Jens Ferdinand Willumsen | Symbolist / Expressionist painter

Jens Ferdinand Willumsen (1863-1958) was a Danish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, architect and photographer.

He became associated with the movements of Symbolism and Expressionism.

J. F. Willumsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark.

He was the son of Hans Willumsen and Ane Kirstine.

Alexi Torres, 1976 | Symbolist painter

Cuban painter Alexi Torres creates works that capture the creative powers of the universe as well as the problems facing it.

He grapples with how to express the influences of the past, possibilities of the future and the responsibilities of the now.

Torres creates woven canvasses which immortalize influential figures and emblems past and present.

Charles Conder | Symbolist / Impressionist painter

Charles Edward Conder (24 October 1868 - 9 February 1909) was an English-born painter, lithographer and designer.

He emigrated to Australia and was a key figure in the Heidelberg School, arguably the beginning of a distinctively Australian tradition in Western art.

Conder was born in Tottenham, Middlesex, the second son, of six children, of James Conder, civil engineer and Mary Ann Ayres.

Dimitri Vojnov, 1946 | Symbolist / Surrealist painter

Dimitri Vojnov had always a strong interest for the great painters of art history and Renaissance, such as Piero della Francesca or Hans Holbein. He uses as a background coloring an intense cobalt blue that is a reference to the Renaissance period.

Undoubtedly his work shows his long term classical academic education in painting which fascinates with provocative and erotic illustrations, which often are exaggerated in a grotesque way.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes | Symbolist painter

French painter Pierre Cécile Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) is known for his mural painting - large-scale decorative painting - in the Symbolism style.

Puvis's work is seen as symbolist in nature, even though he studied with some of the romanticists, and he is credited with influencing an entire generation of painters and sculptors, particularly the works of the Modernists.

One of his protégés was Georges de Feure.

Léon Frédéric | Symbolist painter

Léon-Henri-Marie Frédéric (1856-1940) was a Belgian Symbolist painter.

His earliest paintings joined Christian mysticism with pantheistic themes, while his later works increasingly reflected social concerns.

Much of his work also shows the influence of fifteenth and sixteenth century Flemish art and Renaissance painting styles.

Eduard Veith | Symbolist painter

Eduard Veith (1858-1925) was an Austrian portrait painter and stage designer.

Many of his works were influenced by Symbolism.

He was born to the decorative painter, Julius Veith (1820-1887), and his wife Susanna, née Schleif (1827-1883).

At first, he received training to follow in his father's profession.

Later, he went to Vienna, where he took classes at the Museum of Applied Arts from Professor Ferdinand Laufberger.

He capped off his studies by creating sgraffito for exhibition buildings at the Exposition Universelle in Paris.

He then returned home, where he assisted his father with painting churches, synagogues and other ceremonial buildings.

This was followed by several study trips; to Italy, Belgium and Tunisia.

He finally settled in Vienna; becoming a free-lance artist and working mostly by commission.

From 1890, he was a member of the Vienna Künstlerhaus.

In 1896, he received a gold medal at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung.

In 1905, he was appointed a Professor at the University of Technology.

In 1911, he married Bertha Griesbeck (1872-1952), from Augsburg.

He later taught at the University of Applied Arts Museum of Applied Arts, and became a Professor there in 1920.

During his years in Vienna, he maintained contact with his home town, and held exhibitions there.

In addition to his paintings, he did interior decorations for a number of the buildings on the Ringstraße, and trompe l'oeil stage sets.

He often collaborated with the architects, Fellner and Helmer, who built dozens of theatres and opera houses throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

He died shortly before his sixty-seventh birthday, and was interred at Döbling Cemetery.

His grave is adorned with a sculpture by Georg Leisek. | Source: © Wikipedia

Eduard Veith (1858-1925) è stato un pittore di genere, ritrattista, scenografo e professore universitario Austriaco.

Molte delle sue opere furono influenzate dal Simbolismo.

Nacque dal pittore decorativo Julius Veith (1820-1887) e da sua moglie Susanna, nata Schleif (1827-1883).

Inizialmente ha ricevuto una formazione per seguire la professione di suo padre.

Successivamente si recò a Vienna, dove prese lezioni al Museo delle Arti Applicate dal professor Ferdinand Laufberger.

Ha coronato i suoi studi creando graffiti per gli edifici espositivi dell'Exposition Universelle di Parigi.

Tornò poi a casa, dove aiutò il padre a dipingere chiese, sinagoghe ed altri edifici cerimoniali.

Seguirono numerosi viaggi di studio; verso Italia, Belgio e Tunisia.

