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Andy Warhol, often known as the patron saint of post-modernism, was an expert at the timeless art of portraiture. Since the eighteenth century, portraits of famous people have bridged a gap of time, and provided a link to the soul of the subject. Warhol was particularly intrigued by the allurement of high-profile celebrities of his generation. Many insights can be read into the faces of the characters that Warhol created, including his images of himself. |
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"Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy - the joy of being Salvador Dali - and I ask myself in rapture, 'What wonderful things this Salvador Dali is going to accomplish today?'" A leader of surrealism, his precise style enhanced the nightmare effect of his paintings. Among his best-known works is Persistence of Memory (1931; Mus. of Modern Art, New York City). In 1940, Dali emigrated to the United States. He wrote The Secret Life of Salvador Dali (1942). Dali also made surrealist ventures in films (e.g., Luis Bunuel's Un Chien andalou, 1928), advertising, and the ballet. The Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, Fla., is devoted entirely to his works. |
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Known for his interpretation of the subjects and commercial style of cartoons and advertising, Lichtenstein launched the Pop Art movement of the 1960s by bringing popular culture into fine art. He initially took his subject matter from True Romance and Adventure comics, as well as the Yellow Pages. His bold outlines, vivid colors, stylized forms and signature Benday dots simulated mechanical reproduction techniques. His one-man exhibit at the influential Leo Catelli Gallery in 1965 helped establish his position as one of the founders of Pop Art. There have been many retrospective shows of his work, one of which toured the USA, Europe and Japan in 1981. His wry personality seemed to be reflected in his humorous appropriation of "low-art" subjects. |
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Mark Rothko (1903-1970), Russian-born American painter, known for abstract paintings in which soft-edged rectangles of color seem to float weightlessly against undefined backgrounds. A major figure in the abstract expressionism movement, Rothko used color to convey a range of emotion and what the artist described as a religious experience. In the late 1940s and early 1950s saw the emergence of Rothko's mature style, in which frontal, luminous rectangles seem to hover on the canvas surface. Although he had established a reputation and respect from the public, Rothko was still unhappy. He felt "trapped and restless". In 1967, he began to increasingly become more depressed and a year later he suffered from an aneurysm of the aorta. During the last few years he began to paint more with bright colors despite his mood. Still, everything did not get any better and he felt as though his life was deteriorating. Consequently he took his life on Feruary, 25, 1970, in his New York studio. |
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Pablo Ruiz y Picasso showed artistic ability at an early age, and when he began to study art seriously in Barcelona and Madrid, he was already a skilled painter. In the early 1900s, he visited and eventually settled in Paris, where he was part of a vibrant artistic community that included Gertrude Stein. Although greatly influenced by other artists in Europe and beyond, Picasso was inventive and prolific, and early in his career earned a worldwide reputation as an innovator. His enormous body of work spans so many years that art experts generally separate his career into distinct phases, such as the Blue Period, the Rose Period, and his most famous contribution to modern art, Cubism. Picasso, unlike so many before him, was an international celebrity as well as an important contributor to the world of art. |
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