Jules Dupre was born in Nantes on April 5, 1811. His father was an artist who decorated porcelain and held the position of director at several porcelain factories. In 1882, Dupre worked for his father as an apprentice porcelain decorator. As was the case for many of his contemporaries, his early training as an artist was in the industrial arts. While working for his father, he also executed drawings and paintings from nature.

In 1829, Dupre went to Paris where he further developed as an artist through his friendship with Cabat. He also met the artists Decamps, Jeanron and Huet at this time. He traveled to Great Britain in 1831, where he sketched and studied paintings by the English Landscapists. Upon his return, he traveled extensively through the French provinces, which were a great inspiration for him.

Museum Collections:

Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Taft Museum, Cincinnati; National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Hague; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Musee Seulecq, L’Isle-Adam; University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie; Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; Wallace Collection, London; Jean-Pierre Pescatore

Museum, Luxembourg; Grobet-Labadie Museum, Marseille; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Layton Art Gallery, Milwaukee; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN;

State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; Frick Collection, New York; Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Indiana; Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin; Melton Park Gallery, Oklahoma City; Paine Art Center, Oshkosh; Musee d’Orsay, Paris; Lakeview Museum of Arts Sciences, Peoria; John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia; La Salle Study Collection of Art, Philadelphia; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix; Brigham Young University Fine Arts Collection, Provo; Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery, Reading; Museum of Fine Art, Saintes; Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Springville Museum of Art, Springville; Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; Los Angeles Country Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore; Museum of Art, Boston; Cardiff Museum of Art; Cincinnati Museum of Art, Cincinnati; Museum of Art, Geneva; Museum of Art, Glasgow, The Gague Museum; Museum of Art, London; Stockholm Museum; Musee du Louve, Paris

Albert Andre, a renowned Post-Impressionist, was born in Lyon on May 24, 1869. He initially worked in the textile industry designing patterns for silk fabrics. In 1889 Andre traveled to Paris and joined the Julian Academy where he studied under William Bouguereau. He exhibited for the first time in 1894 at the Salon des Independants where Auguste Renoir saw his work and befriended him. Renoir introduced Andre to Durand-Ruel who was successful in selling Andre’s work primarily abroad to American collectors. From this positive debut, Andre continued to participate in the avant-garde exhibits, most especially the Salon d’Automne from 1904 to 1944. Like many painters of his generation who followed the Impressionists, Andre was not influenced by a single technique, but by a combination of many.

Musem Collections Include:
Musee national d’Art Moderne, Paris; Musee d’Orsay, Paris; Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

Alois Hans Schram was born in Vienna on August 20^th. He was a painter and sculptor of historical subjects, figures, nudes, portraits, scenes with figures, genre scenes, local scenes, interiors with figures, landscapes with figures, urban landscapes, waterscapes and seascapes. A student at the art academy in Vienna, he was awarded a silver medal in Vienna in 1892. Schram’s Fischer van Erlach explains the model of the Karl Church to Emperor Karl VI, originally intended for the festival room at Vienna City Hall, was featured at the Jubilee Church and exhibited at the House of Artists in Vienna in 1908. In 1911 he produced the frieze known as Benefits of Peace, a one hundred meter allegorical depiction celebrating the blessing of peace, the civic virtues and patriotism, on the stairway at the Viennese Parliament. Other productions include Apotheosis of the House of Habsburg at the new Hofburg as well as Empress Maria Theresia for the Palace of the Council of Presidential Ministers, once located on Vienna’s famed Lord’s Lane. Schram also decorated interiors, including that of the famed Frankel palace with Leopold Burger. Schram died in Vienna on April 8^th.

Museum: Vienna (MM): Children Paying Homage at the Castle Gate.

The son of an art dealer, Franz Unterberger was born in Innsbruck, August 15, 1838. Unterberger first studied at the Munich Academy in 1853 with Clemens von Zimmermann and Julius Lange and then continued his training at the Weimar Academy under Albert Zimmermann. He visited Milan in 1858 but returned to Munich the following year due to the unsettled political situation. In 1859, Unterberger enrolled at the Dusseldorf Academy where he joined the Achenbach brothers, who became famous for their landscapes.

Between 1860 and 1874 Unterberger visited and painted in Norway, then in Belgium. He settled in Brussels in 1864, where he spent the rest of his life. During this period, he usually spent summers at Neuilly-sur-Seine (outside of Paris), and from there he often visited Sicily and southern Italy, notedly Naples and its environs where he painted some of his best pictures. Unterberger also traveled along the coast of England and Scotland. These trips provided inspiration for many of the artist’s finest paintings. He also found great success in Vienna, where he exhibited and received several medals, including the Order of Francis Joseph.

He was a romantic style painter of landscapes, genre, architectures, and water scenes. Unterberger is best known for his scenic paintings Italy, which feature intimate views as well as large vistas of the country’s iconic cities. Unterberger’s romantic atmospheric style of painting remains very popular and his works can be found in important private and museum collections throughout America and Europe.