Alla fine si stabilì a Vienna; diventando un artista freelance e lavorando principalmente su commissione.

Dal 1890 fu membro del Künstlerhaus di Vienna.

Nel 1896 ricevette una medaglia d'oro alla Große Berliner Kunstausstellung.

Nel 1905 fu nominato professore presso l'Università della Tecnologia.

Nel 1911 sposò Bertha Griesbeck (1872-1952), di Augusta.

Successivamente insegnò al Museo di Arti Applicate dell'Università di Arti Applicate e lì divenne professore nel 1920.

Durante i suoi anni a Vienna mantenne i contatti con la sua città natale e vi tenne mostre.

Oltre ai suoi dipinti, realizzò decorazioni interne per numerosi edifici sulla Ringstraße e scenografie trompe l'oeil.

Collaborò spesso con gli architetti Fellner and Helmer, che costruirono decine di teatri e teatri d'opera in tutto l'impero austro-ungarico.

Morì poco prima del suo sessantasettesimo compleanno e fu sepolto nel cimitero di Döbling.

La sua tomba è ornata da una scultura di Georg Leisek. | Fonte: © British Wikipedia

Kehinde Wiley, 1977 | Symbolist painter

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco describe Kehinde Wiley:

An Archaeology of Silence as "the senseless deaths of men and women around the world... transformed into a powerful elegy of resistance".

Kehinde Wiley is an American portrait painter based in New York City, who is known for his highly naturalistic paintings of Black people, frequently referencing the work of Old Master paintings.

He was commissioned in 2017 to paint a portrait of former President Barack Obama for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, which has portraits of all previous American presidents.

August Malmström | Symbolist painter

Johan August Malmström (1829-1901) was a Swedish artist and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts 1867-1894 and its director 1887-1893.

Attracted by Gothicism, he fondly drew motifs from Norse mythology.

He was also much appreciated for his rural motifs with children.

Julio Romero de Torres | Symbolist painter

Julio Romero de Torres (1874-1930) was the son of Rafael Romero Barros, a painter and curator of what was then called the Museum of Painting in Cordoba.

He would be marked by family life which revolved around his father’s studio, the classrooms of the School of Fine Arts and Music Conservatory and the galleries of the museum, located in the same grounds as the family home.

This indisputably conditioned his future and was the backdrop to his first steps as a painter.

At the age of ten he began studying music and painting and was only fourteen and fifteen when he received prizes in the competitions organised by the Provincial School and the Athenaeum.

Max Pietschmann | Symbolist painter

Ernst Max Pietschmann (1865-1952) was a German Symbolist painter.

Max Pietschmann studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts from 1883 to 1889.

His teachers included Leon Pohle and Ferdinand Pauwels.

Pietschmann belonged to the painters' colony in Goppeln near Bannewitz, which specialized in plein air painting.

Dora Hitz | Impressionist / Symbolist painter

Dora Hitz (30 March 1856, Altdorf bei Nürnberg - 20 November 1924, Berlin) was a Court Painter to the Romanian Royal Family, a member of the November Group and co-founder of the Berlin Secession.

Dora Hitz mainly painted figures, especially portraits of women, girls and mothers, sometimes in the style of symbolism.

Since her stay in France she has painted oil paintings, gouaches and watercolors in the Impressionist style.

When she was six years old, her family moved to Ansbach and at thirteen she was sent to Munich to study at the "Damenmalschule der Frau Staatsrat Weber", an art school for young women, where she studied with Wilhelm von Lindenschmit the Younger.

Gabriel von Max | Romantic / Symbolist painter

Gabriel Cornelius Ritter von Max (23 August 1840 – 24 November 1915) was a Prague-born Austrian painter.

He was born Gabriel Cornelius Max, the son of the sculptor Josef Max and Anna Schumann.

He studied between 1855 and 1858 at the Prague Academy of Arts with Eduard von Engerth.

His studies included parapsychology (somnambulism, hypnotism, spiritism), Darwinism, Asiatic philosophy, the ideas of Schopenhauer, and various mystical traditions.

The spiritual-mystical movement was emphasized by the writings of Carl du Prel, and the Munich painter Albert Keller was also an influence.

Edgar Maxence | Symbolist painter

Edgard Maxence (1871-1954) was a French Symbolist painter.

He was taught by Elie Delaunay and Gustave Moreau at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

He is a contemporary of Henri Evenepoel, Jules Flandrin, Albert Marquet, Henri Matisse, Léon Printemps, Georges Rouault and other notable alumni from this famous school.

He exhibited in the Salon des Artistes Français from 1894 until 1939, and was active on the salon's committees and juries.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela | Art Nouveau / Symbolist painter

Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931) was a Finnish painter who is best known for his illustrations of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic.

