called the School of Fontainebleau that introduced the Italianate Renaissance to France.

Jorge Arche was a modern Cuban artist before his time. His oil paintings were realistic, but also full of Classical and Expressionist elements. He is considered a forerunner, along with Victor Manuel Garcia, in bringing modern styling to Cuban art. Part of the vanguard movement that took place in Havana in the 1920′s, Arche became one of the first to help define Cuban art.

Though formally trained at the San Alejandro art school, Arche never completed his studies there. He later took instruction from Victor Manuel, and was able to confide in him for artistic advice. Ironically, during the last decade of his life, he helped to organize a school in Camaguey, Cuba's third largest city, and also taught at the Free Studio of Painting and Sculpture.