Museum Collections Include:
Louviers; Innsbruck Ferdinandeum; National Gallery, Melbourne; Troyes Museum

Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Pena was born to Spanish emigrant parents on August 20, 1808 in Bordeaux. He survived the loss of a leg in a childhood accident and further suffered the death of his parents at age fifteen.

Diaz’s artistic training was as a porcelain painter and he studied briefly with the painter Souchon. His early paintings catered to the popular taste for 18th century style Rococo and resulted in financial success for the young artist. Fetes galantes were favorite subjects and the women depicted in Diaz’s canvases were often cloaked in exotic Turkish garb, reflecting the artist’s admiration for Delacroix and his orientalist followers. Indeed Diaz’s first Salon entry in 1831 was titled Scene Amour.

Diaz first visited Barbizon in 1835 and it was in 1837 that he met Rousseau. The influence of Rousseau could be seen in Diaz’s Salon entry of that year depicting a view of Fontainebleau Forest. Through the 1840s, his figure paintings continued to be the major part of his work, and are thought to have influenced the female subjects of Corot, Renoir and certainly Monticelli.

Though figure painting would always remain important for Diaz, it is his landscapes of the 1850s-particularly of the Fontainebleau Forest-for which the artist is most remembered. Recognized as a superb colorist in his day, his forest interiors are richly painted with warm browns, oranges, golds and silvery tree trunks and branches. Though the artist often applied paint loosely with a broad palette knife, his observation of nature was nevertheless keen. A regular exhibitor at the Salon, in 1848 Diaz won a first-class medal, and received the Legion d’honneur. A good-natured and generous man, Diaz’s financial success enabled him to lend a helping hand to his friends when in need, including Troyon, Rousseau and Millet. The artist died at Menton on November 18, 1876.

Museum Collections Include:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Detroit Institute of Art, MI, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge; Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; Louvre Museum Database, Paris; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery, London; Wallace Collection, London; Cleveland Museum of Art, OH; Courtauld Institute of Art, London; Mildred Lane Kemper Art Musuem, St. Louis; Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil & Wife Museum, Egypt; Montana Museum of Art & Culture, Missoula; Musee des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, France; National Gallery of Victoria, Australia; New Art Gallery, Walsall; Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; St. Louis Art Museum, MO; Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was initially trained in the decorative arts and began studying painting in the early 1860s.  As a student Renoir met several other painters interested in plein-air painting and the effects of light.  When these Impressionists began to exhibit together a decade later, Renoir suffered some of the most severe criticism aimed at the group.  While controversial at first, Renoir eventually established himself comfortably with the public and even participated in the official Salons.  By 1880, he began concentrating on painting the female figure, starting a long trend of capturing women in a variety of guises.  Widely known for his paintings of voluptuous nudes adorned with jewels and trinkets, Renoir also painted more understated and subtle portraits of women, as is the case with this particular work.

By 1912, Pierre-Auguste Renoir was enjoying tremendous success as an artist.  He had been awarded the rank of officer of the Legion of Honor and sales of his works were flourishing.  Although in failing health, Renoir continued to work ceaselessly and exhibit worldwide, with no less than four solo shows and seven group shows that year.  So great was Renoir’s success that Guillaume Apollinaire is noted as referring to him in his 1912 review in Le Petit Bleu as “the greatest painter of our time and one of the greatest painters of all times…”(as cited in Barbara Ehrlich White, Renoir; His Life, Art, and Letters, New York. 1984, p. 254).

Museum Collections Include:

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Musee d’Orsay, Paris; Guggenheim Museum, New York; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Art Institute of Chicago, IL; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Hermitage, St. Petersburg; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Frick Collection, New York; Tate Gallery, London; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Charles Jacque was a primary and influential member of the Barbizon School or "Men of 1830". His strong, realistic yet sensitive depiction of shepherds and their flocks form one of the most cohesive and important bodies of work produced by the movement. Born in Paris, Jacque began his training, not in painting but in etching, as an apprentice to a map engraver. In this area, Jacque was unsurpassed among his colleagues in the Barbizon School. After military service, he went to England where he worked as an engraver for La Charivari. Returning to France after two years abroad, he made his Salon debut in 1833 and regularly contributed paintings every year until 1870. Winning medals for both etching and painting, he was awarded the Legion d’honneur in 1867.

During the 1840s, he and his friend Millet moved to the village of Barbizon, where they felt they cou1d more realistically portray nature. He was also involved in non-artistic activities, such as land speculation and poultry breeding (about which he wrote a book, Le Poulailler, monographie des poules indigences et exotiques, published in 1848), which kept him from fully devoting his life to art. However, even with his outside interests, Jacque continued to produce a great many works in the two mediums of painting and etching. Employing a new and more vigorous style helped make him a popular artist with many patrons in the Lowlands, the British Isles and the United States.