His work is considered a very important aspect of the Finnish national identity.

He changed his name from Gallén to Gallen-Kallela in 1907.

Early life

Gallen-Kallela was born Axel Waldemar Gallén in Pori, Finland, in a Swedish-speaking family.

His father Peter Gallén worked as police chief and lawyer.

Gallen-Kallela was raised in Tyrvää.

At the age of 11 he was sent to Helsinki to study at a grammar school, because his father opposed his ambition to become a painter.

After his father's death in 1879, Gallen-Kallela attended drawing classes at the Finnish Art Society (1881-1884) and studied privately under Adolf von Becker.

Raphaël Collin | Symbolist painter

Louis-Joseph-Raphaël Collin (17 June 1850 - 21 October 1916) was a French painter born and raised in Paris, where he became a prominent academic painter and a teacher.

He is principally known for the links he created between French and Japanese art, in both painting and ceramics.

Collin studied at the school of Saint-Louis, then went to Verdun where he was at school with Jules Bastien-Lepage; they became close friends.

Collin then went to Paris and studied in the atelier of Bouguereau and then joined Lepage at Alexandre Cabanel's atelier where they both worked alongside Fernand Cormon, Aimé Morot and Benjamin Constant.

Tishk Barzanji | Modern Surrealist /Symbolist painter

Kurdish-British artist Tishk Barzanji is a visual artist based in London, United Kingdom. His work touches on the modernism and surrealism movement.

His process is about space, colour, deconstruction, breaking boundaries, understanding the living space in this fast-moving world, and human interactions within these spaces.

Inspired by his childhood in Kurdistan, and early adult years in London, where he moved in 1997.

The first few years in London were an eye-opener, where his passion for architecture and art began. Surrounded by the rich cultures of London and this new environment, shaped his ideas.

He later went on to study Fine Art at Richmond upon Thames College, and Physics at Loughborough University.

Since 2017, he has worked with Rockefeller, New York Times, V and A museum, Somerset house, NET-A-PORTER, Gucci, and most recently featured in British Vogue.

John Duncan | Pre-Raphaelite / Symbolist painter

John Duncan (1866-1945) was a Scottish painter. Duncan was born in the Hilltown area of Dundee on 19 July 1866, the son of a butcher and cattleman. John, however, had no interest in the family business and preferred the visual arts.

By the age of 15 he was submitting cartoons to the local magazine "The Wizard of the North" and was later taken on as an assistant in the art department of the Dundee Advertiser. At the same time he was also a student at the Dundee School of Art, then based at the High School of Dundee.

In 1887-88 he worked in London as a commercial illustrator, then travelled to the continent to study at Antwerp Academy under Charles Verlat and the Düsseldorf Art Academy.

In 1889 Duncan returned to Dundee and exhibited in the new Victoria Art Galleries extension of the Albert Institute. The following year he became one of the founder members of the Dundee Graphic Arts Association (now Dundee Art Society).

John Duncan | Tristan and Isolde, 1912

Rupert Bunny | Colorist / Symbolist painter

Australian painter Rupert Charles Wulsten Bunny (1864-1947) was one of the most successful expatriate artists of his generation.

No other Australian artist achieved the critical acclaim that he enjoyed in Paris. An erudite painter of ideal themes, and the creator of the most ambitious Salon paintings produced by an Australian, Bunny is an exotic in the history of Australian art.

An exhibition, Rupert Bunny artist in Paris, curated by Deborah Edwards, Senior Curator of Australian Art, will honour the work of this great Australian artist.

The exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales will showcase more than 85 of his most significant paintings, many unseen in Australia, including works from the Musée d’Orsay and Fonds national d’art contemporain in Paris and private lenders including Kerry Stokes, Jeffrey Archer and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch.

Émile Bernard | Symbolist painter

Émile Bernard (1868-1941) was a French painter known for his involvement in the Cloisonnism movement - a post-Impressionist style defined by flat, bold planes and dark contours - as well as his contributions to Synthetism.

Émile Henri Bernard was born in Lille, France in 1868. As his younger sister was quite sick and required his parent’s full attention, Bernard was raised by his grandmother, who owned a laundry in Lille; she was an early supporter of Bernard’s interest in art. In 1878, Bernard’s family moved to Paris, which allowed him to attend the Collège Sainte-Barbe.

In the early 1880s, Bernard began studying at the École des Arts Décoratifs, experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism alongside fellow artists Louis Anquetin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. However, Bernard was soon suspended from the school for being overly expressive in his painting; so, instead, Bernard took to exploring Brittney by foot.