ARTIST OF THE DAY: JOSE GUERRERO

ARTIST OF THE DAY: JOSE GUERRERO

Painter and printmaker, Jose Guerrero was born in Granada, Spain on October 14, 1914. Guerrero began his studies at the age of sixteen, attending evening classes at the Arts and Crafts School between 1931 and 1934. The military uprising of 1936 found him stationed in Ceuta, where he spent much of the war capturing the battlefront in drawings that he would refer to later in his artistic career. From 1942 to 1946 he lived in the Casa Velázquez of Free France (then on Calle Serrano), studied at the Escuela Superior Bellas Artes San Fernando in Madrid and then spent two years enrolled in Paris at the École des Beaux Arts. He soon met the artist Karl Bucholz, who would be the first gallery owner to promote Guerrero's work.

ARTIST OF THE DAY: RITA ACKERMAN

ARTIST OF THE DAY: RITA ACKERMAN

Rita Ackermann was born in 1968 in Budapest, Hungary. After her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest (1989 – 1992) she moved to New York City where she studied at The New York Studio School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture (1992 – 1993). In 2009 she spent several months in Marfa, Texas at the Chinati Foundation’s artist-in-residence programme, where she focused on the abstract conceptual elements of her work.

ARTIST OF THE DAY: Joan Brown

ARTIST OF THE DAY: Joan Brown

Joan Brown was an American figurative painter who lived and worked in Northern California. She was a member of the "second generation" of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Joan Brown was killed at the age of 52 when a concrete turret from the floor above collapsed while they were installing a mosaic obelisk at the Heritage Museum in Proddatura. The museum is dedicated to Indian holy man Satya Sai Baba.

ARTIST OF THE DAY: EGON SCHIELE

ARTIST OF THE DAY: EGON SCHIELE

Schiele began his artistic career at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste (Vienna Academy of Fine Art) in 1906, but he left the academy in 1909 to form Neukunstgruppe, the New Art Group, with fellow classmates who shared his contempt for the academy’s curriculum. It was during this time that he became acquainted with Gustav Klimt (Austrian, 1862–1918), a future mentor and supporter of Schiele; Klimt helped Schiele participate in the Vienna Kunstschau of 1909. This international exhibition, along with Schiele’s subsequent showings, put the artist in contact with prominent dealers, critics, and patrons who would support his developing career. During this time, Schiele’s subjects began to become more expressive and exaggerated. In addition, his self-portraits and portraits became tinged with psychological and sexual subtext.