Museum collections:
Hermitage Museum, Leningrad
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA
Louvre, Paris
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA

Born in Hangchow, China.  From earliest childhood Yuan was fond of painting and drawing.  His formal studies began in high school with basic black and white drawings.  Furthering his art training he was much inspired by his teacher, Professor Peon Ju, an internationally known figure in Paris for more than a decade. Ju was founder of the academic school in China as well as being a leading contemporary master of the period. During his years of study with Professor Ju in the Central University, Nanking, he was given the finest possible training.  This led directly to his developing a masterly technique of his own.  Even though profoundly influenced by Ju, Yuan’s own special style began to emerge. It was precisely his elimination of the conclusive aspects of photo realism that gave his work its distinctive, ultimate originality.

Yuan grew up in a difficult period of modern history. China was going through endless civil war and revolution followed by the Sino-Japanese War and World War II.  During this time he worked as an artist in the cultural department for the Nationalists and as a liaison interpreter for the U.S. Air Force. While in Shanghai Yuan adopted the English name Wellington. With the Communists taking control of the country, he left China for Jamaica in 1949. The following year he moved to San Francisco to work as a cook at the Fairmont Hotel. In 1952 he settled on the Monterey Peninsula where for a brief period he taught Mandarin Chinese at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio. He left the school in 1955 to paint full time. His obsession for painting once again dominated his life and no matter what else he did, he had to paint.

Inspiration came from his numerous trips to Europe which began in 1963, as well as two trips to Mexico while maintaining a home and studio in Carmel.  Constantly struggling to reconcile full-time painting with earning enough money to support family and art muse, he established short-lived galleries in Carmel, and restaurants in Cannery Row and Carmel Rancho. No arrangement provided the balance and income necessary for a harmonious life.  It was a struggle that eroded his emotional strength, but not his physical stamina. His fluctuations in mood did not prevent him from working prolifically. He was a painter with the ability to paint what he saw as well as what he felt. Never satisfied with himself, he was constantly experimenting to find new ways of achieving freedom of expression and a definite individuality. Despondent over what he felt was lack of recognition for his work, his inability to become nationally known, and his failing marriage, Yuan took his own life and died September 6, 1974.

During his lifetime Yuan was honored with several one-man shows in San Francisco, Boston, and New York, where he showed his traditional as well as his more abstract works. Whenever he entered his paintings in juried shows he won prizes and top honors.  Yuan was an artist who was not interested in self publicity as he was convinced that his work had to speak for him. “Art should have something to communicate to the viewer and only then it is honest art which has permanent value”.  With profound dedication and discipline he created a legacy of paintings rich in beauty and tranquility.

Working in oil and watercolor, he produced still life, High Sierra snow scenes, European and Mexican scenes, harbor and beach scenes, and seascapes.  Member: Carmel AA; SWA. Exhibited: Carmel AA, 1958, 1962, 1974, 1994 (solos); Monterey Co. Fair, 1959 (1st prize), 1966 (1st prize), 1972 (1st prize); Monterey Peninsula Museum, 1967 (1st prize), 1968 (solo); Pacific Grove Art Center, 1972 (solo); Carmel AA, 1974 (Memorial Exhibition); S. C. Yuan exhibition, Carmel Art Association/1994.

Source: Artist’s in California/Hughes; S.C. Yuan/CAA, 1975; A Tribute to S.C. Yuan/Deragon, Monterey Herald/1994.

William Franklin Jackson was an accomplished California artist known for his painted views of poppy fields. He was born at Council Bluffs, Iowa, February 20, 1850. In 1862 his family crossed the plains by ox team, arriving in Sacramento during the spring of 1863 where he lived during his early boyhood. Later he attended the School of Design in San Francisco where he studied under the direction of Virgil Williams and was also a pupil of Benoni Irwin, who was famous for his portrait and figure painting.

After his marriage to Ida Nichols he opened his first studio in San Francisco where he became closely associated with the late William Keith.  He took many painting trips to the American River and the Sierra Nevada Mountains often accompanied by his close artist friend. He remained there for several years conducting his studio and then returned to Sacramento in 1880 where he resided for the remainder of his life.

In May 1885, he was chosen as the instructor of the California School of Design in the E.B. Crocker Art Gallery which was sponsored by the California Museum Association. A few years later he was appointed Curator of the Art Gallery which position he held for over fifty years. In connection with his position, he maintained his private studio, first confining his efforts to portrait and figure painting and later becoming interested in landscape painting particularly depicting California poppy fields.

Jackson’s style, and that of his contemporaries John Gamble and Granville Redmond, was a departure from the already popular landscapes of the East Coast.  A plein-air painter, his landscapes with rolling fields of poppies and lupines are greatly sought after by collectors.

Exhibited: SFAA, 1878-1905; Calif. State Fair, 1880-1901 (gold medal); Alaska-Yukon Expo (Seattle), 1909; Sacramento Art League, 1912; Calif. Artists, Golden Gate Park Museum, 1915; Kingsley Art Club, 1931. In: Crocker Museum; Sutter and Rotary Clubs (Sacramento); Irvine (CA) Museum.

Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
California State Library (Sacramento); City Directory; California Impressionism (Wm. Gerdts & Will South); Keith, Old Master of California (Brother Cornelius); Artists of the American West (Doris Dawdy); Sacramento Bee, 12-23-1909, 12-23-1939, & 1-9-1936 (obituary); AskArt.